VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE AFRICAN PLAINS.
The facts actually ascertained in reference to the Flora of the plains
of Central Africa, although as yet of a limited character, form as a
whole too comprehensive a subject to be fully discussed in these pages.
I must, therefore, confine myself to a rapid survey of the principal
botanical features of the countries whose general features and physical
aspect I have sketched in the preceding chapters.
Senegambia and Upper Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, form a low
table-land, situated upwards of 3000 feet above the sea-level, and
furrowed by deep gorges, in whose rocky beds the rivers roll and foam,
fed by the waters of numerous streams. Grassy savannahs and wide
cultivated areas are here inhabited by a numerous population. Several
travellers have explored these regions; but all have specially applied
themselves to make known the colossal plants which flourish therein, and
those, first and foremost, which have a particular interest, either from
their Anak-like stature or the manifold uses of their products. I shall
have occasion to speak of the arborescent species which, in this part of
the Old Continent, blend in immense and impenetrable forests. But owing
to this very circumstance we possess few details respecting the plants
which clothe the vast plains of Senegambia and Upper Guinea. We only
know that there, as everywhere, the great family of the Gramineæ is
largely represented. In general these species far exceed in height the
plants which make the wealth and glory of our English meads; and they
chiefly belong to the tribe of Paniceæ. A legion of Cassias inhabit the
low fresh hills of the Senegambian lands; and some are held in high
estimation for their fruit, as the Cassia, or Senna, which is considered
one of the most active purgatives. The species generally recognized as
best adapted for medicinal purposes are those with oboval and those with
obtuse leaves--_Cassia obovata_ and _Cassia obtusifolia_. The former is
a perennial herbaceous plant, from one to two feet high, with smooth
egg-shaped leaves and racemes of yellow flowers; the latter differs only
in the form of its leaves, which are short and broad, or obtuse.
Many of the cereals are cultivated in Senegambia on a very large scale;
but they differ wholly from those which engage the attention of the
European agriculturist. Barley will not grow even on the most elevated
plateaux, on account of the constant and excessive heat. It is true that
it will germinate; but it develops so rapidly that it passes through all
the phases of its vegetation in the space of a few weeks, and yields but
impoverished ears empty of grains; it is useless to the people of
Senegambia except as forage. But, on the other hand, there are numerous
Gramineæ adapted to hot regions, which the natives cultivate for their
uses. Among others I may name the Tocussa and the Coracan (_Eleasine
Tocussa_ and _E. Corocana_), with their curved digitate spikes and
productive seeds; the _Pennicellaria spicata_, or Guinea Corn, a very
tall grass, somewhat resembling maize, whose long cylindrical culms or
blades bear each a multitude of white round grains, which, ground into
meal, form very savoury cakes, as you may read in Mungo Park's Travels;
and the _Durra_, _Doura_, _Indian Millet_, or _Sorgho Grass_
(_Sorghum_), a coarse, strong, broad-leaved grass, four to eight feet
high, with a round grain a little larger than mustard seed; it is the
principal corn-plant of Africa, and exceedingly nutritious, the natives
employing it in the preparation of a favourite dish named Kouskoussou.
The cereals most widely cultivated in Senegal include the Colonial
Millet (_Oplismenus colonus_); the Abyssinian Meadow Grass (_Poa
Abyssinica_), called "Teff" in Abyssinia, whose seeds are used for
making bread, and whose blades yield an abundant herbage; Rice (_Oryza
sativa_), and different varieties of maize. Leguminous plants appear
wanting in Senegal. Their absence is probably due to the same causes as
those which we have indicated as affecting the growth of barley.
Cabbages and the different salads grow, in fact, with a rapidity which
prevents them from maturing; they flower in two or three weeks after
being sown. The inhabitants consequently resort to those alimentary
species which belong to hot countries, and which can only be obtained in
Europe at an enormous expense and by artificial means. Among the plants
with edible roots are various kinds of Yams (such as the _Dioscorea
alata_); Batatas (_Convolvulus Batatas_); and the Manioc or Manihot
(_Jatropha Manihot_),[99] better known as Cassava, which, although in
itself a deadly poison, is easily deprived by heat of its noxious
properties, and when roasted or boiled becomes a nutritious and highly
savoury food. It yields the valuable farinaceous material of Tapioca.
