About a day before we finally issued out of the forest region we were made still further aware what curious novelties in plants a natural conservatory can produce. Between Mtarega and Ulegga we were astonished at the huge girth of the wild banana plant, some of them being eighteen inches in diameter two feet above the ground. The fronds were gathered at the top of the stalk like an artificial bouquet, but presently spread out, two feet wide and ten feet in length, forming graceful curves and a most cooling shade, the leaves circling the flowers, which were like great rosettes with drooping tassels. There seemed to be no limit to the altitude at which these wild bananas grew, though we observed that their number on the mountain slopes became more limited above 8,000 feet. The tree-ferns, reaching as high as thirty feet from the ground, presented themselves in a series of narrow groves along the moist hollows or near banks of streamlets, while an untold variety of smaller ferns grew in their neighbourhood, as though they were determined to prove their relationship to the giants of the fern family. Then the calamus, climbing from one tall tree to another with resolute grasp, next attracted our attention. In the neighbourhood of such fern-groves the trees were veritable giants, the orchids in their forks were most numerous, and the elephant-eared lichen studded the horizontal branches, while every tree was draped with soft green moss, beaded with dew, and seemed sodden through excess of moisture. Though the forest region ends as we enter Ulegga, the interval between it and Mtsora is so devoted to cultivation by the natives that it is only at the latter place that we become fully aware that we have entered a new region. Looking towards the W.N.W. we see the commencement of a brown grassy plain, the very duplicate of that extending round the southern end of Lake Albert. In appearance it is as flat as though the level bottom of a lake had just appeared in view and continues thus to the Albert Edward Nyanza. Between Mtsora and Muhamha we travelled along the edge of the low plain or ancient bed of the northern portion of the Southern Nyanza, but soon after leaving the last village we began to breast the mountains in order to avoid the circuitous route along the plain round the promontory of Sangwé-Mirembé. As we journeyed towards the south-west over these hills we observed that in the same manner as a change had come over the character of the Semliki Valley the slopes of Ruwenzori had also undergone a similar change. Instead of the thick forests which climbed up the lower slopes and covered the ravines, and wild bananas and wonderful ferneries, and general sappiness and luxuriance of the various species of vegetation, pastoral grass waved on every slope and crest, while a healthful cool breeze caused us to bless our fortune in having parted from the close, heated and moist atmosphere of the Semliki.