6 MR. C. F. M. SWYNNERTON ON 
pepper, the aromatic fruits of which have been found excellent for flavouring, 
and a coffee of fine quality, while by far the commonest species are a 
Maerorungia and an Achyrospermum, each a gorgeous mass of red or crimson 
in its flowering-season. Underfoot is a soft carpet of mosses, various ferns, a 
short broad-bladed grass, and other plants peculiar to such shaded situations; 
and here and there amongst the undergrowth are clumps of a handsome 
Pracena, which are favourite nesting-places of the smaller forest-birds 
and give a thoroughly tropical appearance to the surroundings. Huge woody 
lianas, notably a large Oncinotis with a striking rough ochreous bark, add to 
this impression, elimbing to the tops of the highest trees, hanging in festoons 
from branch to branch, and twisting round the tree-tranks and each other 
in fantastic fashion ; while orchids, epiphytic ferns and mistletoe hang in 
picturesque masses from the moss-grown trunks and branches of the larger 
trees. 
Chipete with an area of 40 acres, though originally doubtless part of 
Chirinda and separated from it now only by a grassy glen a few hundred 
yards in width, differs from it in the absence of many of its finer and 
commoner trees, such as Khaya nyasica and Leroa Swynnertonii, in the far 
greater abundance of Landolphia Swynnertonii—old hoary trunks evidently 
of immense age,—and of the forest coffee, which here forms the main under- 
growth; it also possesses, in common with Maruma, а fine Bosquiea 
(13. Phoberos) which I have not found in Chirinda. 
Maruma, Mpengo, and nearly all the other small forest-patches and more 
heavily-wooded glens of the district differ from both in lacking most of the 
characteristic larger trees of Chirinda, and in having frequently for their 
dominant species Piptadenia Buchananii, which is comparatively rare in 
Chirinda and entirely absent in Chipete and often attains an enormous height 
and girth. Nevertheless there are many indications that all these isolated 
forest-patches, reduced now in most instances to. extremely small dimensions, 
and even single trees, surrounded by the charred remnants of their com- 
panions, may be regarded as the survivors of a great general forest which 
in the course of centuries has been driven back from the lower slopes by 
grass-fires, which doubtless obtained their original grip on the forest lands 
during some period of dense native population. The rich soil so frequently 
found on high ridges and hill-tops contrasts with the comparative poverty 
of the surrounding slopes and valleys, and, taken in conjunction with the 
actual position of the majority of the existing patches, points to a general 
survival of forest in such situations at a comparatively recent date ; and it is 
probably not very long, as such periods go, since a large tract of country, 
comprising the south-eastern foothills and still receiving the heaviest: rainfall 
(80 inches), was wholly clothed by an extensive forest of which only the 
culminating points survive. Chirinda itself still suffers considerably from 
