A "GALLERY" WOOD. 379 



time. Amongst them was a beautiful widow-bird, as black as 

 velvet, and a new and very graceful pigeon, of which I had 

 already obtained specimens in Janda. Small quadrupeds were 

 also numerous. Hundreds of black Clausilia-like univalve 

 shells of two species were lying upon the moss which covered 

 the rocks in Khor Asa ; curiously enough, all of them had lost 

 the point of the spiral, and although I examined more than 

 two hundred, I was not able to obtain a single perfect specimen. 

 None of the inhabitants of the village could be seen, for, as 

 Chief Ansea subsequently complained to me, the Abaka of 

 Tomaya are of a rather intractable character. 



I had been told that the station of Kudiirma was so far 

 distant that two days' march would be required to reach it ; 

 we therefore collected our porters early, and before dawn, with 

 the threatening comet above our heads, we descended the steep 

 declivity leading to Khor Anje, which was hidden in durrah- 

 fields. The ascent was just as steep and precipitate ; then, 

 marching along a ridge of hill, the rubble of which was thickly 

 covered with white and yellow lichens, we enjoyed an extensive 

 view over an exceedingly undulating and fertile land, in 

 which were many high hills, whose naked outlines stood out 

 above the green foliage like fortifications. Villages surrounded 

 by their corn-fields lay in the depressions of the country far 

 below us, often hidden by rolling veils of mist. The fresh cool 

 morning air, the perfume of the plants and of the burnt-down 

 grass, the echoing song of the birds, and the flashing golden 

 tints of the rising sun combined to produce in the traveller a 

 feeling of buoyancy. 



I noticed in the steppe which we next passed through many 

 groups of trees growing like islands in the broad expanse. 

 The path led in the direction of what appeared from the 

 distance to be a line of dwarf trees, but which were in reality 

 the tops of trees which grew in a hollow, their summits only 

 reaching to the level of the plain. A very deep descent 

 revealed the wonders of a u gallery " wood growing in a great 

 depression, of the same character as those so often seen in the 

 south. The trunks of the trees rose to a height of some hun- 

 dred or hundred and thirty feet before their crowns unfolded. 

 One of these " gallery " woods, through which Khor Modzua 



