This Mass Of Foliage, And Grasses Of Ten Feet In Height
Interwoven With Creeping Plants And Wild Grape-Vines, Is Perfectly
Impenetrable To Man, And Forms A Vast Jungle, Inhabited By Elephants,
Rhinoceros, And Buffaloes, Whose Ponderous Strength Alone Can Overcome
It.
There are few antelopes, as those animals dislike the grass jungles,
in which they have no protection against the lion or the leopard, as
such beasts of prey can approach them unseen.
In the month of January
the grass is sufficiently dry to burn, but even at that period there is
a quantity of fresh green grass growing between the withered stems; thus
the firing of the prairies does not absolutely clear the country, but
merely consumes the dry matter, and leaves a ruin of charred herbage,
rendered so tough by the burning, that it is quite impossible to ride
without cutting the skin from the horse's shins and shoulders.
Altogether, it is a most uninteresting country, as there is no
possibility of traversing it except by the narrow footpaths made by the
natives.
The chief of Obbo came to meet us with several of his head men. He was
an extraordinary-looking man, about fifty-eight or sixty years of age;
but, far from possessing the dignity usually belonging to a grey head,
he acted the buffoon for our amusement, and might have been a clown in a
pantomime.
The heavy storm having cleared, the nogaras beat, and our entertaining
friend determined upon a grand dance; pipes and flutes were soon heard
gathering from all quarters, horns brayed, and numbers of men and women
began to collect in crowds, while old Katchiba, the chief, in a state of
great excitement, gave orders for the entertainment.
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