Evening journal., 1903-09-03
BRITISH OFFER
TO THE z|ONISTS
Features of Territory Ten
dered Tor the Jewish
Settlement
A HEALTHY AND FERTILE REGION

When the British government recent
" offered the Zionist conference at
Basel SO considerable a stretch Of ter
ritory IN east Africa for Jewish settle
ment it volunteered TO give away one
Of the most remarkable as well as one
OF the most interesting tracts Of land
in the world today, says special cable
dispatch from London to the Philadel-
phia Press. The great plateau Of the
Uganda region is not only one Of the
very few in all Africa where white
men may live and prosper, but It is a
land as well which is both inviting in
all those respects which should make
life worth living. and abounding too,
in much OF the mystery and glamour
which have for so long hung over the
central stretches of the dark continent.
The Victoria Nyanza region, where
the Nile takes its birth, lies $500 feet
above sea level, q land remarkable for
Its forests and plains and unique in It's
Mau escarpment, a mighty stone wall
thrown up by nature with a regularity
almost as marked as though It were
man made. which faces upon a sunlsen
valley, called "The Great Rift" About
this rise mighty mountains, which are
almost beyond question those which
figured in the geographical stories Of
The ancients as "the Mountains of the
Moon"
When, even In comparatively modern
times the coast lands of Africa had
been opened up by discovery and no
mountains Of any unusual size had
been found it was affirmed that these
Mountains Of the Moon could have ex-
lsted only in the imaginations Of those
who first wrote Of them. But the geog-
raphy Of today has found in such
peaks as Mount Kenia and Mount Kill
naniaro. which rise $4,000 and 1900
feet above the surrounding country.
full warrant for all stories Of the past.
Sir Harry Johnston. who undoubted-
" knows more of the Uganda region
than any other man living. in his re-
port on the country made as special
commissioner for the Uganda protec-
torate describes it MS unparalleled in
tropical Africa. He declares It TO be
admirably watered. fertile and cool.
covered with noble forests and but
lparsely inhabited. He adds that II is
quite MS healthy for Europeans as
Great Britain itself. A very interest
ing feature OF his report has TO do with
the various vegetable growths of the
country, which would seem TO be re-
,.f. n. .f-
Plants which in the temperate zone
are properly regarded as small attain
in the Uganda a growth many times
that which is characteristic of them in
lands farther north.
AS for the people-and. one might also
say, Gas for the neighbors which the
Jews Will find awaiting thcm"-they
make up in pcculiarities what they may
lack in numbers. The tract of terri
tory which has been offered by Great
Britain is perhaps eco miles long by 80
or 100 miles in width In that there
are now living seven distinct tribes Of
African natives, one Of them already in
a state Of some civilization, but the
other six characteristically barbarous,
though Sir Harry Johnston is the au-
thority for the statement that all of the
them are well disposed toward the
white man ana willing to study and
| imitate his ways The Baganda peo-
| pie wear European clothes-that is,
Turkish garmcnts-and most Of them
speak a little French or English. The
other peoples Of the region still so in
] a.. l.. q. N...I
with African natives.
Probably the strangest Of the tribes
are the Kavironidos, whose cannibal
traditions still prompt them TO file their
teeth to needle-like points, and the
famous Kiagwe dwarfs, tribe OF
dlminutve hunters which wanders
over the greater part Of eastern At
rica between the Victoria Nyanza and
the vicinity Of the Indian ocean.