Geographical position of Ankole. Ankole is a country lying between the 30th and 32nd degrees of longitude and between the first degree south and the first degree north of the equator. It is a very small kingdom when measured by our western ideas and is indeed scarcely worthy of the name. It is bounded on the north by Toro, on the south by Ruanda, on the east by Uganda, and on the west by the Albert Lake and the Congo State. On every side the adjacent tribe is stronger than that of the Banyankole and might with ease crush them and reduce them to a state of slavery; their preservation is possibly due to the friendship made with these surrounding tribes who are kept in an amicable frame by frequent gifts of cattle.

Physical features. The country is undulating, a feature which is pleasant to the traveller and gives something fresh to gaze upon as he travels along; and though the hills are none of them very high, he occasionally climbs some loftier eminence which affords him a more extensive view of the land lying before him with its waving grass and its few clumps of forest-land. There are no great swamps like those in Uganda, the drainage is better, the water is not held up by the vegetable growth, and consequently papyrus-grass has not had opportunity to grow and form permanent dams to the floods caused by rain.