Its leaves are cooling and healing; from its seeds an excellent oil is
procured; and the juice which drops from its root serves for
empoisoning arrows. Good and evil are both strangely mixed in this
important plant.
[Illustration: VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE AFRICAN PLAINS.
1. Guinea Corn (_Pennicillaria spicata_).
2. Sorgho Grass (_Sorghum cernuum_).
3. Manihot (_Jatropha Manihot_).
4. Yam (_Dioscorea alata_).
5. Screw Pine (_Pandanus candelabrum_).
6. Black Pepper (_Piper nigrum_).]
The _Corchorus olitorius_,[100] an annual cultivated in Egypt as a
potherb, is largely grown in Senegal for the tenacious fibres of its
root and the oily juices of its seeds. The Black Pepper (_Piper nigrum_)
of India and the Sunda Isles we find perfectly acclimatized in this part
of Africa, and it flourishes even in a wild state. Finally, the
Coffee-tree (_Coffea Arabica_), the Cocoa (_Theobroma Cacao_), Indigo
(_Indigofera tinctoria_), and the _Cocos oleracea_, are among the
cultivated plants of Senegambia.
In northern Guinea and the Gaboon, recently made famous by Du Chaillu's
discovery of the gorilla, Savannahs and cultivated districts are
intermingled, though their flora is still imperfectly known. A great
number of grasses adorn the fresh and humid prairies, and sedges and
reeds abound, while, on the river-banks, in shady nooks, flourish some
of the Screw-pine tribe,[101] notably the _Pandanus Candelabrum_, a
highly curious plant, which attracts one's attention by its mode of
vegetation, its graceful ribbon-like foliage, and its small fragrant
flowers. Thatching and cordage are obtained from the fibrous leaves; the
fruit resembles a richly-coloured pine-apple, but is insipid to the
taste.
The Savannahs of the neighbouring provinces, and especially those of the
Gold Coast, are in general sparsely inhabited, nor are those on the
banks of the Niger an exception; man shrinks from a region which the
deadly malaria seems to claim as its own. The flora is very poor,
consisting chiefly of aquatic grasses, with blades of moderate height,
and leaves of comparatively little succulence. The herbaceous plants,
suitable for food or industrial uses, which are most frequently met with
in Guinea and the Gaboon, resemble those already described as belonging
also to Senegambia. But there are many different Arums, such as the
_Caladium segmium_ and _Colocasia mucronatum_, properly known as Taro,
Tara, or Tayo, and employed in making granulate sugar from the stem of
the former, and in boiling or roasting for food the rhizomæ of the
latter; Tobacco; the ox-heart Annona, a plant sometimes cultivated in
Europe, where it never fructifies, though its aromatic fruits are its
most valuable product, and are highly esteemed by the Africans,--these
"Custard Apples" resembling thick cream, and being eaten, like cream,
with a spoon; the Banana,[102] with its gigantic foliage--precious "Musa
Sapientum "--valuable not only to "wise men," but foolish men, as a
substitute for wheat or the breadfruit tree, and gratifying the savage
with a succulent and nutritious food. Forty or fifty banana plants will
flourish in a square space of one thousand feet, and an acre of ground
will yield sufficient provision for fifty men. That area of land which,
sown with wheat, would feed only one man, will nourish five-and-twenty
if planted with bananas.
I must not forget the Pistachios,[103] which flourish spontaneously in
the vast plains of Central Africa, and the highly valuable Sugar Cane
(_Saccharum officinarum_), which, like the Cotton Plant, has rendered
inestimable services to man, and yet has been the origin of unutterable
crime and misery, promoting by its cultivation the accursed slave-trade.
