The wide stretch of country between the Tondy and the Dyoor, extending some seventy miles, had but three years since been a populous district with many huts; now, however, it had only a few scattered habitations of the Bongo, which were grouped in the vicinity of either Aboo Sammat’s or Shereefee’s Seribas. Since the Bongo have been expelled by the Dinka, nothing but elephants and antelopes have found their pasture in those wild plains, which have once been cultivated. Occasionally the ruins of the burnt villages were still extant, rising above the rank grass. Nothing survived as direct evidence of the habitation of men; what scanty remnants of dwelling-places the first conflagration of the steppes had spared, either the ants or natural decay had soon destroyed. The only remaining vestiges of the occupation of the land are due to the richness of vegetation, and this has left its characteristic traces. I could specify some fifty or sixty plants which correspond so accurately with the weeds of other cultivated countries that they are significant tokens of a former presence of men. The preponderating Indian origin of all these plants is very observable, and a better acquaintance with the geographical facts connected with them would probably be as trustworthy an indication of the various migrations of an uncivilized people who have no history as either their dialect or their physical development. Five leagues away from Duggoo we arrived at Dogguddoo, the second Seriba of Shereefee, where he was then resident. Many a slough and many a marsh had we to traverse on our progress, the result of the rain which had been falling for months. Midway we paused for a rest beside the relics of a great Bongo village, where stood the ruins of a large fence of the same description as is seen around the present Seribas. In the very centre of the village had stood, as is commonly found, an exceedingly fine fig-tree (_F. lutea_), and there were besides, a large number of tombs constructed of blocks of stone and ornamented with strangely-carved posts; at some little distance was a number of handmills that had been left behind, destined for some years to come to be a memorial of the past. The spot, named after the previous governor, was called Pogao. Shortly afterwards we arrived at a charming little brook, known as the Mattyoo, which, under the shadow of a pleasant copse-wood, went babbling over its red rocky bed, making little cascades and rapids as it streamed along.