KEMARK ABLE-LOOKING TREES 179 



the next day. The clear cold ramwater, of which we caught 

 every drop we could from the dripping tents, &c., in our 

 indiarubber baths, basins, and everything we could lay hands 

 on, was such a delight to us that we very nearly made ourselves 

 ill with the quantities we drank. 



The next day our path led us over ground strewn with 

 coarse volcanic debris, the district gradually becoming more 

 broken and hilly, whilst the vegetation grew sparser. After 

 an hour's tramp we came to a muddy pool, but we pushed on 

 without stopping, to camp once more after four hours' tramp 

 by the deep channel of a dried-up stream, with here and there 

 perpendicular banks of rock, some of them consisting of 

 columnar basalt. Not far from us were the remains of a Bur- 

 keneji kraal, from the naturally manured site of which grew 

 quantities of soft green grass and an edible vegetable, tasting 

 rather like radishes, which the caravan people called simply 

 mahoga or vegetable. Our porters, as well as our cattle 

 and donkeys, roamed happily about on the sward, whilst 

 Lembasso and the rest of us sought in vain for the water-holes 

 which must have sujDplied the needs of the Burkeneji when 

 they lived here. In the end we had to resort to digging, and 

 had obtained some little results when the news was brouofht 

 that there was plenty of water half an hour's distance off, left 

 by the rain of yesterday. 



In the bed of the stream were a few fine well-grown acacias 

 and also some remarkable-looking trees, the foliage and flowers 

 of which resembled those of the oleander, whilst the stems 

 were rather like those of the baobab. They were just then 

 in flower, and later. Dr. G. Schweinfurth was good enough to 

 inform me that they were examples of the Adenium speciosum^ 

 Fenzl., one of the Apocynese. This tree seemed to grow best 

 from the bare rock ; we met with it first, also in flower, 

 on Mount Nyiro. We also noticed here, and nowhere else, a 



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