GEOGRAPHY OF USAGARA. 



229 



the green clad boughs, forms a most enjoyable contrast 

 to the fetid exhalations of the Great Dismal Swamps 

 of the lowlands. The tamarind, everywhere growing 

 wild, is a gigantic tree. The Myombo, the Mfu'u, the 

 Ndabi, and the Maydged, a spreading tree with a large 

 fleshy red flower, and gourds about eighteen inches long 

 and hanging by slender cords, are of unusual dimensions; 

 the calabash is converted into a hut ; and the sycomore, 

 whose favourite habitat is the lower counterslope of Usa- 

 gara, is capable of shading a regiment. On the steep 

 hill-sides, which here and there display signs of cultivation 

 and clearings of green or sunburnt grass, grow para- 

 chute-shaped mimosas, with tall and slender trunks, and 

 crowned by domes of verdure, rising in tiers one above 

 the other, like umbrellas in a crowd. 



The plains, basins, and steps, or facets of table-land 

 found at every elevation, are fertilised by a stripe-work 

 of streams, runnels, and burns, which anastomosing in 

 a single channel, flow oif into the main drain of the 

 country. Cultivation is found in patches isolated by 

 thick belts of thorny jungle, and the villages are few 

 and rarely visited. As usual in hilly countries, they 

 are built upon high ridges and the slopes of cones, for 

 rapid drainage after rain, a purer air and fewer mosqui- 

 toes, and, perhaps, protection from kidnappers. The 

 country people bring down their supplies of grain and 

 pulse for caravans. There is some delay and difficulty 

 on the first day of arrival at a station, and provisions 

 for a party exceeding a hundred men are not to be 

 depended upon after the third or fourth marketing, 

 when the people have exhausted their stores. Fearing 

 the thievish disposition of the Wasagara, who will 

 attempt even to snatch away a cloth from a sleeping 

 man, travellers rarely lodge near the settlements. 



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