The Vine (_Vitis vinifera_) is cultivated in a few districts. Among the
herbaceous or sub-frutescent plants peculiar to this region, and which
enjoy a certain reputation on account of the utility of their products,
I may name the following:--
The Calebash Nutmeg (_Monodora myristica_), one of the Annonaceæ,
remarkable for its withered fruits, which, when rasped like its seeds,
furnish a condiment deservedly esteemed by the natives; Guinea Pepper
(_Uvaria Æthiopica_), whose properties are well known and appreciated in
this part of Western Africa; and finally, one of the Cucurbitaceæ, the
_Telfairia pedata_, whose seeds enclose a very oleaginous substance.
To the east, in Nigritia or the Soudan, the country is nearly level,
although situated at an elevation of 1200 to 1300 feet above the sea.
The vegetation here is very scanty; yet the copious tropical rains
favour the growth of plants suitable for the provender of cattle;
pastures are abundant, and formed by the principal Grasses (Panicum
Setaria, and the like), the Sedges, Rushes, &c. These meads are clothed
with verdure for three or four months of the year, and much frequented
by the shepherds who dwell in the vicinity of Lake Tchad.
Still further eastward, if we continue our wanderings, we plunge into
the warm regions of Darfour and Kordofan. Here the country is cast in
bold outlines; numerous lofty mountain-chains are intersected by narrow
valleys and smooth expanses of meadow-land. All that portion of Kordofan
which lies west of the White Nile is a Prairie some thirty-five miles
long by twenty-eight broad, stretching towards the rising sun, and
relieved by small patches of shrubs of the family _Leguminosæ_,
especially the Mimosa, with its graceful shrinking foliage, which
shudders at the lightest touch, and its spherical rose-hued or
snow-white blossoms.
These meadow-lands suffer from excessive aridity; it is only with an
arduous struggle that a few grasses resist the dryness which almost
constantly prevails; and frequently, as is the case in other parts of
Western Africa, the inhabitants can only procure water for their needs
by sinking wells of extraordinary depth. Less arid, the southern part of
Kordofan is better clothed with vegetation; the country is more broken,
and increases in picturesqueness of aspect as we approach the
neighbourhood of Mount Tegeler. Sennaar, which is traversed by the Blue
Nile, is far from offering an equally luxuriant vegetation: along the
river extends a vast belt of meadow, generally barren, or only blessed
with a few herbaceous plants, a few Leguminosæ, with deeply-buried
roots; and its aspect, therefore, is one of great gloom. The landscape
wants
"The glory in the grass, and the splendour in the flower"
which appeal so potently to the sensibilities of the poet. Nor does the
scenery improve as we ascend the Sennaar to the Lake of Zana, situated
to the south-east, for though the rich black soil of the Kulla valley
nourishes a profuse vegetation, it is the vegetation peculiar to the
marsh and the swamp; the wind rushes through thick sedges, and
whispering reeds, and waving grasses. On the northern borders of the
lake the pasturages are fresh and green, and a man might easily lurk
unseen among their gigantic Gramineæ, the Panicas and the Setarias.
Still keeping our faces eastward, like the Ghebirs of ancient Iran, we
perceive that Abyssinia is divided into two parts by the River Tacazze,
an affluent of the Nile; the western being called Amhora, and the
eastern Tigré. Owing to its peculiar geographical configuration and the
elevation of its mountains, Abyssinia rejoices in a wholly special
Flora. In the Semen, west of the Tacazze, there is a mountain lifting
its crest above the limit of perpetual snow, or to an altitude of 14,000
feet. Up to a height of 6500 feet its slopes are thickly carpeted with
fresh and fragrant sward, and the air throbs with the music of a hundred
streams which flow from the perennial fountains of ice and snow.
