362 
THE NEW AFRICA 
food while travelling here, and of these 1 gave her one in return 
for her dish of food, eating a little on the spot, and wrapping 
the remainder up in another cloth to take to the camp. The 
flavour of this food, which I had mistaken for corn porridge, was 
very pleasant and rather acid, but certainly not that of corn 
porridge. However, as it was evidently food, and the girl 
showed no signs whilst I breakfasted that it was wrong to 
devour it, I made a fair meal, and then struck after the cart, 
where I produced the morning’s ‘ haul,’ which Paul immediately 
pronounced to be a mess of stamped flying ants boiled! No 
one except Paul would eat of it when this information was 
given, not even Franz. But I, having already had an experience 
that placed me beyond such trivialities as nausea at the dish, 
with Paul’s able assistance soon put the mess beyond the ques¬ 
tion of further practical discussion, and registered a note of the 
excellence of flying ants as a dish quite within reasonable limits 
to devour when hungry. 
On November 27th, we passed a beautiful view on the river, 
which here begins to widen into a reedy mass, lined with chalk 
cliffs of moderate height and heavy bush-grown banks on either 
side. From a point five miles below this we branched off 
into a sand-belt, to cut off a bend of the river, which a little 
further on makes a considerable turn southwards, and cost us 
three good treks through the sand-belts before we reached the 
welcome sight of the reed-grown river again. At this spot we 
encountered the let ter-trees No. 1. These trees bear the native 
name Matsiari and are small indifferent growths, which, but 
for the fact of marking the boundary line between the Baros 
and Mongwato countries, would not attract the attention of 
travellers by any special quality. We here also complied with 
the custom of scratching our names into the bark of these trees, 
and proceeded on our journey. 
Through some mishap the thermometers had all been broken; 
consequently we were unable to register the temperature, now 
beginning to be unpleasantly warm during the day, though 
beautifully cool at night. Thunder-storms commenced to play 
