AND THE VICTORIA NYANZA 



81 



sheltered water, its stems being something like fifteen or twenty feet long 

 when the portion which is under the water is added to that whicli is 

 above the surface. 



The ambatch next makes its appearance. This is a species of bean 

 with large flowers of absolute orange. In growth the ambatch has a 

 gouty, swollen grey trunk of pithy wood, a fibrous substance which is so 

 light that rafts are made of it by fishermen and others for paddHng about 

 on some of these lakes and on the Upper Nile. The ambatcli plants 

 swell as they grow, and finally make quite a wall or breastwork of pithy 

 wood, behind which masses of floating vegetation collect. Here you have 

 a very frequent form of sudd, a constant obstruction in sheltered waters 

 with a sluggish cui-rent. These inlets and gulfs of the Victoria Nyanza, 

 as in most other African lakes, are 

 covered with water-lilies. These 

 are either that beautiful blue lotus- 

 flower of India or a white water- 

 lily scarcely distinguishable from 

 that which the Eomans introduced 

 into England. Another kind, with 

 leaves much like those of the 

 ordinary Nymphcea, has curious 

 l)lossoms of bright sulphur-yellow 

 which look as thougli they were 

 made of fleecy cot ton- wool. These 

 flowers are quite unlike in appear- 

 ance those of the ordinary water- 

 lily type. A bunch of long buds 

 grows at the end of the stalk, 

 coming u]) from the bottom of 

 the water. The liuds remain below 

 water till they are about to blossom, 

 when they revolve on their axis 

 and erect themsehes above the 

 water, blossom into their bright 

 sulphur-coloured star, then droop 

 and turn down the opposite side, 

 having revolved through more than 

 half a circle. In this way one 

 never sees on the surface either a 

 bud or a withered flower, nothing 



but the yellow fleecy stars of the perfect blossoms dotted in and out of 

 the card-plate leaves of green tinged with copper, 



VOL. I. 



70. YELLOW WATKK-LILY OX THK VK'TOKIA .WANZA 



6 



