Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/112

 in folidge, are succeeded by forest trees laden with parasitic plants and interlaced by festoons of huge creepers with the dense undergrowth. The brooks winding along the lowlands seem to flow in underground channels impenetrable to the solar rays.

But however beautiful the flora of the upland plateaux, it does not appear to be distinguished by great variey. Of the seven hundred and fifty species collected by Grant between Zanzibar and the lower Nile, eighty, or at most a hundred, were new to botanists. The floras of the Cape, of Abyssinia and the Nile are intermingled on these uplands, where even some Indian species occur, and to these have recently been added a number of European plants which here find a congenial home. Grant thinks that Karagwé especially would be admirably suited for the cultivation of the tea plant. The giant of these forests is the mpaffu, which distils an aromatic gum from its enormous trunk 24 to 26 feet in girth.

Like the flora, the fauna of the plateaux is distinguished from that of the sur- rounding regions by but few indigenous species. The lake is inhabited, like the Nile and the Niger, by hippopotami and crocodiles, while multitudes of aquatic fowl swarm in the sedge or perch on the branches of the trees fringing its shores. From the cultivated tracts most wild beasts have been scared, although the neighbouring thickets are still infested by the much-dreaded panther. Hyaenas also prowl about the villages; the wayfarer is often startled by the ill-omened yelp of the fox; small game is hunted by the wild cat and other allied species; squirrels spring from branch to branch of the forest trees, above which hover greyish parrots noted for their large size and shrill voice; lower down the flowery mead is alive with all the brilliant world of smaller birds and butterflies.

The wilder districts of U-Sui on the Karagwe frontier and of North U-Ganda, where forest trees and cereals are replaced by the wild palm and ferns, are inhabited by numerous species of the antelope, by the rhinoceros, elephant, and zebra. Here also the swampy lands are peopled by the buffalo, while the wild boar finds a lair in the dense brushwood. Several varieties of monkeys enliven the forests of the tableland, amongst them the colubus guereza, noted for its rich white and black hair, and possibly also the chimpanzee. The lion is very rare on the equatorial uplands, although his tremendous roar is occasionally heard, striking terror into the other denizens of the forest. Ostriches sweep over the open plains; guinea-fowl in countless numbers find a shelter in the bush, and the victims of the battlefield or the executioner are removed by a small species of vulture, the scavenger of so many tropical lands.

Certain parts of the Upper Nile region are amongst the most densely peopled lands in Africa. The descriptions of Speke and Grant, of Stanley, Long, De Linajit, and Gessi, as well as the partial estimates of the missionaries, are all unanimous on this point. According to these witnesses, some ten or twelve millions of souls are