In the Tigré the country is not fertile, nor is it well populated. Its
geological features are interesting, for we meet everywhere with
isolated masses of limestone, arranged generally in horizontal strata of
various extent, and bearing indisputable traces of a vast volcanic
labour. On the coast of the Red Sea, the oriental slopes only present at
their base a few scattered thickets chiefly composed of thorny shrubs
and the Leguminosæ. We meet also with various kinds of Aloes and
Euphorbiaceæ (Spurge-Worts), as the _Euphorbia neriifolia_, _Euphorbia
grandidens_, and _Euphorbia Abyssinica_. It is said that King Juba II.,
of Mauritania, discovered the plant growing on Mount Atlas, wrote a
short treatise on its virtues, and named it after his physician
Euphorbos (about the end of the first century B.C.) The root, generally
speaking, is aperient, and the milky juice useful in cases of rheumatism
and cramp.
The plains of Tigré present a beautiful appearance with the variety of
flowers that bloom among the grass; including a kind of scarlet aloe,
which is to be met with almost everywhere in Tigré, and appears, like
our gorse, to flower at all seasons, forming a graceful object in the
foreground. The many varieties of mimosas, too, with their
different-coloured blossoms--pink, yellow, and white--appear to be
spread over the whole face of the country, whether rock or plain, hill
or valley. "When in blossom," says an English traveller,[104] "many of
them emit a fragrance so powerful as to render the whole neighbourhood
more odorous than a perfumer's shop. The jessamine is seen in profusion
in many parts, but principally on the hills; and there is also a
beautiful parasitical creeper (an æschynanthus), which grows, like the
mistletoe, from the bark of other trees. It has a bright dark-green
fleshy leaf, with brilliant scarlet flowers."
The same traveller describes a tree called the _dima_,[105] which,
though not very solid as food, adds much to the flavour of the
_cuisine_. It has a large greenish shell, some nine inches long; inside
of it lie a number of seeds, and attached to them by fibres a quantity
of yellowish-white cakey powder, having a sweetish acid taste, and when
mixed with water forming an agreeable beverage, somewhat resembling
lemonade. The Abyssinians mix with it red pepper and salt, and eat it as
a relish with their bread. When the tree reaches a certain size, its
trunk almost always becomes hollow; and then it frequently contains a
store of wild honey, which may easily be obtained by means of a small
axe and fire.
More to the south, in the Shoa, we meet with an almost analogous
vegetation: the Socotrine Aloes (_Aloe socotrina_), which supplies our
Pharmacopoeia with an active cathartic, is particularly abundant. The
_Celastrus edulis_,[106] a small branching shrub whose leaves possess
very similar properties to those of the Tea-plant, and are employed for
the same purpose by the Abyssinians, is widely cultivated. The Arabs
distil from them a stimulating drink called Kat. Nor should I forget the
Cousso, or Casso, named after its discoverer _Brayera anthelmintica_,[107]
an infusion of whose bark or leaves forms one of the most powerful
vermifuges in the world; and the _Musa ensete_, a magnificent banana,
with gigantic leaves and nerves of a vivid red, which now flourishes in
our European plantations.
Among the cultivated plants may be included most of those which I have
noticed under the head of Senegambia; while, owing to the considerable
elevation of the mountains, we find many others which belong to cool and
temperate climates--such, for example, as rye and barley. The Sugar
Cane, the Pomegranate, and numerous Aurantiaceæ, as, for example, the
Citron and the Orange, have been likewise introduced into this part of
Southern Africa.
[Illustration: VEGETABLE LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA.
1. Mesembryanthemum inflexum.
2. Hottentot's Fig (_Mes. edule_).
3. Euphorbia neriifolia.
4. Euphorbia grandidens.
5. Stapelia hirsuta.]
From the coast of Aden, where almost complete sterility prevails prior
to the rainy season--from the coast of Aden to Cape Guardafui, situated
at the easternmost point of Africa, the traveller encounters a constant
succession of mountains or elevated table-lands, haunted by the
shepherds of the Somali tribes,--a people notorious for their
brigandage. Respecting the coast of Ajan we know but little, except
that its arid and sandy soil supports a scanty vegetation of stunted
plants. The Zanguebar coast is not more familiar to the botanist, and is
mainly covered with marshes.
