from there new colony of German East Africa and would create a massive water works and cut off the river decimating Egypt and making the Suez Canal worthless (Lloyd, p. 238). Salisbury spent much of his time hyping this idea and in the process found McKinnon and his British East Africa Company. The British East Africa Company seemed like the perfect way to establish a British presence in the regions of Uganda and Kenya. It also helped to solve the crisis occurring in Zanzibar as Porter notes with the following,In 1888 Salisbury became convinced that the Sultan of Zanzibar was in real danger of having what remained to him of his dominions taken from him by Germany. British interests there had to be safeguarded, and the best way to do this seemed to be to underwrite McKinnons arrangement with the Sultan. In addition, there was considerable disquiet in the Foreign Office about what was happening in Uganda in the lakes region. The German explorer Karl Peters was threatening to take it; Bismarck denied that Germany was officially interested in the area, but only a few years back she had not been interested in The Camerooons or Zanzibar either (Porter, p. 109).At first this seemed sound but the British East Africa Company was poorly managed and was in competition with the east African slave trade. The company was in trouble right from the start but made efforts to get involved with the Buganda Kingdom who were the primary rulers of the hinterland. McKinnon sent missionaries and his military captain a man by the name of Lugard into the Buganda kingdom and they quiet successfully became overlords of the Buganda Kingdom with little bloodshed. They only problem that arose from this was the fact that the British East India Company had neither the money nor the military needed to politically control the region. Lugards expenses in the hinterland and the lack of financial growth by the government prompted Salisbury to try to get a rail line...
