Another serious danger to the telegraph is the big game. The giraffes reach up and play with the brackets and pull the wire this way and that. At Naivasha the hippopotami have once or twice butted down the poles, and I hear they have been doing considerable damage to the lines along the coast near the Tana River. In the heart of Uganda the monkeys have a way of swinging on the wires and twisting them together, which stops the transmission of messages, so that the way of the lineman is indeed hard. CHAPTER XXXII JOHN BULL IN EAST AFRICA I have just had a long talk with Mr. Frederick J. Jackson, the acting governor and commander-in-chief of this big territory which John Bull owns in the heart of East Africa. Mr. Jackson came out here to hunt big game years ago, and he has been on the ground from that time to this. He has long been employed by the British Government in the administration of Uganda and of the protectorate of East Africa, and he is now lieutenant-governor in the absence of Colonel Sadler, the acting governor of the country. Let me give you some idea of this vast region which the British are opening up in the midst of the black continent. This country altogether is larger than the combined states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. It has a population of four million natives, most of whom not so long ago were warring with one another. Some of the tribes made their living by preying upon their neighbours. Slavery was everywhere common, and one of the great slave routes to the coast was not far from the line where the Uganda railway now runs. To-day all these evils have been done away with. The warlike tribes have been conquered, and are turning their attention to stock raising and farming. Slavery has been practically abolished, and peace prevails everywhere. The whole country is now kept in good order by only about eighteen hundred police and less than two thousand English and East Indian soldiers. A large part of the region along the line of the railroad has been divided into ranches and farms. Small towns are springing up here and there, and in time the greater part of the plateau will be settled.