A LAND OF BOULDERS. 381 ro) west of the high hill of Mungo. The country is here crossed in all directions by rows of hills, sometimes of considerable size. Khor Aire flows in a sharp curve towards the north, at a few minutes’ walk from the very prettily situated station. Its banks are lined by beautiful woods, in which a great deal of rattan (Calamus secundiflorus) grows, having large fruit panicles. This plant, which is called by the Zande poddu, and by the Mundt akkd, provides the people with good material for basket-work in its fine feathery fan, and its stalk, after being split and freed from thorns, is plaited into beautiful shields.

Crossing a hilly, scantily wooded steppe, broken by many swampy depressions which drain the country towards the north, our path led, after passing the swamp of Bopara, out of the . Mundi country into that of the Abaka. The language of the latter is more nearly related to that of the northern tribes, whereas the Mundu have penetrated here from the south, and their nearest relations are the Mumberi or Mom, who live near the Welle. I noticed that the steppe was covered by numerous boulders; they were sometimes broad slabs, sometimes round Mamelons, just like those I had seen farther to the north, in the Mittu district. They were occasionally quite bare, but in other places covered with sparse vegetation. Khor Mekke and Khor Edi were the largest watercourses we met with; both are sources of the Yalo. The bed of the first was composed of bare rocks, while the second flowed over yellow sand. Khor Edi was partially bridged over by a tree-trunk. From this point the rise of the ground became more apparent, but there were still many swampy places, through which we had to wade, until we reached our station of Kanga, which is built in the fallow fields surrounding the zertba of the district chief.

We had suffered considerably from cold during the last few days; as a rule the thermometer registered in the morning at six o'clock 62° Fahr., which to us was a Russian temperature, used as we were to the heat of the lowlands. In the mornings our whole party, blacks, whites, and browns, sat round the fire to warm our hands. Khor Edi flows quite near the station ; a granite dyke running across it causes a large rapid. Whereever flat slabs of rock did not prevent the growth of vegetation, there were broad impenetrable Pandanus thickets, inhabited by