FAREWELL TO UGANDA. 259 housed at night, and are surrounded by stout thorn fences or hedges of a species of euphorbia. As the Wahuma live principally on flesh, and cultivate the ground but little, the plantain groves, which add so much to the picturesqueness of the Waganda villages, are wanting; but, to compensate for this, these hamlets are usually situated just on the edge of the forest, and sometimes have large shady trees growing among the huts.

On the seventh day we arrived at Surnbwi, an extensive village on the edge of the forest, and here we stayed for three days, waiting for some of our porters and collecting food for a six days' journey through the forest. On December 1st we were off again, and soon entered the jungle, passing the sites of some deserted villages ; near one of which was a large clump of the thistle-like Echinus amplexicaulis, with its large globular heads of rich crimson flowers, forming a striking picture.

We spent the night at some small huts near a group of Borassus palms. The next day's march led us for some distance over low forest-clad ridges and swampy grassy valleys, till, having passed the deserted site of another village, we entered a broad, level, swampy valley with a river, the Lugogo or Ergugu, flowing down the farther side in a westerly direction. This " rush drain," as Speke calls this description of river, was about half a mile wide, it being now the end of the rains (when I again crossed s 2