SPEAR GRASS 181 



to a height of ten feet or more, its snowy, plume- 

 like flower heads dancing on its wind-swept, billowy 

 greenery like foaming wave-crests. The extremity 

 of each blade is armed with a sharp, needle-like 

 point, the whole being sufficiently stiff to enable 

 it to penetrate your clothing and draw blood in 

 a most merciless fashion. Its brakes form the 

 favourite midday haunt of the buffalo, and one or 

 two other great game beasts, and the difficulty of 

 their pursuit into these well-defended fastnesses 

 can perhaps be sufficiently well imagined. 



The dense covering of vegetable growth beneath 

 which the land conceals itself during the rainy season 

 includes certain canes and grasses of great thickness 

 and denseness, and of extraordinary height. There 

 is one in particular which occurs along the banks 

 of the more elevated stream-beds, of whose real 

 name I am ignorant or at least uncertain, but 

 travellers who are famihar with the Shir^ River 

 will recognise it under its native name of " Bango." 

 This reed grows to a height of something over 

 twelve feet, and its canes, some almost an inch in 

 diameter, are utilised by the natives in the manu- 

 facture of mats of all sorts, and for all purposes, 

 from the small floor covering only sufficiently large 

 to enable one person to repose upon it, to a piece 

 eighteen or twenty feet long which is used for 

 drying the newly washed coffee berry. A smaller 

 growth, a species of Stipa, covers hundreds of square 

 miles of country, and is much used for thatching 

 purposes. This undersized variety only grows to 

 an inconsiderable five or six feet, and has an un- 

 comfortable habit of shaking down upon you, as 



