WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



habited and produces an abundance of tropical fruits. 

 The northern slope is arid and uninhabited. 



Our way leads along the edge of the swamps over arid, 

 salt-incrusted ground and through grass-grown marshes. 

 Thick papyrus woods cover that part of the depression, in 

 which the water never dries out, not even in the height 

 of the dry season. Other specimens of the swamp flora 

 are also found there, the Pistia stratiotes, for instance, 

 and the Pothomagcuton. 



Long ago the birds have become wide-awake. I lis- 

 ten to the well-known melody of the beautifully colored 

 shrike. "Kuctuc tititi," it sounds from out the acacia 

 thicket. Red-casque hornbills fly ahead of us from bush 

 to bush and tree to tree. A marsh-harrier crosses our 

 path, making for the swamp; long -tailed, splendidly 

 colored rollers fly screaming to and fro. A spotted 

 bustard rises before us with a loud "raga-garaka-raga 

 garaka," doing a number of somersaults for our benefit 

 and flying off into the steppe. In spite of the early 

 morning hour the air on the edge of the swamps is sultry 

 and oppressive. On the moist ground around us young 

 Madagascar frogs are leaping at our feet. I see an adder- 

 like snake, catch it, and despatch one of my natives to 

 take it to the camp together with the skin of a fifteen- 

 foot-long python, which in vain had tried to escape us. 



My small caravan makes up for lost time, my men step 

 briskly. On our left sueda - bushes cover the ground, 

 which is marked by hippopotamus tracks. We pass a 



338 



