50 
TIIE KILIJSIA-NJAP0 EXPEDITION. 
The temporary burst of just anger not only brought 
a flush of colour to my pallid face, but seemed to 
restore strength to my limbs, and I strode on now by 
the side of the caravan, exhorting and encouraging the 
men till we had all regained our good humour, and 
even the scapegoat himself emerged from sulky silence, 
and gave a half-humorous, half-dolorous account of his 
beating to the men walking near him. 
I had now a little leisure to observe the character of 
the scenery through which we were passing. There were 
no hills at present in sight, and the view was bounded 
by the scrub and stunted trees which closed up round 
the narrow path. Nevertheless, the want of landscape 
beauty was atoned for by the vivid glory of the wild 
flowers, which now, at the close of the rainy season, 
were in perfection of bloom. That beautiful genus 
Commelyna (a monocotyledonous plant allied distantly 
to the spider-worts) gave us species with pale blue, 
ultramarine, and citron-yellow blossoms. I marvel 
that the Gommelynce , commonest of African flowers, 
have never been introduced by European floriculturists. 
Under cultivation they ought to yield beautiful displays 
of colour, and, as many species grow on the flanks of 
Mount Kilima-njaro in an English temperature, there 
is no reason why they should not supplant the lobelia 
in our garden borders, and yield a vivid sheet of rich 
blue blossoms far surpassing the feeble flowerets of the 
last-mentioned plant. Many other wild flowers make 
themselves noticeable by their abundance and beauty 
in this district between Gora and Rabai, which lies 
at about thirty to forty miles from the coast, and 
receives more rain and humidity from the not far 
distant Indian Ocean than the sterile steppes further 
westward. Great, tall, terrestrial orchids of the Lisso - 
