UGANDA AND THE WAGANDA. 147 country, and which shows the superiority of the Waganda over the surrounding nations, is the wonderful roads which connect the principal villages with one another and with the capital. These roads often lead straight as an arrow over hill and dale, through forests and across swamps, and, even in the more thinly peopled districts, are kept wonderfully clean and free from weeds. Across the larger swamps causeways are carried, with bridges, formed of trunks of trees, at intervals to give free passage to the streams which filter through them. One very large morass between Eubaga and Murchison Bay had a regular corduroy road formed across it by trunks of the wild date palm, which were laid side by side on the treacherous surface of the floating vegetation, and formed a secure and permanent road.

The mineral products of the country so far seem to be of little value. The geological formation of most of the rocks is igneous or metamorphic. The surface soil for a depth of a few feet is a rich black alluvium : under this is a bed of red sandy clay averaging probably about thirty feet in thickness, while under this again there is in many places a deposit of tolerably pure china clay of unknown thickness ; a large quantity of talc is found in some places, and at the outcrop of the metamorphic rocks on the hillsides, moderately good specimens of rock crystal are procured. There is a considerable quantity of ironstone in some districts, L 2