•244 A NATURALIST IN MID-AFRICA. 



and the kinds of Acacia are quite different to those 

 about the Salt lake. The characteristic Euphorbia 

 of the Albert Edward does not occur. There is in 

 most of the valleys no water whatever. "Where it 

 does occur, it is either in the form of a stagnant 

 lake which has been left by the retreating waters 

 of some tributary of the Kagera or towards the 

 head of the valley, where it is found in a few 

 shaded, stagnant pools or occasionally as a minute 

 running stream. 



These latter do not, I think, occur unless in the 

 last mile of the valley, where its level is above 

 4,500 feet. 



Thus a fairly good idea of the country may be 

 formed by imagining these winding, thorn-dotted, 

 flat valleys, usually some 10 miles long and one or 

 two miles wide, and which occasionally spread out 

 into wide alluvial plains, with here and there an 

 unpleasant marshy pool, bordered by hills and 

 ridges which may be about 1,200 feet above their 

 level (i.e., 5,000 to 5,500 feet high). 



The country remains quite similar throughout 

 Karagwe, and in Kakaruka and Buhimba. 



The really fertile parts are the narrow ravines 

 at the heads of the minor valleys, for instance at 

 Mgaira and Butenga, where a little stream of water 

 drops down three or four miles through a narrow 

 valley covered and shaded by banana plantations 

 and thin forest. 



There is plenty of iron in the country every- 



