Chap. XLV. AFRICAN NETHERLANDS. 
241 
to our great satisfaction, by an excellent fish of con- 
siderable size, which we obtained from the neigh- 
bouring pond. 
Fish seems to be plentiful in this quarter; but 
whether the number of small ridges and channels 
which we observed on our march the following day 
were intended for catching fish, which might enter 
them at the highest level of the inundation, or for 
preparing the fields for cultivation, I am not quite 
sure ; but the former seemed to be the case, there 
being no signs whatever of the fields being brought 
under labour. Dense forest and open pasture-ground 
alternated, the forest, consisting of middle-sized aca- 
cias, interrupted now and then by the kalgo-tree, 
with its ash- coloured leaves and its dark red pods, or 
by the kokia. 
The country, however, became exceedingly in- 
teresting and pleasant when we reached one of the 
numerous watercourses of these African Netherlands, 
an open and clear river about seventy yards broad, 
which being fringed on each bank with a border of 
slender deleb-palms, or kamelutu, in the clear mag- 
nificent morning sky, afforded a most picturesque 
view. We here crossed this water, and passed a 
village on our left, and, keeping along the fresh turf 
of the western bank a mile further on, reached a spot 
where another branch, running eastward apparently, 
though no current is visible, and fringed likewise by 
palms of the same description, joins the main channel. 
The country being without any perceptible inclina- 
VOL. III. R 
