70 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
VI 
tufts of elephant grass made us fancy that we were ■ 
passing through the Palm house at Kew. Suddenly 
the road traversed a stretch of equatorial forest filled 
with large trees, in all stages of growth and decay, 
supporting parasitic trailing plants and lianas. Some 
of the trees thoroughly invested by thin, pendant, 
trailing plants resembled a confirmation girl in nun’s 
veiling. 
These thick groves and corners of forests contain a 
great variety of birds, and as they flew from one grove 
to another I was able to recognise some of them. Not f 
the least remarkable were the huge black and white > 
hornbills ; these birds seemed to think it a hardship 
that they should be expected to fly. The bee-eaters, i 
sun-birds, parrots, and rollers filled the scene with life, 
glory, and beauty. In some of the forest patches 
monkeys are seen in troops, especially the colobus, 
playing among the trees or sunning themselves in the 
tops of dead trees, or sliding down the lianas and y 
landolphias like children in a gymnasium. f 
As we emerged from the forest, palms, bananas, sweet * 
potatoes, and rubber trees again came iuto view with 
native huts built of mud and thatched with grass : ^ 
l)lack-skinncd children gnawing at bananas or a piece ? 
of sugar-cane watched the passage of the car. We rode i- 
up and down the hills of this switchback road until we 
caught a glimpse of rhe Uganda Cathedral on the top 
of Namirembe hill, and in a short time we entered ;V, 
Kampala. It was a beautiful approach to a remarkable ^ ^ 
town. 
AVhen we visit Pome with its almost continuous '* 
lines of houses and well-kept streets we do not notice 
the inconvenience of ascending and descending the 
slopes of one or other of its seven hills, when we pass 
from part of the town to another. In Kampala the k 
isolation of the various institutions from one another in 
consequence of being perched on a hill is inconvenient, ' 
especially as the only means of conveyance is the | 
