A BOTANICAL SURVEY. 247 



Setaria, and the like), the Sedges, Rushes, &c. These meads are 

 clothed with verdure for three or four months of the year, and much 

 frequented by the shepherds who dwell in the vicinity of Lake Tchad. 



Still further eastward, if we continue our wanderings, we plunge 

 into the warm regions of Darfour and Kordofan. Here the country 

 is cast in bold outlines ; numerous lofty mountain-chains are inter- 

 sected by narrow valleys and smooth expanses of meadow-land. All 

 that portion of Kordofan which lies west of the White Nile is a 

 Prairie some thirty-five miles long by twenty-eight broad, stretching 

 towards the rising sun, and relieved by small patches of shrubs of the 

 family Legumiitosm, especially the Mimosa, with its graceful shrinking 

 foliage, which shudders at the lightest touch, and its spherical rose- 

 hued or snow-white blossoms. 



These meadow-lands suffer from excessive aridity ; it is only with 

 an arduous struggle that a few grasses resist the dryness which almost 

 constantly prevails ; and frequently, as is the case in other parts of 

 Western Africa, the inhabitants can only procure water for their 

 needs by sinking wells of extraordinary depth. Less arid, the 

 southern part of Kordofan is better clothed with vegetation ; the 

 country is more broken, and increases in picturesqueness of aspect as 

 we approach the neighbourhood of Mount Tegeler. Sennaar, which is 

 traversed by the Blue Nile, is far from offering an equally luxuriant 

 vegetation : along the river extends a vast belt of meadow, generally 

 barren, or only blessed with a few herbaceous plants, a few Legu- 

 minosee, with deeply-buried roots ; and its aspect, therefore, is one of 

 great gloom. The landscape wants 



' The glory in the grass, and the splendour in the flower " 



which appeal so potently to the sensibilities of the poet. Nor does 

 the scenery improve as we ascend the Sennaar to the Lake of Zana, 

 situated to the south-east, for though the rich black soil of the Kulla 

 valley nourishes a profuse vegetation, it is the vegetation peculiar to 

 the marsh and the swamp ; the wind rushes through thick sedges, 

 and whispering reeds, and waving grasses. On the northern borders 



