GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA. 
241 
stone, based upon various granites, which in some places crop out, 
picturesquely disposed in blocks and boulders and huge domes and 
lumpy masses; ironstone is met with at a depth varying from five 
to twelve feet, and bits of coarse ore have been found in Unyan- 
yembe by digging not more than four feet in a chance spot. 
“WAVES OF ROLLING LAND.” 
During the rains the grass conceals the soil, but in the dry 
seasons the land is gray, lighted up by golden stubbles, and dotted 
with wind-distorted trees, shallow swamps of emerald grass, and 
wide streets of dark mud. Dwarfed stumps and charred “black 
jacks’’ deform the fields, which are sometimes ditched or hedged 
in, whilst a thin forest of parachute-shaped thorns diversifies the 
waves of rolling land and earth hills, spotted with sunburned stone. 
The reclaimed tracts and clearings are divided from one another by 
strips of primeval jungle, varying from two to twelve miles in length, 
and, as in other parts of Africa, the country is dotted with “fairy 
mounts”—dwarf mounds—the ancient sites of trees now crumbled 
to dust, and the debris of insect architecture. Villages, the glory 
of all African tribes, are seen at short intervals rising only a little 
above their impervious walls of lustrous green milk-bush, with its 
coral-shaped arms, variegating the well-hoed plains; whilst in the 
pasture lands herds of many-colored cattle, plump, round-barrelled 
and high-humped, like Indian breeds, and mingled flocks of goats 
and sheep, dispersed over the landscape, suggest ideas of barbarous 
comfort and plenty. 
It is astonishing what luxury is conveyed into the heart of 
Africa by Arab merchant-princes. The fertile plain about their 
villages, kept in the highest state of cultivation, yields marvellous 
abundance and endless variety of vegetables, and supports vast 
herds of cattle, and sheep and goats innumerable; while just above 
the houses the orange, lemon, papaws and mangoes may be seen 
thriving finely. 
Add to these the tea, cofifee, sugar, spices, jellies, curries, wine, 
brandy, biscuits, sardines, salmon, and such fine cloths as they need 
for their own use, brought from the coast every year by their 
H. B. G.—16 
