Chap. XX. SCARCITY OF LARGE ANIMALS. 407 



tended much further southerly than I have been, and 

 on tlie north it reached further than I travelled in 

 my former journey. Now and then prairies looking 

 like islands, resembling so many gems, are found in 

 the midst of this dark sea of everlasting foliage, and 

 how grateful my eyes met them no one can conceive, 

 unless he has lived in such a solitude. 



Now and then prairies are seen from tlie sea-shore; 

 but they do not extend far inland, and are merely 

 sandy patches left by the sea in the progress of time. 



In til is great woody wilderness man is scattered 

 and divided into a great number of tribes. The 

 forest, thinly inhabited by man, was still more 

 scantily inhabited by beasts. There were no beasts 

 of burden — neither horse, camel, donkey, nor cattle. 

 Men and women were the only carriers of burden. 

 Beasts of burden could not live, for the country was 

 not well adapted for them. The only truly domes- 

 ticated animals were goats and fowls — the goats 

 increasino' in number as I advanced into the interior, 

 and the fowls decreasing. 



I was struck by the absence of those species of 

 animals always found in great number in almost 

 every other part of Africa. Neither lions, rhino- 

 ceroses, zebras, giraffes, nor ostriches were found, 

 and the great variety of elands and gazelles (altliough 

 found almost everywhere else in Africa) were not to 

 be seen there. Travellers in my locality would never 

 dream that such vast herds of game could be found 

 on the same continent as those described by dif- 

 ferent travellers. Hence large carnivorous animals 

 are scaice; leopards and two or three species of 



