214 AFRICA 



remarkable wealth of its natural resources it bids fair 

 to become one of the most prosperous parts of Africa : 

 situated between the desert and the high forest, which 

 are both avoided by man, it attracts the whole human 

 and animal population. The conflicts arising out of 

 differences between the nomadic and the settled, the 

 pastoral and the agricultural, tribes have long retarded 

 the development of the Sudan, and given a chequered 

 history of spells of prosperity followed by periods of 

 decay. 



Futa-Jallon. A narrow strip of elevated tableland, 

 the watershed between the Niger and Guinea, from 

 which the West African rivers arise, is crowned with 

 broken granitic peaks and heights, 3,500 to 4.500 feet 

 in altitude. These broken plateaus, bounded on the 

 north by the Sudanese bush and on the south by 

 the high forest of Guinea, display dreary and treeless 

 vistas of monotonous grass-lands : the carpet of meagre 

 and short grass, about one foot high, is interspersed 

 with Labiatae, Scrophularlaceae, Coiivolvu-laceae, and 

 Compositae : the medium-sized trees, gathered in 

 sheltered situations, are of a deciduous, temperate type : 

 in short, the landscape reminds one strongly of the 

 European scenery and atmosphere. The treelessness of 

 those plateaus appears to be due to a wholesale destruc- 

 tion of the forests rather than to any influence of climate 

 or soil. The sunk valleys are more prosperous, and 

 harbour patches of tropical forest on their slopes, while 

 the bottoms are covered with gigantic grasses, 9 to 

 10 feet high. 



Egyptian Sudan. This region, which continues south- 

 ward the great Libyan desert and extends across the 

 middle course of the Nile up to the foot of the Abyssinian 

 plateau, skirting the latter southward to Lake Rudolph, 



