The mountains between Suakin and Singat afford a habitat for such numbers of remarkable plants that they appear for their variety alone well worth a visit. The most striking forms which arrest the attention of the uninitiated are the Dracænæ and Euphorbiæ, remarkable as both are for their fantastic shapes. They flourish on the loftiest heights, but are found 2000 feet below, towards the valleys. The first belong to those types of vegetation which (as though they had been carried in the air and dropped from another world) are limited to extremely narrow sections of the earth. The first dragon-trees (_dracænæ_) which were observed in the African continent, are those which are to be found on these mountains alone, and even here only over an area of a few square miles.[3] The Nubian dracænæ, being only from 15 to 20 feet in height, are dwarfish in comparison with their famous sister of Orotava in Teneriffe, but in other respects there are only minute and subtle distinctions between them and those which are found in the Canary Isles. In the language of the native nomad tribes of the Hadendoa and Bishareen, the dracæna is known as “To-Omba” or “T’Ombet.” The leaves afford bast for cords, the long flower stalks serve in June as excellent food for camels, whilst for goats they are almost poison.[4] Another remarkable feature of this mountain-district is the large number of succulent plants, the fantastic forms of which here appropriately adorn the craggy walls of the valley, and supply a needed decoration to the more barren rocks of Southern Nubia. In Abyssinia itself neither euphorbiæ nor aloes are ever found at an altitude of less than 4000 feet. Here, beside the giant Kolkwal, they are found much lower towards the valley. Four smaller kinds of the same species, as well as some remarkable Stapeliæ (which resemble the cactus type of the euphorbiæ), flourish to the very summit of the mountains. Found in company with them is a wild unearthly-looking plant called the Caraïb (_Bucerosia_), of which the branches are like wings, prickly and jagged round the edges like a dragon’s back. They produce clusters of brown flowers as large as one’s fist, which exhale a noxious and revolting smell, the plants themselves being swollen with a white and slimy poisonous juice. [Illustration: OMBET—DRAGON-TREES.] [Sidenote: THE LASSAV.]