348 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XLVIII. 
It was but very rarely that I mounted my horse, as 
I purposely avoided everything which was likely to 
attract attention, or create envious and jealous feel- 
ings ; but on the 10th of the month, I was obliged by 
circumstances to take a long ride, as my she-camel, 
which at the time was my only beast of burden, was 
missing, and not a trace of her could be found. On 
the south-east side of the village there is much forest 
of a very uniform character, interspersed with tall 
reed -grass ; but on the other sides a great deal of cul- 
tivation was to be seen, shaded by hajilij (or "jdnga," 
as it is called here), nebek or " kirna," # and talha- 
trees, here called " kelaya." I found it very remark- 
able that almost all the fields, even those where millet 
and sorghum were grown, were laid out in deep fur- 
rows, called deraba, — a system of tillage which, in the 
case of any sort of grain, I had not before observed 
in Negroland. Besides grain, a good deal of sesamum 
("karru"), cotton ("nyere"), and indigo ("almi") 
was cultivated, the plants being from two and a half to 
three feet in height, and bare of leaves at the present 
* The name of this tree, which is so common all over this part 
of the world — in the forms korna, kurna, kurnahl, kurra, 
kirna — is one of the most widely-spread of all those names indi- 
cating objects possessing properties useful to man; and this would 
seem to indicate that it is not indigenous in the various regions 
where it is at present found, but introduced from one and the same 
quarter. However, on nearer inspection, this argument does not 
seem to be conclusive. It has certainly not been introduced into 
Negroland from a more northern clinmte, as little as the Balanites 
and the Cticifera, which is erroneously called Thebaica, instead of 
Nigritia. 
