Chap. XLII1. NATIVE ARCHITECTURE. 177 
short distance. In these fields the vizier had dis- 
mounted and chosen the place for the encampment ; 
and it was with a sad, sympathetic feeling that I wit- 
nessed the lopping of the rich branches of the fine 
trees, which were without doubt the most splendid 
specimens of the karage-tree which I had seen in 
Negroland, not excepting those in the Margin country. 
The largest among them measured not less than eighty 
feet in height, and the diameter of their crown could 
scarcely be less but the foliage of this tree is by 
no means so dense and so regularly shaped as that 
of the fig or tamarind-tree. None of these fine 
trees, which had adorned the landscape, escaped de- 
struction, in order to provide fences for the larger 
tents ; but the few monkey-bread trees which here 
appeared, owing to the scanty foliage with which 
their gigantic branches were decked out, escaped 
unhurt. 
Here we remained the two following days, and the 
encampment became very confined, the more so as the 
ground was rather uneven. The delay could scarcely 
be defended in a strategetical point of view, as it 
could not but serve to put all the neighbouring chiefs, 
who were hostile to A'dishen, on their guard against 
any sudden inroad. But it was well that they did 
so, as by a sudden inroad the poor persecuted natives 
might have been totally annihilated. 
In order to employ my leisure hours, I looked about 
for information respecting the country we had just 
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