The pasture-land lying between Lake Albert and the forest was subjected to much denudation by rain. Though the bosses of hills, ridges, dykes, bear an approximately uniform level, the intermediate ground varies greatly--it is highest of course as it approaches the Albert, and lowest towards the Ituri river, which drains nearly the whole of the area. It would be difficult, however, to find an absolutely level tract of any respectable extent, though a cursory view of it might decide otherwise. It is a complicated system of slope and counter-slope, supplying scores of tributary rivulets, brooks and stream, belonging to some main feeder of the Ituri. The nature of the soil, being a loose sandy loam--loosened still more by hosts of burrowing beetles, which do the office of moles and earthworms--offers no resistance to the perpetual denuding of the surface by frequent furious and long-lasting rainstorms, despite its rich crops of grass. A visit to one of the streams after a rainstorm reveals how rapid is the process of destruction; and if we follow one of these smaller streams to the confluence with the main tributary, we shall see yet greater proofs of the havoc created in the face of the apparently smooth swells of land than would appear at first possible by a few hours’ heavy rain. In the district in view from Kavalli I have estimated that the entire number of cattle cannot exceed 4,000 head. They are almost equal in size to English oxen, and are of a humpless breed, very different from the species south and east of Lake Victoria. The horns are of medium length, though there are some few distinguished for unusual length of their horns. The bulls, however, were well developed in the hump. The cattle of Usongora and Unyoro are mostly all of a hornless and humpless breed, and principally of a fawn colour; while those of Ankori have immensely long horns, and their hides are of variegated hue. It is said that the cattle are made hornless by burning them with fire, with a view to enable them to penetrate jungles. The owners mark their cattle on the ears with one or several cuts, by piercing or excision at the ends. Kavalli informed me that large numbers of cattle are sometimes poisoned by plants, if they happened to be driven somewhere not generally haunted by them. Repeated burnings of the grass, however, render the herbage innocuous. The plains in the neighbourhood of the Lake are very fatal to the herds. In fifteen days a disease develops, with a running at the nostrils; the milk dries up, the coats begin to stare, the animal refuses to eat, and dies.