These meadow-lands suffer from excessive aridity; it is only with an arduous struggle that a few grasses resist the dryness which almost constantly prevails; and frequently, as is the case in other parts of Western Africa, the inhabitants can only procure water for their needs by sinking wells of extraordinary depth. Less arid, the southern part of Kordofan is better clothed with vegetation; the country is more broken, and increases in picturesqueness of aspect as we approach the neighbourhood of Mount Tegeler. Sennaar, which is traversed by the Blue Nile, is far from offering an equally luxuriant vegetation: along the river extends a vast belt of meadow, generally barren, or only blessed with a few herbaceous plants, a few Leguminosæ, with deeply-buried roots; and its aspect, therefore, is one of great gloom. The landscape wants "The glory in the grass, and the splendour in the flower" which appeal so potently to the sensibilities of the poet. Nor does the scenery improve as we ascend the Sennaar to the Lake of Zana, situated to the south-east, for though the rich black soil of the Kulla valley nourishes a profuse vegetation, it is the vegetation peculiar to the marsh and the swamp; the wind rushes through thick sedges, and whispering reeds, and waving grasses. On the northern borders of the lake the pasturages are fresh and green, and a man might easily lurk unseen among their gigantic Gramineæ, the Panicas and the Setarias. Still keeping our faces eastward, like the Ghebirs of ancient Iran, we perceive that Abyssinia is divided into two parts by the River Tacazze, an affluent of the Nile; the western being called Amhora, and the eastern Tigré. Owing to its peculiar geographical configuration and the elevation of its mountains, Abyssinia rejoices in a wholly special Flora. In the Semen, west of the Tacazze, there is a mountain lifting its crest above the limit of perpetual snow, or to an altitude of 14,000 feet. Up to a height of 6500 feet its slopes are thickly carpeted with fresh and fragrant sward, and the air throbs with the music of a hundred streams which flow from the perennial fountains of ice and snow.