AND THE VICTOIMA NYANZA 



81 



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

 when the portion which is under the water is added to that which 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 paddling 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 wliich masses of floating vegetation collect. Here you have 

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

 with a sluggish current. These inlets and gulfs of the Victoria Nvanza, 

 as in most other African lakes, ai'e 

 covered with water-lilies. These 

 are either that beautiful blue lotus- 

 flower of India or a white water- 

 lily scarcely distinguishable from 

 that whicli the Komans introduced 

 into England. Another kind, with 

 leaves much like those of the 

 ordinary Xyhiphwd, has curious 

 blossoms of bright sulphur-yellow 

 which look as though they were 

 made of fleecy cotton-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 up from the bottom of 

 the water. The buds remain below 

 water till they are about to blossom, 

 when they revolve on their axis 

 and erect themselves above the 

 water, blossom into their bright 

 sulphur-coloured star, then droop 

 and turn down the o[)posite 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. 6 



70. YELLOW WATEK-LILV ON THE VU TOIUA NVANZA 



