Kites And Vultures Are Busy
Overhead, Beating The Ground For Their Repast Of Carrion; And The
Solemn-Looking, Stately-Stepping
Marabout, with a taste for dead
fish, or men, stalks slowly along the almost stagnant channels.
Groups of men and
Boys are searching diligently in various places for
lotus and other roots. Some are standing in canoes, on the weed-
covered ponds, spearing fish, while others are punting over the small
intersecting streams, to examine their sunken fish-baskets.
Towards evening, hundreds of pretty little hawks (Erythropus
vespertinus) are seen flying in a southerly direction, and feeding on
dragon-flies and locusts. They come, apparently, from resting on the
palm-trees during the heat of the day. Flocks of scissor-bills
(Rhyncops) are then also on the wing, and in search of food,
ploughing the water with their lower mandibles, which are nearly half
an inch longer than the upper ones.
At the north-eastern end of the marsh, and about three miles from the
river, commences a great forest of palm-trees (Borassus Aethiopium).
It extends many miles, and at one point comes close to the river.
The grey trunks and green tops of this immense mass of trees give a
pleasing tone of colour to the view. The mountain-range, which rises
close behind the palms, is generally of a cheerful green, and has
many trees, with patches of a lighter tint among them, as if spots of
land had once been cultivated. The sharp angular rocks and dells on
its sides have the appearance of a huge crystal broken; and this is
so often the case in Africa, that one can guess pretty nearly at
sight whether a range is of the old crystalline rocks or not.
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