At some seasons other products of the soil, such as the larger kinds of gourds, are added to the catalogue of supplies. Gourd-leaves, too, which can be gathered throughout the year, together with various herbs, which are found neither to be unwholesome nor to have the flavour of pimento, are pounded and mixed with the soups. Vegetables proper are rarely grown, but whatever weeds may spring up on all cultivated soils are employed as a substitute, and play as important a part in the economy of the food as many articles that are used on our own tables; they serve partly as material to thicken the soups, and partly as nourishment to satisfy hunger. As I proceeded further on my journey, I found that manioc, sweet-potatoes, and green plantains took the place of the corn-pap and Bongo sauces, whilst it should be observed that in the more northerly regions cereals formed the basis of the food.

On the twelfth morning of our march I rose with the welcome prospect of that day reaching Aboo Sammat’s Seriba. Attending to my toilet, and taking my time over my breakfast, I did not quit the camp at Kulenjo until long after the last of the bearers had left. The day brought me along a charming walk, and yielded a fine harvest of botanical treasures; we crossed four streams, passed several isolated hamlets, and finally entered a dense forest of lofty trees. This was no park with its alternations of meadows and thickets, trees and groves: it was a veritable forest in our northern sense, but infinitely more lovely and varied, and not marked by the solemn monotony of our native woods. In contrast to the surrounding country, the forest land extended over an area of many miles to the north and south of the Seriba, and nowhere did it show an exclusive predominance of any single species. Trees there were most striking and stately, but the most remarkable circumstance about them was the diversity they displayed; a fact that may be comprehended, when it is stated that amongst thirty adjacent trees were found representatives of no less than twenty different classes.