1. Richest source at the south-western border of the plantation.

2. Open square in the village, adorned with a luxuriant "karáge" tree.

3. Another rich source in the northern vale.

4 Market place.

CHAP. LIV.

PLAN OF THE OASIS.

71

hamlet borders the

The plantations are

the downs, while a smaller gardens on the south-west side. very carefully fenced, principally with the bush called mágará, which I have mentioned on former occasions; and besides kúka or monkey-bread trees, and kórna, or nebek, a few date palms contributed greatly to enliven the scenery. The monkey-bread trees, however, were all of small size, and of remarkably slender growth, such as I had not before observed, while the public place, or fáge," of the smaller village was adorned by a karáge tree of so rich a growth that it even surpassed, if not in height, at least in the exuberance of its foliage, the finest trees of this species which I had seen in the Músgu country.

I began my survey of this interesting locality on the south side, following first the narrow path which separates the southern village from the plantation, and visiting again the principal source, the rich volume of which, gushing along between the hedges, had already excited my surprise and delight the previous day.

This lower village cannot be very healthy, both on account of its exuberant vegetation, and the quantity of water in which the neighbourhood abounds; but its situation is extremely pleasant to the eye. Keeping then close along the southern border of the plantation, I reached the eastern edge of the western lake, which is thickly overgrown with papyrus and melés, while, in the narrow space left between the plantation

and the lake, the baúre and the gáwasú are the

common trees.

The presence of the latter at this spot seems very remarkable, as this tree, in general, is looked for in vain in this whole region; and I scarcely remember to have seen it again before reaching the village, a few miles to the N.E. of Wurnó, which has thence received its name.

The papyrus covers the whole shore at the point of junction of the two lakes, while in the water itself, where it first becomes brackish, another kind of weed was seen, called "kumba," the core of which is likewise eaten by the greater part of the poorer inhabitants, and is more esteemed than the melés. It was highly interesting to me to observe that my young Shúwa companion, who was brought up on the shores of the Tsád, immediately recognised, from the species of reeds, the nature of the water on the border of which they grew, as this mixed character of brackish and sweet water is, exactly in the same manner, peculiar to the outlying smaller basins of that great Central African lagoon.*

I found the junction of the two lakes from sixty-five to seventy yards broad, and at present fordable, the water being four feet and a half in depth. The difference in the appearance of the natron lake, from that exhibited by the fresh-water basin, was remarkable in the extreme, the water of the one being of a dark-blue

* See what I have said on this subject, Vol. II. p. 325.