OF WEST EQUINOCTIAL AFRICA. 158 
which comprises the districts of Golungo Alto and Cazengo; 
together with Dembos, and partly also Ambaca, I have reported 
cursorily in my letter of the 12th September, 1857, and conse- 
quently I have only to tell you something about the third and 
most interesting region. Pungo Andongo (more correctly “ Pungo 
ià N’dongo’’) forms the centre of this region, which, as you will 
quickly perceive from the little I am going to tell about it, forms 
an African district of vegetation of its own, which I shall call the 
kingdom of the Equinoctial African highlands. About fifteen to 
twenty geographical miles from Golungo Alto towards the east, 
the majestic dark shady woods of this district, which are so diffi- 
eult to penetrate on account of the immense climbers, disappear ; 
the forests in general become more rare and less dense, and are 
mostly formed by low trees, among which the most common is a 
new genus of Araliacee, with а most curious habit. The ground 
everywhere is now less shaded, on which account a greater number 
of smaller kinds of plants occur, especially Convolvulacee and 
splendid Acanthacee. New forms, never seen in the primeval 
forests of the second region, now make their appearance, among 
which are, especially, Amorphophallus, a magnificent climbing 
Bauhinia, small pretty Composite, the Ancylanthus rubiginosus, 
Desf., and an extremely pretty fruticose Rubiacea, which at 
first sight looks exactly like an Azalea!! Where the ground 
. changes to mountains or higher hills, there occur Sterculiea foliis 
glaucis, Nathusia folis indivisis (which have not appeared before), 
and a considerable number of Composite, all more or less related 
to Sonchus, as well as a few species of Helichrysum, which remind 
you already of the Cape flora. There now become mixed with 
the forest trees Biittneriacee with bunches of large white 
flowers ; pretty Rubiacee and Tiliacee (among others an herba- 
ceous Grewia) are more and more frequent ; and a kind of Thesium 
(Santalaceez) tells again of the Cape flora: but, far surpassing 
all other herbaceous plants, in splendour, size, and richness of 
blossoms, appears prominently in all the less dense places of the 
wood a Sesamwm, which, as I have collected many seeds of it, 
will soon become an ornament of European gardens. As we 
approach the rocky scenery of the presidia of Pungo Andongo, 
the forests of Araliacee occur alternately with forests of Ptero- 
carpus; and all at once quite a new world of plants, a new geo- 
graphical kingdom, starts before the eye. The ground is every- 
where rocky, grown over with short grasses and Cyperacee ; but in 
the many narrow ravines the most luxuriant forest-vegetation 
