WITH FLASH LIGHT AND RIFLE 



average elevation of three thousand five hundred feet 

 above the sea. 



In the rainy season the massika, the Nyika (steppe), 

 is clad in verdure of grass and trees; silvery streams 

 wind their way through it; temporary lakes, square 

 miles in extent, dot it. In the dry season the yellow- 

 brownish ground looks like a vast threshing-floor; 

 plant life seems to be extinct. Only now and then 

 the green of trees and bushes delights our eyes, where- 

 ever the depressions of the ground retain some reserve 

 pond of water. At times we may thus see immense 

 groves of green k^cust - trees or of thorn - trees, the 

 latter, resembling our fruit trees, forming, as it were, 

 large orchards. Many plants, the so-called succulents in 

 particular, are able to outlive a dry spell of several years. 



Ant - hills, often several yards high, and firm, like 

 fortifications, may be seen in the Nyika. When the 

 rainy season approaches, the white ants, their wings 

 having grown, leave their native hills to emigrate and 

 to form colonies elsewhere. 



Here and there, like a remnant of primeval times, we 

 meet the well-known monkey -bread -tree. Grotesque 

 in form, its mighty trunk and branches, covered by a 

 shining gray bark, arrest our attention. But the trav- 

 eller soon learns to know this tree as one of his best 

 stand-bys in the dry season; for within the hollows 

 of its trunk it often conceals a treasure of priceless 

 value — namely, water. 



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