388 GOSA TO WANDI. 



quartz stripes which I have so often mentioned before. Many 

 swamps, overgrown with cutting grasses, made the march to 

 the station of Embe, or Nembe, very unpleasant. There were 

 extensive acacia groves in the neighbourhood of many of these 

 swamps. Elsewhere in Makraka the acacia is rather rare. 

 Khor Embe has a breadth of about a hundred feet ; the 

 water is about forty inches deep and full of sunk stones. To 

 the right and left of the ford it was covered with a broad 

 growth of papyrus. From the large open space which lay 

 before the huts of the station, I obtained a very good view 

 over the mountainous country, with its many heights and peaks 

 of which I had now to take leave ; for the road slopes from 

 here into the lowlands, and only once more, at the top of a 

 high ridge of hills, was I able to catch a glimpse of the blue 

 mountain peaks. The durrah-fields, through which we marched, 

 were very extensive ; one field joined another, occasionally 

 intercepted by small zones of wood or by a strip of high 

 steppe-grass. The only broad strip of savannah we passed 

 forms the boundary between the Abukaya and the Makraka, 

 whose district we again entered. For more than an hour we 

 went through durrah-fields, till, after a long hot march, we 

 arrived at the village of Baginmanya, where the chief received 

 us hospitably. Our luggage had remained far behind, and 

 only arrived about sunset, so that I could not think of work, 

 and occupied the time by a stroll through the fields. 



The road from here to Makraka-Sugaire is really only a 

 path leading for three hours through fields of durrah, Hyptis, 

 tobacco, sweet potatoes, and Colocasias. On account of the 

 numerous zeribas surrounded by neatly kept fields, the neat 

 huts, the trees hung with bundles of maize-cobs and other 

 seeds, the many nets and lines for catching game, the nume- 

 rous Tephrosia bushes for catching fish, this part of the 

 country presents a very homely, hospitable appearance, which 

 is borne out by the polite and friendly demeanour of its inhabi- 

 tants. Close by the big Khor Torre, which we crossed in a 

 boat made out of a gigantic trunk, lay the zeriba of Makraka- 

 Sugaire, where we found the huts we had occupied two years 

 before still standing. As at that time, the brilliant sunbirds 

 buzzed round the flowering citron and Papaw trees ; as then, 



