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suspect island, he could, have been put out of business, and Uganda would have lost a source of valuable foreign cash.
    Shortly after the Marburg outbreak in Germany, Mr. Jones recalled a fact that began to seem important to him. It seems that the Marburg virus may have been burning through rural areas in Uganda not far from Kitum Cave. Between 1962 and 1965 he had been stationed in eastern Uganda, on the slopes of Mount Elgon, inspecting cattle for diseases. At some time during that period, local chiefs told him that the people who lived on the north side of the volcano, along the Greek River, were suffering from a disease that caused bleeding, death, and “a peculiar skin rash”—and that monkeys in the area were dying of a similar disease. Mr. Jones did not pursue the rumors, and was never able to confirm the nature of the disease. But it seems possible that in the years preceding the outbreak of Marburg virus in Germany, a hidden outbreak of the virus occurred on the slopes of Mount Elgon.
    Mr. Jones’s personal vision of the Marburg outbreak reminds me of a flashlight pointed down a dark hole. It gives a narrow but disturbing view of the larger phenomenon of the origin and spread of tropical viruses. He told me that some of the Marburg monkeys were trapped in a group of islands in Lake Victoria known as the Sese Islands. The Seses are a low-lying forested archipelago in the northwestern part of Lake Victoria, an easy boat ride from Entebbe. The isle of plagues may have been situated among the Seses or near them. Mr. Jones does not recall the name of the hot island. He says it is “close” to Entebbe. At any rate, Mr. Jones’s then-boss, the Entebbe monkey trader, had arranged a deal with villagers in the Sese Islands to buy monkeys from them. They regarded the monkeys as pests and were happy to get rid of them, especially for money. So the trader was obtaining wild monkeys from the Sese Islands, and if the animals proved to be sick, he was releasing them again on another island somewhere near Entebbe. And some monkeys from the isle of plagues seemed to be ending up in Europe.
    In papyrus reeds and desolate flatlands on the western shore of Lake Victoria facing the Sese Islands, there is a fishing village called Kasensero. You can see the Sese Islands from the village. Kasensero was one of the first places in the world where AIDS appeared. Epidemiologists have since discovered that the northwestern shore of Lake Victoria was one of the initial epicenters of AIDS . It is generally believed that AIDS came originally from African primates, from monkeys and apes, and that it somehow jumped out of these animals into the human race. It is thought that the virus went through a series of very rapid mutations at the time of its jump from primates to humans, which enabled it to establish itself successfully in people. In the years since the AIDS virus emerged, the village of Kasensero has been devastated. The virus has killed a large portion of the inhabitants. It is said that other villages along the shores of Lake Victoria have been essentially wiped off the map by AIDS .
    The villagers of Kasensero are fishermen who were, and are, famous as smugglers. In their wooden boats and motorized canoes they ferried illegal goods back and forth across the lake, using the Sese Islands as hiding places. One can guess that if a monkey trader were moving monkeys around Lake Victoria, he might call on the Kasensero smugglers or on their neighbors.
    One general theory for the origin of AIDS goes that, during the late nineteen-sixties, a new and lucrative business grew up in Africa, the export ofprimates to industrialized countries for use in medical research. Uganda was one of the biggest sources of these animals. As the monkey trade was established throughout central Africa, the native workers in the system, the monkey trappers and handlers, were exposed to large numbers of wild monkeys, some of which were carrying unusual viruses. These