The district which we traversed in the morning was distinguished by a great number of kúka or monkey-bread trees, the first one we saw being destitute of leaves, though full of fruit; but gradually, as we approached a more considerable sheet of water, they became adorned with a profusion of rich foliage, and we here met several small parties laden with baskets, of an elongated shape, full of the young leaves of this tree, which, as “kálu kúka,” constitute the most common vegetable of the natives. Besides the kúka, large karáge and kórna or jujube trees (_Zizyphus_), and now and then a fine tamarind tree, though not of such great size as I was wont to see, adorned the landscape. We had just crossed a swamp, at present dry, surrounded on one side by fine fig trees and gerredh of such luxuriant growth that I was scarcely able to recognize the tree, and on the other by talha trees, when, about noon, we emerged into open cultivated ground, and were here greeted with the sight of a pretty sheet of open water, breaking forth from the forest on our left, and dividing into two branches, which receded in the distance. The Bedde call it Thaba-kenáma. The water is full of fish, which is dried by the inhabitants, and, either in its natural form or pounded and formed into balls, constitutes an important article of export. We met a good many people laden with it. It was here that, while admiring this riverlike sheet of water, I recognized, among a troop of native travellers, my friend the sheríf Mohammed Ben Áhmed, to whom I was indebted for a couple of hours very pleasantly and usefully spent during my stay in Yóla, and for the route from Mozambique to the lake Nyanja, or, as it is commonly called, Nyassi. I for a moment hoped that it might be my fate, in the company of this man, to penetrate through the large belt of the unknown equatorial region of this continent towards the Indian Ocean. But as he was now on his way from Zínder to Kúkawa, we had only a few moments allowed for conversation and the exchange of compliments, when we separated in opposite directions, never to meet again,—my fate carrying me westward, while he was soon to succumb to the effects of the climate of Negroland.