THE NYIKA 287 



" nkonge " (aloes and Sansevierd) with leaves pointed like 

 bayonets or edged like saws, the work is severe. Elsewhere 

 the scrub is thinner, and the traveller marches for days over a 

 sandy plain, with here and there a thorn bush, and here and 

 there tufts of hard dry grass. In the more fertile regions a 

 few baobabs raise their knobby leafless branches above the 

 scrub ; beside the streams some large acacias spread out their 

 flat cedar- like branches ; but these are so exceptional that 

 camps where they occur are generally named after them — 

 Mbiiyuni (" At the Baobabs "), or Mkuyuni (" At the Acacias "). 

 Occasionally the vegetation is richer — where the decomposi- 

 tion of lava sheets has formed a fertile soil, where hills rise 

 above the plain and collect a larger proportion of the rain than 

 is their due, or where the springs maintain permanent water- 

 pools. On the hills are dense growths of woody flowering 

 shrubs, yellow marigolds and AcanthacecE, feathery asparagus 

 and wild bananas ; around the pools are dense belts of reeds, 

 rushes, and sedges, and upon them float the light-green, 

 cabbage -shaped rosettes of Pistia stratiotes^ and filamentous 

 growths of Lagarosiphon. Such oases, however, break the 

 monotony of the Nyika but rarely, and most of this zone is 

 occupied by thin thorn scrub and sandy plains, and from the 

 summits of hillocks the eye ranges over a vast expanse of 

 flat-topped trees. 



During the rainy season, however, a change comes for a 

 while over the Nyika. The whole country is then sodden 

 with moisture ; the paths, which have generally been worn into 

 hollows, are occupied by streams ; the valleys are converted 

 into swamps. The vegetation suddenly appears to wake up ; 

 the baobabs burst into flower and then into leaf ; the grass 

 becomes green ; creepers climb over the acacias and cover 

 them with a mass of large white flowers, among which the 

 convolvulus is especially conspicuous. But as soon as the 

 rains cease, the Nyika reverts to its normal condition. The 

 grass withers, the undergrowth dies and disappears, prairie fires 

 break out and sweep across the country, and the traveller has to 

 march for days over charred, blackened wastes, which a month 

 before had been green with turf and gorgeous with flowers. 



The most remarkable feature in the flora of the " Nyika " 

 is its specialisation to resist desiccation and death during long 