But the littoral of Western Africa is gifted with a flora as luxuriant
as it is varied. According to Dr. Welwitsch, who has explored this
region, previously almost a _terra incognita_ to Europeans, "the special
feature in the neighbourhood of Benguela is the abundance of parasitical
_Lorunthaceæ_, or mistletoe, on the thickets of the thorny Mimosa, to
which are attached those Roccellæ (or Archils), the _Roccella tinctoria_
and _R. fuciformis_, that yield so brilliant a lilac dye. In the gardens
of Benguela the vegetables of Europe are most successfully cultivated,
as well as a great number of fruit trees belonging both to tropical and
temperate climes: citron and orange, the olive, the cashew-nut, the
anana, the fig, the vine, the pomegranate, the elais-palm, the banana,
the anona, and the corrossol. The vine bears grapes twice every year,
and the crop on each occasion is abundant and of fine flavour. The
gardens in the vicinity of Mossamèdes, between the fifteenth and
sixteenth parallels of south latitude, exhibit a curious medley of
vegetables on every side, where you may see flourishing side by side the
banana and the potato, manioc and wheat, sugar-cane and flax, barley,
and every kind of Spanish potato."
A few miles from Cape Negro the coast rises for from 300 to 350 feet
above the sea-level, forming a continuous plateau, where the flora,
though meagre when compared with that a little further to the north,
offers nevertheless to the traveller some objects of the highest
interest. It was here that Dr. Welwitsch met with the strange plant
which, in commemoration of its intrepid discoverer, Sir William Hooker
named _Welwitschia_,[108] but which the natives call _Tumboa_. "In its
youth its two original cotyledonary leaves appear to grow considerably,
and extend horizontally in opposite directions, raised but little above
the surface of the sand, whilst the intervening stock thickens and
hardens, assuming an obconical shape, flat at the top, and rapidly
tapering below into the descending root. As years go on, the original
pair of leaves, having attained their full size, and a hard, tough,
fibrous consistence, do not die away, but gradually split up into
shreds; the woody mass which bears them rises very little higher, but
increases horizontally both above and below the insertion of the leaves,
so as to clasp their base in a deep marginal slit or cavity; and from
the upper side, at the base of the leaf, several short flowering stalks
are annually developed. These are erect, dichotomously branched jointed
stems, rising from six inches to a foot in height, and bearing a pair of
small opposite scales at each fork or joint, each branch being
terminated by an oblong cone, under the scales of which are the flowers
and seeds. The result is, that the country is studded with these
misshapen table-like or anvil-like masses of wood, whose flat tops,
pitted with the scars of old flowering stems, never rise above a foot
from the ground, but vary, according to age, in a horizontal diameter of
from a few inches to five or six feet--those of about eighteen inches
diameter being supposed to be already above a hundred years old."[109]
These fantastic monstrous shapes were found by Dr. Welwitsch, with their
deeply-embedded roots, on the dry plateau of the Benguela coast, in 15°
40´ south latitude. Herr Montein met with it in a perfectly similar
situation on quartzose soil, in the neighbourhood of the Nicolas River,
14° 20´ south latitude; and Mr. Baines and Mr. Anderson, in Dawaraland,
between 22° and 23° south latitude, in the neighbourhood of Whalefish
Bay, and in a district where never a drop of rain falls. We may
therefore place the _habitat_ of this remarkable plant between the 14th
and 23rd parallels of south latitude. The crown, when divested of its
leaves, bears a close resemblance to a fungus.
[Illustration: VEGETABLE LIFE OF CAPE COLONY.
1. Aloe verrucosa.
2. Aloe soccotrina.
3. Aloe ciliaris.
4. Aloe arborescens.
5. Aloe plicatilis.
6. Gladiolus blandus.]
[Illustration: VEGETABLE LIFE OF CAPE COLONY.
1. Helichrysum fruticosum.
2. Erica Cavendishiana.
3. Protea longifolia.
4. Todea Africana.]
[Illustration: VEGETABLE LIFE OF CAPE COLONY.
