338 APPENDIX I.

of trade-routes to the great lakes would select the Nile for that purpose. The eight cataracts which are found in its course from the Albert Lake to the Mediterranean, the liability of the narrow channels in the great marsh-land between Bohr and the Sobat to be blocked by the tawfs, the floating islands of grass which have so often proved such terrible obstacles to navigation, and the ever-shifting sandbanks, upon which even the lightdraughted native boats frequently get stranded during the dry season, present engineering difficulties which are practically insurmountable for the purpose in hand; not to mention the Murchison Falls, where the Nile springs at one leap over a ledge of rock 120 feet in perpendicular height, or the long succession of rapids between these falls and Foweira, where in some thirty miles the river falls more than 800 feet. Another serious difficulty has to be encountered in using the Nile as a great waterway for steamers, and that is the question of fuel. For hundreds of miles south of Khartoum trees are scarcely to be met with in the valley of the Nile, and fxiel is already becoming scarce under the demands of the scanty traffic now carried on by the government of the Soudan ; while if any considerable increase in the traffic should occur, it would have to be brought from increasing distances, till it would be as costly as coal brought from Europe, unless that mineral should be discovered anywhere within a reasonable distance of the Nile Valley, of which however there is little hope.

The unsuitability of the Nile route for trade purposes being granted, the alternative route from the East Coast naturally suggests itself.

The great obstacle here has always been the difficulty of transport. There is no large navigable river; the presence of the tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans) prevents the employment of the system of bullock-waggons in vogue in South Africa, and renders the use of pack-horses impossible. The country is quite unsuited for camels (even if they were proof against the tsetse, which they are not), and the African elephant, not having been yet trained like his Indian brother, the sole method of transport hitherto has been by means of the Wapagazi, or negro porters. This system is, however, slow, cumbrous, and costly, and utterly inadequate to any extension of trade.