There were bright scarlet geraniums, and starlike sweet-scented jessamines, and the gorgeous belladonna lily, with its large blossoms of rose-colour and white; and there were not only plants in flower, but bushes, and even trees, covered with gaudy and sweetly-perfumed blossoms.

There was the "sugar-bush" (_Protea mellifera_), the most beautiful of its family, with its large cup-shaped corollas of pink, white, and green; and there, too, was the "silver-tree" (_Leucodendron argenteum_), whose soft silvery leaves playing in the breeze, looked like a huge mass of silken flowers; and there were the mimosas covered with blossoms of golden yellow that filled the air with their strong and agreeable perfume.
Rare forms of vegetation were around or near at hand: the arborescent aloes, with their tall flower-spikes of coral red, and euphorbias of many shapes; and _zamia_, with its palm-like fronds; and the soft-leaved _Strelitzia reginae_.

All these were observed in the neighbourhood of this new-discovered fountain.
But what received little Truey's admiration more than any other was the beautiful blue waterlily (_Nympha caerulea_), which is certainly one of the loveliest of Africa's flowers.

Close by the spring, but a little farther in the direction of the plain, was a vley, or pool--in fact, it might have been termed a small lake--and upon the quiet bosom of its water the sky-blue corollas lay sleeping in all their gorgeous beauty.
Truey, leading her little pet in a string, had gone down on the bank to look at them.

She thought she could never cease gazing at such pretty things.
"I hope papa will stay here a long time," she said to her companion, little Jan.
"And I hope so too.