1. Pelargonium hederæfolium (Ivy-leaved Geranium).
2. Oxalis rosacea (Wood-Sorrel).
3. Pelargonium glaucum.
4. Pelargonium zonale (Zone-leaved Geranium).
5. Pelargonium tricuspidatum.]
If we now approach the Cape of Good Hope--the Cabo del Tormentoso, or
"Cape of Storms," of the early navigators--we shall observe a
characteristic vegetation peculiar to a solid or stony soil, sometimes
hilly, but generally dry. It is in the desolate and barren steppes
situated within the confines of Caffraria that those splendid
herbaceous bulbous plants display their beauties, which are now familiar
to our English gardens under the names of Gladiolus, Oxalis, Ixia, and
Tulbaya. To those magnificent ornaments of the floral world we must add
some less known plants, remarkable in other respects; such as the
_Mollugo cerviana_, which, with a few Ficoideæ, form the almost
exclusive nourishment of the herbivorous animals belonging to these
countries. The Gramineæ are rare in the plains of Cape Colony, but, on
the other hand, they contain a number of oleaginous plants included in
divers families. Here, for instance, are those singular _Compositæ_,
whose stems so closely resemble waxen tapers; several Ficoideæ, of which
some species--as, notably, the _Mesembryanthemum edule_, or Hottentot's
Fig, distributed over the interior of Southern Africa, and the
_Mesembryanthemum tuberosum_--are eagerly sought by the Hottentots,
Caffres, and natives generally, who eat the fruits of the former and the
roots of the latter; the _Stapelia hirsuta_, or Carrion Plant, and
several others of the same genus, whose carrion-smelling flowers are
singularly handsome, though their odour is most offensive; a great
number of aloes, particularly the _Aloe verrucosa_, _A. ciliaris_, _A.
plicatilis_, and _A. arborescens_, each distinguished by a strange
wayward boldness of form and figure; and, finally, those larger
Euphorbias of which I have already spoken, and which yield a white milky
juice that hardens on exposure to the air. It is mainly on the slopes or
stony hills of the Cape that we meet with numerous and remarkable
species of the Immortelles, with their white, yellow, or lilac, and
satin-smooth flowers. The woody Immortelle (_Helichrysum fruticosum_)
is one of those peculiar to the Cape districts. It is in analogous but
more sandy localities that those graceful little shrubs, with varied
corollas, flourish, which are so popular in England under the name of
_Ericas_, and which frequently exhibit the highest beauty of form and
colour. In the engraving is figured the exquisite _Erica Cavendishiana_,
a deservedly great favourite in our English conservatories. There, too,
the traveller delightedly examines the almost interminable succession of
Pelargoniums, or Geraniums, rich in clusters of delicate bloom, and in
exquisitely green foliage. What a blank would their absence leave in our
blossomy parterres! Here and there he notes dense coppices of the
Arduinia spinosa, the Lycium Afrum, the Euclæa ondulata, whose berries
are eaten by the Hottentots; several species of Rhus,[110] among others
the _Rhus lucidum_; and, finally, a great number of the strange
fantastic Proteaceæ, with their hard dry evergreen leaves and curiously
beautiful flowers. At the foot of the mountains, in the countries
bordering on Caffraria, different Cycadaceæ are found, especially the
_Zamia_ and _Encephalartus_, an elegant plant with a short spherical
trunk, surmounted by a crown of long rigid palmated leaves. The natives
prepare with their pith a species of cake which they eat instead of
bread. Ferns are not numerous at the Cape; the most remarkable,
undoubtedly, is the _Todea Africana_. The hills and meadows of this part
of South Africa do not always exhibit so marked an aridity; rivers and
streams refresh the soil, and there, where the current is not too swift
nor the depth too great, grows the beautiful _Calla_ of Ethiopia, a
species of Aroidea, whose snow-white fragrant flowers resemble a large
horn in shape; the _Aponogeton distachyum_, another aquatic plant, with
white flowers and floating leaves, is not less common in similar
positions; then on the banks, in fresh and shady nooks of greenery,
thrives the _Strelitzia reginæ_, a gorgeous-flowered genus of _Musaceæ_,
named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, queen of George III. The
foliage of this magnificent plant consists of long-stalked leaves
sheathing at the base, arising from a contracted stem, the flower stalk
encircled below by the sheath of the leaf-stalk; while from its upper
portion springs a large bract or spathe placed obliquely, within which
lie the flowers, resplendent in orange and purple.
