Turning short off, almost at a right angle to our previous direction, our way beyond Duggoroo, after seven leagues, over a country well-wooded and rich in game, led us to the borders of Aboo Sammat’s territory. Once again the land began to rise, and appeared to be all but barren in water-courses of any kind. As we went along I picked up, in a state of perfect preservation, several of the bleached skulls of some of Aboo Sammat’s bearers, who, wounded in the murderous attack by Shereefee’s people, had never been able to regain their homes. In a bag, which one of my attendants constantly carried, I had a collection made of a number of the great land-snails which, after the termination of the rains, abounded in this region. The two kinds which appeared most common were _Limnicolaria nilotica_ and _L. flammea_; of these, the former is rather more than four inches in length, the latter rather more than three. They invade the bushes and shrubs, and have a great partiality for the tender leaves of the numerous varieties of wild vine. They serve as food for a number of birds, the _Centropus monachus_, the cuckoo of the climate, in particular having a keen relish for them. Their shells are as thin as paper, a circumstance which, like the brittleness in the egg-shells of hens, testifies to the deficiency of chalk in the soil. I was in need of soap, and the chief object which I had in taking the trouble to collect these shells was to obtain what cretaceous matter I could, to enable me to make a supply, no other method of getting it occurring to my mind. At night we rested at a poor Seriba called Matwoly, where we were received in some dilapidated huts, as the place, together with all its Bongo adjuncts, for greater security against the attacks of Shereefee, was about to be abandoned. The wearisome monotony of the woods, now generally stripped of their foliage, was enlivened by the fresh green of the Combretum, which here long anticipates every other tree in putting forth its tender buds. Gaily it stands apart from the uniform grey and brown of the surrounding forest, thrown into yet higher relief by the yellow of the mass of withered grass below, and showing itself brightly from the half-shaded gloom of the wood beyond.