THE FIERY FIELD. 



283 



towering high above the tallest trees, are based the 

 huge granitic and syenitic outcrops before alluded to. 

 The contrast between the masses and the dwarf rises 

 which support them at once attracts the eye. Here and 

 there the long waves that diversify the land appear in 

 the far distance like blue lines bounding the nearer 

 superficies of brown or green. Throughout this rolling 

 table-land the watershed is to the south. In rare places 

 the rains stagnate in shallow pools, which become 

 systems of mud-cakes during the drought. At this 

 season water is often unprocurable in the Fiumaras, 

 causing unaccustomed hardships to caravans, and death 

 to those beasts which, like the elephant and the buffalo, 

 cannot long exist without drinking. 



On the 20th October we began the transit of the 

 " Fiery Field," whose long broad line of brown jungle, 

 painted blue by the intervening air, had, since leaving 

 K'hok'ho, formed our western horizon. The waste 

 here appeared in its most horrid phase. The narrow 

 goat-path serpentined in and out of a growth of 

 poisonous thorny jungle, with thin, hard grass-straw, 

 growing on a glaring white and rolling ground ; the 

 view was limited by bush and brake, as in the alluvial 

 valleys of the maritime region, and in weary sameness 

 the spectacle surpassed everything that we had endured 

 in Marenga Mk'hali. We halted through the heat 

 of the day at some water-pits in a broken course ; and 

 resuming our tedious march early in the afternoon, we 

 arrived about sunset at the bed of a shallow nullah, 

 where the pure element was found in sand-holes about 

 five feet deep. 



On the 2nd day we reached the large Mabunguru 

 Fiumara, a deep and tortuous gash of fine yellow quartz- 



