CHAPTER VII 



ZAMBEZIAN FLOEA 



In dealing with the wide subject of the flora of 

 so extensive a region, it should perhaps be stated 

 at once that although tropical, striking, and beautiful 

 to a degree, it nevertheless falls far short of the 

 wonders and splendours whose fame has reached 

 us from the moist heated valley of the Amazon, or 

 indeed from such rainy regions as those traversed 

 by the muddy waters of the Congo or Niger. Each 

 has doubtless its own botanical beauties and floral 

 phenomena, and even if the Zambezi valley cannot 

 compete with those more favoured localities, still 

 there are sufficient examples of a world of unusual 

 varieties to claim our attention and to awaken our 

 admiration. 



It seems, I must confess, a task of no small 

 difficulty to compress into the limits of a few book 

 pages any adequate idea of the immense number 

 of famiUes here represented, when assuredly a whole 

 volume were aU too small for the purpose ; and 

 that difficulty is vastly increased when account is 

 taken of the smallness of the attraction or interest 

 contained in the barbaric clumsiness of the terrible 

 scientific names brutally conferred upon the most 



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