124 
THE PLANTAIN FIELDS. 
wild dreary look of a Highland moor in the heart of 
Africa, but with this difference, that a garden of plan- 
tain forms part of the landscape. Again, pick up a 
walnut-sized nodule of iron, covered with a rusty red 
dust, and think how rudely, how quietly, they turn it 
into a spear that glistens like steel ! Again, see the 
long high escarpments, and wonder at the power that 
had raised them into such a position. The volcanic 
mounds in Kishakka, seen from the spur above Vi- 
hembe, were most curious, so many of them rising in 
one part of the horizon like mole-heaps on the earth's 
surface, some of their tops nearer us being sterile and 
of red grit, their sides strewed over with white quartz 
fragments ; others clothed with pale green grass to 
their very summits, and dotted with trees sweeping 
down to, and shading with verdure, the valleys below. 
Their forms were saddle-shaped, horse-shoes, and frus- 
tums of cones ; many were crowned with rock, and 
nearly all had stratified splinters bristling from their 
sides. The eastern slopes below the escarpments, 
where the debris lay, were more cultivated than the 
western rocky parts. The natives bestowed great care 
on their fields, hoeing them up by the 8th October for 
the expected rain, collecting the weeds in heaps with 
a forked stick, and burning them. Fields of plantain- 
trees were grown, each tree six feet apart. From the 
fruit a sweet spirituous wine is made, tasting some- 
what like still hock, and quite as pleasant. The de- 
cayed leaves and stems of the plantain were allowed 
to remain on the ground to preserve the roots and 
soil from the heat of the sun, and afford nourishment 
to a crop of beans, " maharageh," peculiar to this coun- 
try, and often grown in the shade of the trees. The 
