BELINIAN. 215 



now the post is garrisoned by twenty soldiers, and that the 

 chief, Loron, Baker's antagonist, has become one of our most 

 trusted adherents. 



A large sandy plain, with doleb bushes and briars, inter- 

 sected by several small Mwrs, extends from Gondokoro to the 

 imposing mountains of Belinian (Belingong), which flank the 

 road to Chief Befo's village, Urbare. Numerous Calotropis 

 grow here, as they always do in this kind of soil. Forest 

 trees, magnificent tamarinds, butter- trees, and acacias, just 

 beginning to shoot forth their fragrant blossoms, grow in 

 greater number near the mountains, where the land also is 

 greener, owing to the damp soil. Beautiful green meadows, 

 on which large herds of cattle graze, attended by flocks of 

 snowy-white herons (Bubulcus ibis), gradually encroach on the 

 yellowish-red tracts of sand. Numerous small zcribas, en- 

 closed by strong thorn-hedges, and industrious people pre- 

 paring the land for seed, and followed by dogs with bells 

 round their necks, lent to the village of Urbare a cheerful, 

 homely aspect. About five minutes north-east from this place 

 we came across the bed of the large Khor Kadwe, known 

 farther down as Khor Kirfnion (the Bari have a nasal " n " 

 exactly like the French), which is the principal channel of 

 drainage for this part of the country. There is plenty of good 

 water in certain parts of its bed, which is deeply excavated, 

 and is bordered on either side by broad banks of coarse sand, 

 with numerous fragments of quartz and still more numerous 

 mica scales. Hundreds of storks were assembled in the adjoin- 

 ing fields, but would allow no one to approach them ; the 

 tufted Scopus umbretta, not nearly so shy, stood nodding and 

 fishing in the shallows. 



Chief Befo, after " scaring away the rain," became our guide 

 through his country, which extends nominally from the Belinian 

 chain to Tollogo. Hills of hard yellow ferruginous clay, be- 

 strewn with quantities of quartz rubble and overgrown with 

 thin brushwood, marked the first slight ascent to the Lokoya 

 group,' our next destination. On our march we crossed Khor 

 Kadwe and Khor Kasuba, the former a broad stream but quite 

 dry, the latter gay with vegetation, and containing water which 

 smells badly and tastes slightly of iron. Large blocks of 



