At the end of a fortnight I made a trip to the south-east, the first of a series of excursions to Ghattas’s different Seribas, which lay four or five leagues apart. On this tour I learnt something of the river Tondy, on which is established the Seriba known as Addai. The river was now at its lowest level, and was flowing north-east in a tolerably rapid current, between precipitous banks fifteen feet in height. In depth it varied from four to seven feet, and it was about thirty feet in breadth; in the rainy season, however, for three miles, the adjacent steppes are covered with its floods, which are always very prolific in fish. Before the Tondy joins the Gazelle, as it does in the district of the Nueir, it spreads irregularly over the low-lying country and leaves its shores quite undefined. In this way it forms a number of swamps, all but inaccessible, to which the Dinka, whenever they are threatened by plundering excursions from the Seribas, lose no time in driving their herds. Although the Tondy is nearly as long as the Dyoor, it is very inferior in its volume of water. Like several of the less important rivers of this region, it flows for a long distance without any appreciable increase either in size or speed. These streams intersect the country and cut it up into narrow sections, which are rarely designated on the maps. The second of the Seribas which I visited was called Geer, and was just four leagues to the south of the chief settlement. It was surrounded by bamboo-jungles, and was situated in a prolific corn-valley, watered by a tributary of the Tondy. It contained about 800 huts, occupied by Bongo, who had settled there. The road to Geer, nearly all the way, was over a firm, rocky soil, through bush forests, swarming with wart-hogs (_Phacochærus_). About three-quarters of a league on the way, stood a dense mass of lofty trees, not unlike an alder grove. It was traversed by rain-courses, and surrounded by low swampy steppes, which in the rainy season are entirely under water. The wood consisted mainly of tall uncariæ and eugeniæ, 80 feet in height, of which the long, straight stems were crowned by spreading foliage: it was the first bit of the primæval forests which fill up the valleys through which flow the rivers of the Niam-niam. I paid many visits to this interesting spot; by the people in the Seriba it was termed Genana, the Arabic word for a garden. In its grateful shade grew dense thickets of red-blossomed melastomaceæ, intermingled with giant aroideæ (_Amorphophallus_), and bowers of creepers. The character of the vegetation was in striking contrast to the other forests of the district, and for the first time reminded me of the splendour of our northern woods—it was like an enclave of the luxuriant flora of West Africa, transported to this region of bushes and steppes.