Chap. LIII. THE BEDDE AND THEIR KGMA'DUGU. 35 
continual contact with their masters the B6rnu people, 
are more degenerate than those in the interior, who, 
protected by the several branches of the komadugu and 
the swamps and forests connected with them, keep up 
a spirit of national independence, possessing even a 
considerable number of a small breed of horses, which 
they ride without saddle or harness, and in the same 
barbaric manner as the Miisgu. 
The district which we traversed in the Wednesday, 
morning was distinguished by a great num- December 8th - 
ber of kuka or monkey-bread trees, the first one 
we saw being destitute of leaves, though full of fruit; 
but gradually, as we approached a more considerable 
sheet of water, they became adorned with a profusion 
of rich foliage, and we here met several small parties 
laden with baskets, of an elongated shape, full of the 
young leaves of this tree, which, as " kalu kuka," 
constitute the most common vegetable of the natives. 
Besides the kiika, large karage and korna or jujube 
trees (Zizyphus), and now and then a fine tamarind 
tree, though not of such great size as I was wont to 
see, adorned the landscape. 
We had just crossed a swamp, at present dry, sur- 
rounded on one side by fine fig trees and gerredh of 
such luxuriant growth that I was scarcely able to 
recognize the tree, and on the other by talha trees, 
when, about noon, we emerged into open cultivated 
ground, and were here greeted with the sight of a 
pretty sheet of open water, breaking forth from the 
forest on our left, and dividing into two branches, 
D 2 
