On the 26th of February the old queen came to the tent which I occupied on the island, having been informed that the presents designed for her majesty there awaited her. On this occasion she had a costume somewhat different. She had made a fresh selection of her paraphernalia from her iron rings and chains, and so arrayed herself anew. I had prepared everything for a stately reception, as I was anxious to leave behind me an impression as favourable as Miss Tinné. There were beads as large as eggs, such as never before were seen in this country; there were marbles of green and blue from the Oriental plains: she was told they were for her. Next there were chains of steel; these, too, were hers: then that majestic chair of plaited straw; she could scarcely believe that she was to have it for her throne. But the crowning charm of all was an immense bronze medal, with a chain of plated gold, which she could hang about her neck; it was in fact, a commemoration of a German professor’s jubilee, with the Emperor’s likeness upon it; but no one can conceive the admiration it excited. She was really touched, and the sailors and soldiers seemed to like the medal as much as she did. The gifts which were made to me in return consisted of a calabash full of butter, a goat, a sheep, and a splendid bull of a peculiar breed, without horns. The most remarkable plant amongst the islands of the Meshera is a climbing passion-flower—the _Adenia venenata_, the bright green leaves of which are applied by the natives of Central Africa for the purpose of drawing blisters. These leaves have, however, a poisonous property, which has proved fatal to camels. Camels have but a feeble faculty of smelling, and eat freely of whatever looks green, so that all attempts to acclimatise them here have been without success. It is the same plant which deprived Sir Samuel Baker of his pack-ass in Latuka. The most noticeable thing about the plant is the large development of its stem, which grows half under the soil, and projects with a strange protuberance some cubic feet in content. At the end of this the stem breaks out into a number of long climbing stalks, which mount upwards to a considerable height. One example of these stems I packed in linen and sent to Berlin, where, after a period of ten months, it was found to retain its vitality, and in a palm-house soon developed a number of young shoots.