284 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



oze sand and sunburnt blocks of syenite : at times it 

 must form an impassable torrent, even at this season of 

 severe drought it afforded long pools of infiltrated rain- 

 water, green with weeds and abounding with shell-fish, 

 and with the usual description of Silurus. In the 

 earlier morning the path passed through a forest already- 

 beautified by the sprouting of tender green leaves and 

 by the blooming of flowers, amongst which was a large 

 and strongly perfumed species of jasmine, whilst young 

 grass sprouted from the fire-blackened remnants of the 

 last year's crop. Far upon the southern horizon rose 

 distant hills and lines, blue, as if composed of solidified 

 air, and mocking us by their mirage-likeness to the 

 ocean. Nearer, the ground was diversified by those 

 curious evidences of igneous action, which extend west- 

 ward through eastern Unyamwezi, and northwards to 

 the shores of the Nyanza Lake. These outcrops of 

 gray granite and syenite are principally of two 

 different shapes, the hog's back and the turret. The 

 former usually appears as a low lumpy dome of various 

 dimensions ; here a few feet long, there extending a mile 

 and a half in diameter : the outer coat scales off under 

 the action of the atmosphere, and in places it is worn 

 away by a network of paths. The turret is a more 

 picturesque and changing feature. Tall rounded 

 blocks and conical or cylindrical boulders, here single, 

 there in piles or ridges, some straight and stiff as giant 

 ninepins, others split as if an alley or a gateway passed 

 between them, rise abruptly and perpendicularly almost 

 without foundationary elevation, cleaving the mould of 

 a dead plain, or — like gypseous formations, in which 

 the highest boulders are planted upon the lowest and 

 broadest bases — they bristle upon a wave of dwarfish 



