422 WONDERFUL VEGETATION. 



a state of cultivation in former times. There is a noticeable 

 scarcity of larger vegetation, and the dense, matted, scrubby 

 crop which resisted their progress so stubbornly that even the 

 native choppers sometimes were almost discouraged, had only 

 sprung up since the slave-trade had done its devastating work. 

 Some of the twining, thorny contestants of the ground, which 

 annoyed Dr. Livingstone most unmercifully, suggested a little 

 reverence for Mr. Darwin's hints about vegetable instinct. One 

 particularly he said " might be likened to the scabbard of a 

 dragoon's sword ; but along the middle of the flat side runs a 

 ridge from which springs up every few inches a bunch of inch- 

 long straight, sharp thorns. It hangs straight for a couple of 

 yards ; but as if it could not thus give its thorns a fair chance 

 of mischief, it suddenly bends on itself, and all its cruel points 

 are presented at right angles with their former position. It 

 seems bent on mischief, and displays almost malicious delibera- 

 tion in hanging out its cruel, tangled limbs, which are sure to 

 inflict severe injury on an unwary traveller. Other climbers 

 are found so tough that no hand can break them. One appears 

 at its roots a young tree ; but true to the straggling habits of its 

 class, its shoots may be seen fifty or sixty feet off, weaving 

 themselves into the common cordage of the neighborhood. 



"Another climber is like the leaf of an aloe, but convoluted 

 as strangely as shavings from the plane of a carpenter. It is 

 dark green in color, and when its bark is taken off it is beauti- 

 fully striated beneath, lighter and darker green, like the rings 

 of growth on wood ; still another is a thin string with a succes- 

 sion of large knobs, and another has its bark pinched up all 

 round at intervals so as to present a great many cutting edges. 

 One sort need scarcely be mentioned, in which all along its 

 length are strong bent hooks, placed in a way that will hold 

 one if it can but grapple with him, for that is very common and 

 not like those mentioned, which the rather seem to be stragglers 

 from the carboniferous period of geologists, when pachydermata 

 wriggled unscathed among tangled masses worse than these." 



Dr. Livingstone had employed about ten jolly young Ma- 

 konde to deal with these prehistoric plants in their own way, 

 for they are accustomed to clearing spaces for gardens, and went 

 at the work with a will, using tomahawks well adapted for the 



