“Cover the coast belt with rank yellow grass, dot here and there a palm, scatter through it a few demoralised villages, and stock it with the leopard, the hyena, the crocodile, and the hippopotamus; clothe the mountainous plateaux next, both of them with endless forest, not grand umbrageous forest, like the forests of South America, nor matted jungle like the forests of India, but with thin, rather weak forest, with forest of low trees, whose half-grown trunks and scanty leaves offer no shade from the tropical sun,”--but you will find nothing in all these trees to remind you that you are in the tropics. “Day after day you may wander through these forests with nothing except the climate to remind you where you are * * * * *.” “The fairy labyrinth of ferns and palms, the festoons of climbing plants blocking the paths and scenting the forests with their resplendent flowers, the gorgeous clouds of insects, the gaily plumaged birds, the parraquets, the monkey swinging from his trapeze in the shaded bowers--these are unknown to Africa.” “Once a week you will see a palm; once in three months the monkeys will cross your path; the flowers on the whole are few, the trees are poor, and, to be honest”--but enough; if this is honest description, the reader had better toss my books aside, for this chapter goes to prove that I differ in toto with the learned Professor’s views respecting tropical Africa. We have travelled together thus far 1670 miles through the great central African forest, and we can vouch that the above description by Professor Drummond bears no more resemblance to tropical Africa than the tors of Devon, or the moors of Yorkshire, or the downs of Dover represent the smiling scenes of England, of leafy Warwickshire, the gardens of Kent, and the glorious vales of the isle. Nyassaland is not Africa, but itself. Neither can we call the wilderness of Masai Land, or the scrub-covered deserts of Kalahari, or the rolling grass land of Usukuma, or the thin forests of Unyamwezi, or, the ochreous acacia-covered area of Ugogo, anything but sections of a continent that boasts many zones. Africa is about three times greater than Europe in its extent, and is infinitely more varied. You have the desert of deserts in the Sahara, you have the steppes of Eastern Russia in Masai Land and parts of South Africa, you have the Castilian uplands in Unyamwezi, you have the best parts of France represented by Egypt, you have Switzerland in Ukonju and Toro, the Alps in Ruwenzori--you have Brazil in the Congo basin, the Amazon in the Congo River, and its immense forests rivalled by the Central African forest which I am about to describe.