282 FATIKO TO FAUVERA.

the natives, but is called after the different districts through which it passes. At Koch I sometimes heard it called Kyambo, although its usual name in Kinyoro is Muigga. The name Kidéga is applied only to the lake-like enlargement of the riverbed above Mrili, having no outlet to the north, which is marked on Gordon’s map Lake Coja, and has been repeatedly “ discovered.” The name Kikunguru is only used for the district, and the mountains marked by that name on the maps have no general name; their highest elevation is called I/sédya (man), just as in Kabréga’s country a high conical summit to the eastsouth-east is called Msédja mkurru (the tall man).

Slightly ascending, our path wound from here to Gasaui through fine acacia forest, containing numerous hamlets and extensive. plantations of sweet potatoes, pulse, and tobacco, besides small groups of bananas. But from Gasaui a stretch of grass and reed-beds commenced which defies all description. The banana groves run wild, with their fallen stems, and an undergrowth of briers and tendrils which grow with almost incredible luxuriance in the loose coffee-brown soil, are, in spite of their thorns and prickles, not so unpleasant as the thick, dense beds of reeds, which, rebounding, strike and lash the traveller from all sides. <A few solitary huts were all that remained of the once flourishing village of Karsita. Deang Malo (Malo), where we remained for the night (making, in the Wanyoro fashion, only short marches from beer jug to beer jug), is a small village, inhabited by smiths, who work the good iron ore found in the neighbourhood. The whole district from Tokra is called Deang, which name, therefore, is not confined to a particular village, as I had before understood. My men revelled here in maize cobs and sweet potatoes, of which our host provided quantities in return for a small present. We next met with broad hollows, fringed here and there with woods and filled with almost impenetrable reed jungle. Large eroves of bananas, in which hundreds of trunks had been broken down, probably by elephants, were rendered almost impassable by plants growing in dense confusion between the fallen stems. Any one who wishes to gain an idea of the gorgeousness of African vegetation should visit one of these places, though he will certainly congratulate himself if he gets out of the chaos