The natives of British Central Africa

								

last till March or April. Then begins the ‘hungry time,’ when the old
food is done and the new crops are not yet ripe; it is sometimes a time
of real scarcity, as the supplies barely last out the year, and leave no
margin for emergencies. This is not so much from improvidence as from
the difficulty of preserving the stores from mice and weevils. But some
relief comes before long when the pumpkins, gourds, and cucumbers—many of
which may be gathered wild—are ready, and they help to bridge over the
time before the first ears of green maize can be plucked, though there is
always a good deal of more or less serious illness at this season. About
May the crops are ripe, and the dry season has fairly set in. There are
occasional cold showers in June and July, and sometimes in the hills a
week’s rain in August. At this time a chilly wind blows from the Indian
Ocean, bringing with it heavy clouds, which, on some days, hang low,
drifting along the slopes of the hills, and hurrying away to the west.
Now and then, too, there is a thick white mist, like a sea-fog. But the
sunny days, in the cold season, are bright and exhilarating. On such a
day the difference between the temperature at noon and at night may be as
much as 30°; and the dews are very heavy; a walk through long grass in
the early morning drenches one like heavy rain. After this the air gets
hotter and drier every day, and when the fires begin, it becomes still
more oppressive. The most trying time of the year is the three or four
weeks when the earth and all that is on it are ‘waiting for the rains.’
Curiously enough, the trees burst into leaf—with a greater variety of
colour than our own in autumn—just before the rain comes, when the
ground is so baked and hard that any growth seems impossible.
The variety of trees and plants growing in this country is very great,
though it is somewhat difficult to give any clear idea of them, for most
have no names except native ones, which are pretty, but convey nothing to
the reader, and botanical ones, which are ugly, and in most cases convey
not much more. Such a general term as ‘palms,’ for instance, is of little
use; still, every one knows, to a certain extent, what the different
kinds of palms are like. We have several, all growing on the lower
levels; none are to be found so high as Blantyre, unless cultivated,
except the wild date, which grows beside the streams. The tall, graceful
fan-palms (Borassus and Hyphæne) are very abundant in the plains. I
remember quite a forest of them near Maparera, on the Shiré. When you
descend from the hills either towards the river or towards Lake Chilwa,
baobabs and fan-palms make their appearance and remind you that you are
leaving the temperate heights behind and entering the hotter zone of the
low country.
Ferns are numerous—from the tree-fern, growing in the gorges of Mlanje,
to the smallest and most delicate species of maiden-hair, to be found in