In the Desert of Kalahari exists an abundant and varied vegetation.
According to Dr. Livingstone, it is an immense plain which nourishes a
prodigious quantity of herbaceous plants, generally of very small
elevation, and besprinkled at intervals with thickets of bushy shrubs.
The herbs which are enabled to withstand the prolonged droughts of these
arid localities are species with tuberous roots, creeping or
spindle-like, and deeply buried in the ground. The _Citrullus vulgaris_
and _C. amarus_ are found in enormous quantities. Dr. Livingstone speaks
of another individual of the gourd tribe, probably a kind of _Cucumis_,
whose fruits colour red when ripe, and which has sometimes a sweet and
sometimes a bitter flavour. In these vast regions, where a desolating
aridity prevails, the rivers and streams dry up for a great portion of
the year, and the soil of their bed, generally black and loamy, is
rapidly covered with a profuse vegetation, composed in great part of
grasses and rush-plants.
The banks of the rivers Mokolo and Zouga, and the shores of Lake Ngami,
are covered with herbs and small thorny stunted bushes, including the
_Acacia detinens_. In the south of Africa the soil is so dry that only
plants of a fleshy consistency can endure the heat; elsewhere, in more
temperate climes, these latter plants are also very abundant, but the
surrounding herbage destroys them. Among those which grow there in great
numbers I may name the Ficoideæ, and particularly the _Mesembryanthemum
inflexum_, which is very widely spread, and whose stems and leaves are
eaten by herbivorous animals. This plant, says Dr. Livingstone, is so
useful that it is cultivated by the Dutch Boers on an extensive scale.
On his northward route towards Linianty, this illustrious traveller fell
in with meadows of such rank fertility that its herbage frequently rose
above his vehicles. The natives, designated Makalatos, show some
agricultural taste and skill, and cultivate durra, maize, two kinds of
beans, arachides, pumpkins, and the like. Everywhere, along the banks of
the Gambye and the Liba, he met with exceptionally fertile land, where
the grasses attained an unusual development. On the Liba bloomed wide
verdurous plains, consisting of plants with dazzling corollas and
gramineæ of tall stature. Owing to the burning heats which blight these
districts, herbaceous plants are developed with extraordinary rapidity.
In the rainy season the Liba meadows are covered, like our own, with an
immense variety of mushrooms, some nutritious, others poisonous. The
former are much relished by the natives. One of the most common, and
one of the finest flavour, is found, says Dr. Livingstone, on all the
ant-hills; it is completely white, very good even when eaten raw, and
about eight inches in diameter. There is another of a brilliant red or
superb blue, but it is poisonous.
The banks of the Quilo, like those of the Quango, are endowed with a
most luxurious vegetation; the same is the case with the banks of the
Zambesi. Everywhere spreads a gigantic and abundant herbage. In the
environs of the small town of Cassanga, the natives cultivate manioc,
potatoes, haricots, tomatoes, &c. There are found also bananas and guava
plants, and probably all the legumes and fruit trees recognized by Dr.
Welwitsch at Benguela, which lies nearly under the same latitude. From
the table-land of Cassanga you may survey nearly the whole of the valley
watered by the Quango. It is a gently undulating plain, covered with
herbs, and sown with great woods. The coffee-tree was formerly
cultivated in the province of Tété, but has been abandoned; cassias,
however, flourish, and indigo. Among the cultivated plants of Tété
Livingstone, moreover, mentions some species which are not yet
botanically distinguished--such as the Loatsa (_Pennisetum typhoideum_),
and several of the bean tribe, one of which grows underground like the
arachides.