250 AGARU TO FAJULL baskets made of bark were hung on the trees. The short stretch of land from here to Jebel Gikkor, one of the many lofty hills in this region, is fairly well wooded, and crossed by two small watercourses. Here, too, we saw clumps of butter-trees. Larema, a Negro village at the foot of the hill, had been deserted, because the soil was exhausted, and its inhabitants had built another village upon the hills of Loto, which may, in its turn, be deserted in three or four years. Durrah soon exhausts the soil, and the varieties of beans, which are extensively grown here, exhaust it still more rapidly. Manuring is not dreamt of, a change of residence being preferred. We had therefore to camp in the forest, where we were able to admire the abundant succulent sword-grass growing there, and still more the full grandeur of a thunderstorm which came from the south-east, accompanied by a deluge of rain, turning the country into a lake in a few minutes.

Before the rain fell, however, I had been able to climb Jebel Gikkor, and to take from its summit a series of bearings, which was fortunate, as Jebel Oppei, near Agaru, and Jebel Abayo were visible. Such bearings give a good _ basis for laying down routes. A correct triangulation could easily be made from this point, were time and instruments at command.

The farther one proceeds to the south-east, the more savannah-lke does the country become; and the Lango country has the same character, if those who have been there may be believed. While at Jebel Gikkor there is still to be seen a small wood, the red or chocolate-coloured country beyond it is only covered with high grass, or, in moist places, with reeds and Cyperus, scarcely a tree being visible. In front of us neither mountain nor hill could be seen ; only the far-stretching undulations of the country were to be distinguished, as it gently rose and fell beneath corresponding waves of grass. To the north, the land rises, following the general dip of the country towards the south; otherwise there is nothing but wide undulating grassy tracts, and a semblance of woods in the distance, due to the perspective accumulation of the few trees.

The station of Fajuli, situated amidst such surroundings and built in a sort of caldron, is not a very desirable place to