Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/69

49 NEW AFRICAN PLANTS. (Plates 855, 356.) Dr. a. Donaldson Smith has lately presented to the British Museum a collection of plants made during his expedition through Somaliland to Lake Eudolf in 1894-95. Unfortunately many of the specimens were injured by damp, but those which remain are of considerable interest. Messrs. E. G. Baker and Rendle have worked out some of these, and have described the following novelties, in addition to the two Ipomoeas described on pp. 36, 37. Dr. Donaldson Smith gave a lecture on his travels before the Royal Geographical Society on Jan. 6th, in the course of which he said that during a sporting trip in Somaliland over two years ago he conceived the idea that he could carry an expedition across that large extent of unexplored country lying between the Shebeli river and Lake Rudolf, with Somalis as a guard, and camels and pack animals. Accordingly he came back to England, and set to work to fit out an expedition, engaging the services of Mr. Edward Dodson, a young taxidermist at the British Museum. Accompanied by Mr. Gillett, they set sail from London on June 1st, 1894. On July 10th they were able to give the order to march from Berbera. They were soon across the hundred miles of bushy, waterless plateau-land called the Haud, and found themselves at Milmil, in the Ogadain country. As their route lay directly west, it was principally through a rough country. The Ogadain was dry, like the rest of Somaliland ; the wells and pools of water in the river- beds were far apart, and to the south-west the water was brackish. This was not the case, of course, during the spring and autumn rains, but it was astonishing how quickly the country assumed its half-parched appearance after the rains had ceased. The country became gradually more interesting as it was more unknown. They had one march of three days through a waterless, hilly country, called Sibe. There was no crossing the Ezer, owing to the great rocky walls that surround it, so they had to march down Turfi tug to its junction with the Shebeli river. The Shebeli was flooded, and it was all they could do to cross it. As they progressed they only found a few poor villages of a hundred souls each, the natives presenting the most abject appearance imaginable. The remnant of a great tribe, they were the Arusa Gallas, and their native land extended fifty miles west of the Shebeli river. On Sept. 17th they arrived at Luku, where they were astonished to find a stone tomb erected to a Mohammedan, Sheikh Abai Ezied; and a few days later they reached the imposing tomb of Sheikh Husein. There were five other white tombs of sheikhs scattered about the hilltop on which the town is situated, making quite a gay appearance. The Abyssinian General in command of this country, Wal-da-Gubbra, requested the presence of the leaders of the expedition at Ginia, and showed them every honour. After waiting at Ginia for a month for the permission of King Menelek to proceed, they decided to start secretly, but, after jour- JouRNAL OF Botany. — Vol, 34. [Feb. 1896.] i;