ioS 
THE TANGANYIKA PROBLEM. 
the reeds and growths which fringe the waterside, that we 
had entered a country having for all practical purposes 
the characters of a park. It is made up of wide lawns 
of short grass, in which there stand clumps and isolated 
specimens of different sorts of trees. These trees are 
not, however, crowded together, but are grown just as 
they are in a piece of English park-land, so that they 
can be seen to the best advantage, with wide open spaces 
in between. The whole scenery in such a place is so 
peculiar and artificial in outward aspect, that I cannot 
perhaps describe it better than by saying that it bears 
a very remarkable and close resemblance to that area 
of kept ground which is known as the Arboretum in the 
Royal Gardens at Kew. There is no tangle, no forest, 
the scenery is delightful ; it is in fact so extremely beautiful, 
that, could it be divested of its sweltering tropical con- 
comitants, I am inclined to think that these natural parks, 
when compared with those of the landscape gardener at 
home, would be generally admitted to be the more pleasing 
of the two. 
Unnatural-looking park-lands of this description are very 
characteristic of vast areas of the African interior, and they 
have, in consequence, naturally attracted the attention and 
provoked the admiration of many explorers besides myself. 
Thus we find Stanley and Stuhlmann, Emin Pasha and 
Cassati, Joseph Thomson and Sir Richard Burton, all 
drawing attention to the existence and peculiar appearance 
of these parks. As a matter of fact, they cover very large 
areas of tropical Africa, both in the interior and on the 
coast. I myself have encountered them on the plains 
behind Beira, on the great alluvial plains bordering the 
Zambesi river, on the similar flats flanking the Lower 
and Upper Shiri river, all over the great plains sur- 
