We remained in Wando’s camp from the 2nd to the 6th of March. The wood at Dyagbe was most luxuriant, and every day it unlocked to me new and untold treasures, which were a permanent delight. Here, too, was unfolded before my gaze the full glory of what we shall in future understand as “a gallery.”
My predecessor, the Italian Piaggia, whose meagre description of the Niam-niam lands betrays, in spite of all, an acute power of observation, has designated these tracts of bank vegetation as “galleries.” The expression seems to me so appropriate and significant that I cannot help wishing it might be generally adopted. I will endeavour briefly to state in what the peculiarities of these “galleries” consist.
In a way that answers precisely to the description which Dr. Livingstone in his last accounts has given of the country to the west of Lake Tanganyika, and which is not adequately accounted for either by the geological aspect of the region or by any presumed excess of rain, there is sometimes found a numerical aggregate of springs which is beyond precedent. These springs result in a perpetual waterflow, which in the north would all be swallowed up by the thirsty soil of low and open plains, but which here in the Niam-niam country is all restrained within deep-cut channels that form, as it were, walls to confine the rippling stream. The whole country, which is nowhere less than 2000 feet above the level of the sea, is like an over-full sponge. The consequence of this is, that many plants which in the north disappear as soon as the fall of the waters deprives them of their moisture, are here found flourishing all the year round; so that all the vales and chinks through which the water makes its way are permanently adorned with a tropical luxuriance. The variety of trees and the manifold developments of the undergrowth conspire to present a spectacle charming as any that could be seen upon the coast of Guinea or in the countries which are watered by the lower Niger. But, notwithstanding all this, the vegetation altogether retains its own specific character up in the higher tracts between stream and stream, and corresponds to what we have been familiar with ever since we put our foot upon the red soil of Bongoland, being a park-like wood, of which the most conspicuous feature is the magnitude of the leaves.
DUALISM OF VEGETATION.
I have previously had occasion to mention how a dualism of the same kind marked the vegetation of the whole country south of the Hoo, where the formation of the land first changed from the monotonous alternations between low grass flats and undulated wood-terraces. It would almost seem as if the reason for the altered law which presides over the water-courses is to be sought in the increasing elevation of the soil, and in the opening of the lower plain of the swamp-ore, which, being furrowed up with a multitude of channels, allows the unfailing supply of all the numerous springs to flow away.
Trees with immense stems, and of a height surpassing all that we had elsewhere seen (not even excepting the palms of Egypt), here stood in masses which seemed unbounded except where at intervals some less towering forms rose gradually higher and higher beneath their shade. In the innermost recesses of these woods one would come upon an avenue like the colonnade of an Egyptian temple, veiled in the leafy shade of a triple roof above. Seen from without, they had all the appearance of impenetrable forests, but, traversed within, they opened into aisles and corridors which were musical with many a murmuring fount.
Hardly anywhere was the height of these woods less than 70 feet, and on an average it was much nearer 100; yet, viewed from without, they very often failed to present anything of that imposing sight which was always so captivating when taken from the brinks of the brooks within. In some places the sinking of the ground along which the gallery-tunnels ran would be so great that not half the wood revealed itself at all to the contiguous steppes, while in that wood (out of sight as it was) many a “gallery” might still exist.
Most of those gigantic trees, the size of the stems of which exceed any of our own venerable monarchs of the woods, belong to the class either of the Sterculiæ or the Boswelliæ, to which perhaps may be added that of the Cæsalpiniæ; the numerous Fig-trees, the Artocarpeæ, the Euphorbiaceæ, and the endless varieties of the Rubiaceæ, must be entirely excluded from that category, and few representatives of this grade belong to the region of the underwood. Amongst the plants of second and third rank there were many of the large-leaved varieties, and the figs again, as well as the Papilionaceæ and especially the Rubiaceæ had an important place to fill. There was no lack of thorny shrubberies; and the Oncoba, the Phyllanthus, the Celastrus, and the Acacia ataxacantha, cluster after cluster, were met with in abundance. Thick creepers climbed from bough to bough, the Modecca being the most prominent of all; but the Cissus with its purple leaf, the Coccinea, the prickly Smilax, the Helmiæ, and the Dioscoreæ all had their part to play. Made up of these, the whole underwood spread out its ample ramifications, its green twilight made more complete by the thickness of the substance of the leaves themselves.
FERNS.
Down upon the very ground, again, there were masses, all but impenetrable, of plants of many and many a variety which contributed to fill up every gap that was left in this mazy labyrinth of foliage. First of all there were the extensive jungles of the Amoma and the Costus rising full fifteen feet high, and of which the rigid stems (like the haulms of the towering grass) either bar out the progress of a traveller altogether or admit him, if he venture to force his way among them, only to fall into the sloughs of muddy slime from which they grow. And then there was the marvellous world of ferns destitute indeed of stems, but running in their foliage to some twelve feet high. Boundless in the variety of the feathery articulations of their fronds, some of them seemed to perform the graceful part of throwing a veil over the treasures of the wood; and others lent a charming contrast to the general uniformity of the leafy scene. High above these there worked themselves the large slim-stemmed Rubiaceæ (Coffeæ), which by regularity of growth and symmetry of leaf appeared to imitate, and in a measure to supply the absence of, the arboraceous ferns. Of all other ferns the most singular that I observed was that which I call the elephant’s ear. This I found up in trees at a height of more than 50 feet, in association with the Angræca and the long grey barb of the hanging Usneæ.