o the activity and tact of Captain Lugard,
difficulties were cleared away, with the result that the large and
fertile territory of Uganda (formerly included in the Khedive's
dominions) became a British Protectorate in August 1894 (see
Chapter XVII).

The significance of the events just described will be apparent when it
is remembered that British East Africa, inclusive of Uganda and the
Upper Nile basin, comprises altogether 670,000 square miles, to a large
extent fertile, and capable of settlement by white men in the more
elevated tracts of the interior. German East Africa contains 385,000
square miles, and is also destined to have a future that will dwarf that
of many of the secondary States of to-day.

The prosperity of British East Africa was greatly enhanced by the
opening of a railway, 580 miles long, from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza in
1902. Among other benefits, it has cut the ground from under the
slave-trade, which used to depend on the human beast of burden for the
carriage of all heavy loads[437].

[Footnote 437: For the progress and prospects of this important colony,
see Sir G. Portal, _The British Mission to Uganda in 1893_; Sir Charles
Elliot, _British East Africa_ (1905); also Lugard, _Our East African
Empire_; Sir H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_.]

The Anglo-German agreement of 1890 also cleared up certain questions
between Britain and Germany relating to South-West Africa which had made
bad blood between the two countries. In and after the year 1882 the
attention of the colonial party in Germany was turned to the district
north of the Orange River, and in the spring of the year 1883 Herr
Luederitz founded a factory and hoisted the German flag at Angra Pequena.
There are grounds for thinking that that district was coveted, not so
much for its intrinsic value, which is slight, as because it promised to
open up communications with the Boer Republics. Lord Granville ventured
to express his doubts on that subject to Count Herbert Bismarck, whom
the Chancellor had sent to London in the summer of 1884 in order to take
matters out of the hands of the too Anglophil ambassador, Count Muenster.
Anxious to show his mettle, young Bismarck fired up, and informed Lord
Granville that his question was one of mere curiosity; later on he
informed him that it was a matter which did not concern him[438].

[Footnote 438: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, vol. iii.
p. 120.]

It must be admitted, how