GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA. 233 



wild fowl rising from the long grass by the water's edge. These 

 shores are also the paradise of the long-legged stork and the heron, 

 the saddle stork, the marabout, an ugly bird, in spite of its wonder- 

 ful and costly feathers, the giant heron, while the curious stilt-bird, 

 or shoebill, of Africa, one of the most singular birds of the globe, 

 inhabits the more northern marshlands, vast impenetrable morasses 

 of the White Nile, and some of its tributaries. This bird has a 

 bulky body, a thick neck, a large head and a curiously formed bill, 

 not unlike a clumsy wooden shoe. Its color is an ashy gray, with 

 jet black wing feathers. 



The shoebill is the giant of the wading birds and is found in 

 pairs or smaller societies as remote as possible from human habita- 

 tions, mostly in the impenetrable swamps of the White Nile and 

 some of its tributaries. At the approach of man it flies away, and 

 when frightened by shots it rises to a great altitude and never 

 returns to its swamps as long as there is any suspicion of danger. 

 This bird selects for its breeding place a small elevation in the reeds, 

 either immediately on the border of the water or in the swamp, 

 mostly where surrounding water renders an approach difficult. 



WONDERFUL LUXURIANCE. 



The flora concentrates all its luxuriance in the first months of 

 the rainy season, leaving the autumn, when the grass of the steppes 

 is withered, to fare less richly. The scenery varies much less than 

 in the most monotonous districts of our own country, but it has 

 nevertheless its alternation of clustering groves of bushes, its clear- 

 ings with noble trees more than thirty or forty feet in height, its 

 luxuriant undergrowth broken by grassy reaches or copses of tall 

 shrubs. 



Palms play a subordinate part in this scenery; the fan palms 

 are found clustered together in groves; and in the marshy steppes 

 grows the prickly date, perhaps the primitive type of the date palm. 

 Then come the leather-leaved fig trees of every kind, and among 

 them the grandest monuments of African vegetation, the sycamores, 

 together with large-leaved tamarinds. 



Very characteristic of the country are the patches of primeval 



