The want of speedy drainage destroys them, and injures the growth of those that are planted on the islands, for they have no depth of earth not subjected to the souring influence of the stagnant water.

The plains of Lobale, to the west of these, are said to be much more extensive than any we saw, and their vegetation possesses similar peculiarities.

When the stagnant rain-water has all soaked in, as must happen during the months in which there is no rain, travelers are even put to straits for want of water.

This is stated on native testimony; but I can very well believe that level plains, in which neither wells nor gullies are met with, may, after the dry season, present the opposite extreme to what we witnessed.

Water, however, could always be got by digging, a proof of which we had on our return when brought to a stand on this very plain by severe fever: about twelve miles from the Kasai my men dug down a few feet, and found an abundant supply; and we saw on one of the islands the garden of a man who, in the dry season, had drunk water from a well in like manner.