MUDBANKS COLONIZED 



is not worth shooting, and it is quite aware of the fact. 

 Herons, cormorants, and other birds are often to be seen. 

 Monkeys sometimes visit the mangroves, probably to eat 

 oysters or crabs. There are several kinds of crablike 

 creatures which climb up the roots and may be seen running 

 about all over them. But during the three weeks spent 

 by the writer in the Mahela creeks of Sierra Leone, it was 

 the insects that made the deepest impression upon him ; as 

 soon as the evening falls the mosquitoes appear in myriads 

 and in millions. Such creeks and mangrove swamps are 

 always feverstricken and dangerous, and probably enjoy the 

 very worst climate in the whole world. Of course nowadays, 

 when Sir Patrick Manson and Dr. Ross have discovered that 

 the mosquito carries the malaria germ, it is possible with great 

 care to guard against malaria. One has also the satisfaction 

 of knowing that the mosquito itself cannot be perfectly at 

 ease with all these tiny parasites attacking its digestive 

 organs. 



At first sight such swamps appear to be useless, impossible, 

 and dangerous. But that is not the case. No one, of course, 

 would ever willingly reside in mangrove swamps, and the 

 mangroves themselves are of scarcely any use to man, al- 

 though the bark does sometimes furnish a useful tanning 

 material ; but, indirectly, the mangroves are one of the most 

 important of all Nature's geographical agents. 



On those horrible, slimy, shifting mudbanks no other 

 plants could manage to exist. If one looks carefully at the 

 seaward side of the last of the mangrove swamps, then it is 

 easy to see that they are colonizing and reclaiming the mud. 



Not only do the roots depending from the branches grasp 

 and colonize new mud, but the seedlings are also specially 

 adapted to fulfil the same office. 



IS9 



