256 
FURTHER DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA. 
ers' descriptions; they stand out in the sea itself, and are only dry 
at a low tide. Ships are laden with its wood, which is used for fuel, 
and many camels live entirely on its great laurel-like leaves. The 
coast is covered in some places to great distances by saltpetre shrubs, 
and by many other saline plants. 
The traveler who is forced to provide himself with food by his 
rifle in the chase devotes his attention chiefly to the wild oxen, wild 
pigs, and different kinds of antelopes which provide him with eat¬ 
able food when there are no tame creatures, such as goats, sheep, 
fowl, and fish to be met with. The latter case, however, is seldom 
experienced, for domestic animals are sure to be found wherever 
there are Negro settlements. 
MANY KINDS OF ANIMALS. 
The wild ox is the same as the short-horned breed, also found 
in East Africa. The wild pig, which is also found, and frequently 
makes its appearance in herds, is known as the long-eared pig. Its 
color is dark yellowish red. The flesh is pleasant as food, and is 
liked also by Negroes. The wild pigs are generally caught by the 
help of spears and pits dug to ensnare them. These traps make 
certain parts of the woods rather dangerous to walk in, and the 
traveler has to submit blindly to his guides, who are taken from the 
adjoining neighborhood, and who know exactly where such traps 
are laid. In the east and the south, this ''most beautiful of all pos¬ 
sible pigs’’ is replaced by the bush pig, while the whole of Central 
Africa is the home of the clumsiest and ugliest of all known bristly 
animals, the wart-hog. 
There are at least ten kinds of antelopes in the forests of Gaboon 
and the district of the Ogowe, from the elegant little dwarf antelope, 
which stands scarcely twenty inches high, to the white-striped 
antelope of Bango, which reaches the size of a fallow deer. Large 
herds of these animals, which are so frecjuently found in the open 
plateaus of Central Africa, are naturally unknown in the dense 
woods of the western part of the continent. From the exceptional 
character of the animals, their extreme shyness and speed, they 
are very hard to capture in the chase, and even the Negroes gen- 
