There are no deserts in this part, neither are there any dense forests of huge trees, such as we usually think of when Central Africa is mentioned, and such as are really to be found in the Upper Congo basin, on the Gold Coast, and elsewhere. Two Yao boys, who had served in Ashanti with the King’s African Rifles, spoke of the West African forest with the same sort of surprise and wonder as any English rustic might have done. Both, independently, answered the question, ‘What is that country like?’ with the same expression—‘_Palibe kuona_, one cannot see!’ adding that the trees were high—very high (with an upward gesture of hands and eyes)—away up above one’s head. Large trees, growing close together, are just what one does not find, as a rule, in the country we are thinking of. The Bush (_tengo_, or _chire_) usually consists of small trees, thinly scattered, with tufts of grass, small bushes, and various herbaceous plants growing between them, and here and there a large tree standing by itself—perhaps a baobab, or a wild fig, or a silver-thorn acacia, covered with bright golden blossom. Or we have the kind of scenery described by travellers as park-like—open glades, covered with short grass (which, however, never makes turf; you can see the soil between the separate tufts), and dotted with clumps of scrub and small trees, singly or in groups. This is the kind of place where the zebras come to graze—not that I ever had the luck to see any. The small boys who had held out hopes of this treat, said, when we passed the place early in the afternoon, that it was still too hot—the _mbidzi_ were all hidden in the bush, resting in the shade; they would come out to feed on the _dambo_ when it grew cooler. When we returned along the same path the sun was declining, but there were still no _mbidzi_—a party of natives on their way to the village we had left had scared them. Where there are no trees or bushes, the grass is usually of the tall, coarse-growing kind already referred to, which is used in hut-building, and has to be burned off at the end of every dry season—otherwise it would become an impenetrable jungle. The grass-fires serve a double purpose—that of clearing the ground and manuring it—but they nearly always spread to the bush, even if it is not fired purposely, to clear a space for new gardens, or accidentally, by some travellers’ camp-fire. These fires cause the scarcity of large trees, which, as a rule, are only found either in deep ravines along watercourses, which have always escaped the flames, or in the burying-grounds (the sacred groves called _nkalango_), where the people carefully beat out the fire before it reaches them.