188 A VISIT TO THE MONBUTTU.

fishing, in hunting the hippopotamus and crocodile, and, to a very small extent, in agriculture. Of course there was no trace of cattle; neither were dogs to be seen. As the inhabitants had retired, leaving us their empty huts, it was impossible to learn anything further about them or to get any information about the country. Our zoological gains were also small, being confined to some handsome spiders and a graceful prickly mole.

The elevation of the ground on the other side of the Nédada somewhat changed the aspect of the country, and though the steppe continued for some time, the appearance of bog iron proved that we were on the ascent. As soon as we reached the Zinwe brook, and descended to its “ gallery” wood, we saw harbingers of another vegetation in the pretty fronds of the Raphia palm. ‘The steppe shrank in proportion as the brooks and threads of water became more numerous, and the vegetation developed an astounding luxuriance. As far as the Numa rivulet, it had been confined to the bottom-lands, but from that rivulet onwards another feature made its appearance. The whole of this region must have been formerly cultivated, to judge from abandoned banana plantations and manioc grown up as high as trees. When the villages were deserted, the fields ran wild, and became covered with a multitude of plants, which grew up vigorously in the loosened soil, and filled up all the intervals, so that one has now the rare pleasure of marching along a narrow path between uninterrupted walls of vegetation, in which cultivated plants rival in luxuriance the proper children of the woods, In the midst of this mass of trees and plants, small clearings were formed, full of huts and sheds, and here groups of women were following their household occupations, generally surrounded by numerous children, in which the Monbuttu seem to be particularly rich. Three stones placed upright formed the hearth; a big-bellied pot bubbled over the fire, but what it contained—whether the fatty larvee of beetles or monkey flesh—we were not able to learn. Large numbers of extraordinarily small fowls, mostly white, paraded round the huts in the banana and manioc plantations, and here and there a liver-coloured dog of the small Zandé breed yelped ; on all sides the song of birds resounded: an idyll in the land of