Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/310

 the columns of vapour, appropriately called 'smoke,' rising at a distance of five or six miles, exactly as when large tracts of grass are burned in Africa. Five columns now arose, and bending in the direction of the wind, they seemed placed against a low ridge covered with trees; the tops of the columns, at this distance, appeared to mingle with the clouds. They were white below, and higher up became dark, so as to simulate smoke very closely. The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan

vegetation of great variety of colour and form. At the period of our visit several trees were spangled over with blossoms. There, towering over all, stands the great burly baobab, each of whose enormous arms would form the trunk of a large tree, beside a group of graceful palms, which, with their feathery-shaped leaves depicted on the sky, lend their beauty to the scene. The silvery motonono, which. in the tropics is in form like the cedar of Lebanon, stands in pleasing contrast with the dark colour of the motsouri, whose cypress form is dotted over at present with its pleasant scarlet fruit. Some trees resemble the great spreading oak, °