io8 THE TANGANYIKA PROBLEM. 



the reeds and growths which fringe the waterside, that we 

 had entered a country having for all practical purposes 

 the characters of a park. It is made up of wide lawns 

 of short grass, in which there stand clumps and isolated 

 specimens of different sorts of trees. These trees are 

 not, however, crowded together, but are grown just as 

 they are in a piece of English park-land, so that they 

 can be seen to the best advantage, with wide open spaces 

 in between. The whole scenery in such a place is so 

 peculiar and artificial in outward aspect, that I cannot 

 perhaps describe it better than by saying that it bears 

 a very remarkable and close resemblance to that area 

 of kept ground which is known as the Arboretum in the 

 Royal Gardens at Kew. There is no tangle, no forest, 

 the scenery is delightful ; it is in fact so extremely beautiful, 

 that, could it be divested of its sweltering tropical con- 

 comitants, I am inclined to think that these natural parks, 

 when compared with those of the landscape gardener at 

 home, would be generally admitted to be the more pleasing 

 of the two. 



Unnatural-looking park-lands of this description are very 

 characteristic of vast areas of the African interior, and they 

 have, in consequence, naturally attracted the attention and 

 provoked the admiration of many explorers besides myself. 

 Thus we find Stanley and Stuhlmann, Emin Pasha and 

 Cassati, Joseph Thomson and Sir Richard Burton, all 

 drawing attention to the existence and peculiar appearance 

 of these parks. As a matter of fact, they cover very large 

 areas of tropical Africa, both in the interior and on the 

 coast. I myself have encountered them on the plains 

 behind Beira, on the great alluvial plains bordering the 

 Zambesi river, on the similar flats flanking the Lower 

 and Upper Shiri river, all over the great plains sur- 



