A NATURALIST'S RAMBLE. 65 



is, notwithstanding his " pedigree," only an usurper and 

 parvenu. 



One day I took a walk along a path towards the south, 

 which led me along the foot of mountains of considerable 

 height lying to the left, whilst those on the right were about 

 two miles away. At the bottom of the valley Khor Kyai flows 

 at first towards the south and then to the west. High grass 

 interwoven with creepers abounds. A large ocymum mingles 

 its odours with that of several Cruciferae (?). Here, as in so 

 many places, there are open woods of fig-trees and mimosas, 

 as well as Combreteae, and conspicuous among them is a lofty 

 tree with beautiful yellow sweet-smelling flowers and a foliage 

 resembling that of a mongolia. Taking it all in all, the vege- 

 tation in North Unyoro is rather monotonous, with the excep- 

 tion of those places where runnels of water produce, as if by 

 magic, small floral Edens. This, notwithstanding the opposite 

 opinion of Baker, is probably due to the fact that the soil in 

 Unyoro, at least in its northern part, is not so rich as that in 

 Uganda. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the 

 custom of annually burning the grass does not give the vege- 

 tation a fair chance of developing. What trunks exist are 

 distorted and knotty. Only on the mountain slopes, to which 

 the fire seldom reaches, and along the JcJiors do we find splendid 

 pillar-like trunks. I have already, in former letters, called atten- 

 tion to the beauty of such oases of vegetation. 



After I had wandered for an hour, I found that the moun- 

 tains to the right suddenly turned towards the west and opened 

 up an extensive view across a rolling prairie, beyond which, in 

 the far south, the rounded outlines of isolated mountains rose 

 into view. Behind me and on either hand, the view was shut 

 out by high mountains. I could only see the dark green line 

 of the khor winding its way between the greyish-red grass. In 

 every fold of the ground the presence of inhabitants is indicated 

 by columns of smoke. Threatening rain-clouds warned me to 

 return home quickly, but they were soon driven away by a 

 fresh east wind. The rainstorms here always occur with 

 south or south-east winds. There was abundance of rain 

 during the whole of my stay in Unyoro. I never experienced 

 a day without rain, and it often rained three or four times in 



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