With Flashlight and Rifle ^ 



marshes. The ch.^clivities of Kilimanjaro send them clown 

 great floods in the rainy season, turning the country, for 

 many miles around, into a lake. 



The natives maintain that subterranean tributaries 

 from the mountain plateau feed the marshes. The 

 " Mologh " brook, which I discovered in the volcanic 

 rock, and which had evidently dried up suddenly, gives 

 colour to this theory ; the permanent tributary to the 

 easterly Njiri marsh, rising perhaps subterraneously in 

 the bed of the crystal-clear and icy current of the " Ngara 

 Rongai," still further supporting it. The whole north and 

 north-east side of the chain of mountains is uninhabited, 

 unvisited of man, and, in the dry season, completely 

 waterless ; the rain comes down always on the other 

 side, and it is consequently there that the native tribes 

 make their homes. P)ut, in my opinion, the total number 

 of natives on Kilimanjaro has been for years considerably 

 over-estimated. 



Over grassy plains glistening froni an incrustation of 

 salt, my way leads me to the border of the fen. Immense 

 papyrus-forests tower there, where the never-failing water 

 in the deep bog-streams affords the necessary conditions 

 for life, and provides as well some extremely luxuriant 

 forms of bog-tlora. 



The peculiar /V.S-//V?' sfra/iofcs — " Junge-junge " of the 

 Waswahili — is especially abundant here, while Cerato- 

 phylluiu and the northerly floating-plant (my own dis- 

 covery) Pothoniagetou are to be found in every direction. 

 Already this latter has plainly annihilated some sister- 

 forms of flora. 



564 



