THE HOME OF THE BEES. 161 



at once to the Settite ; but upon finding that by digging 

 holes into the sand a tolerably clear water welled up, we 

 decided upon making the best of our position, and carry- 

 ing out for a time Essafl's programme. 



This is a well-known camping-ground amongst the 

 hunters, and is named ' Birket Johda/ and it has an ex- 

 cellent landmark in a giant tree named Baobab or Dima 

 (Adansonia digitate^ which grows on one side of it. 

 This tree we have occasionally seen in our walks, always 

 solitary and scattered about at wide intervals sometimes 

 in the more fertile valleys, and at others on high ground 

 amongst loose rocks and in their leafless state looking 

 like monster spectres that had abided from all time, and 

 would last to eternity. On a closer inspection of them, 

 however, whatever their age may be, their prospects of 

 life are very poor, for their trunks are all completely 

 hollowed out by decay, and have become the favourite 

 home of the bees. So disproportionate are they in size 

 to all other timber, that they look as if they belonged to 

 a past era, and, so far as we have observed, there are no 

 young ones to take their place. Though the trunk may 

 measure from forty to fifty feet or more in circumference, 

 the branches are few and very stunted. The bark is 

 very like a cork-tree. Fortunately some of the fruit 

 still remains, so we have had an opportunity of testing 

 its merits, and we never pass a tree without knocking 

 down a few pods with sticks or stones, as they hang 



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