Identifier: inwildestafricar00macq (find matches)
Title: In wildest Africa : the record of a hunting and exploration trip through Uganda, Victoria Nyanza, the Kilimanjaro region and British East Africa, with an account of an ascent of the snowfields of Mount Kibo, in East Central Africa, and a description of the various native tribes
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: MacQueen, Peter, 1865-1924
Subjects:
Publisher: London : George Ball and sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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can produce. The companyis installing hydraulic baling presses and other ma-chinery. It has purchased a location at Ripon Fallsat the head of Napoleon Gulf, where the Nile flowsout of Lake Victoria. The falls will furnish a bigelectric power and it is the intention to build gin-ning mills and factories there which will be run byNile power. The farmers are paid for cotton inthe seed only two cents a pound. The pay is con-sidered too small and a raise in the price will benecessary to make the people work. The native farmers, of course, have no idea ofintensive cultivation. All the cotton thus far grownhas been from American seed, the wild cotton hav-ing too coarse a fibre. Egyptian cotton has beentried, but has not proved as suitable for the climateand soil as the American upland. The Governmentitself is aiding the movement by distributing seeds.It has also put up hand gins in different parts ofthe country and baling presses for public use. There are fibres in Africa which may later be
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A FUKEST nF IGAXDA. The Development of Uganda 357 made into silk as fine as that of the silk-worm. Anofficial at Kampala stated that he had seen thesefibres growing wild and they reach a height of fiveor six feet. The bolls look like cotton but are farmore soft, fleecy and glossy. This may produce arevolution in the trade of the world later on. Regarding the forests — they are magnificent.As my boys pulled my rickshaw from Kampala toJinja, I often saw mahogany trees a hundred andfifty feet high, and four and five feet in diameter.They are perfectly straight, running up to a greatdistance without a branch. We passed, on the way,a species of wood resembling teak, and a hard woodthat almost resists the blows of an axe. There are rubber vines and rubber trees; some ofthe latter were a hundred feet high and of largegirth. Expert rubber gatherers have been broughtfrom Ceylon to show the Baganda how to tap thetrees properly. I passed a very fine rubber con-cession about sixteen miles from

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