Africa.
Captain Clapperton (Expedition to Africa, i., 133, 187) found at Wow-wow, the metropolis of Borghoo, a kind of ale bearing the name of pitto, obtained from the same grain as that used for the same purpose in Dahomey, and by a process nearly similar to the brewing of beer in England from malt, only that no hops were added, a defect which prevented it keeping for any length of time. The people of the countries from the Gambia to the Senegal use a kind of beer called ballo. At a village called Wezo there is a beer called otèe, a sort of ale made from millet, of a very enlivening nature. Another sort of beer, called gear, is found at Ragada. At Whidah an excellent beer is made from two sorts of maize. The Jews at Taffilet use beer of their own brewing. Isaacs (Travels in Africa, ii., 319) says that the Zoola nation, between Delagoa Bay and the Bay of Natal, has a description of beer, with which the natives are wont to get drunk. This beer is made from a seed called loopoco, something in size and colour like rape. It has powerful fermenting properties, and forms a beverage of a light brown hue, potent and stimulating. In Sofala a beer is made from rice and millet; also in Abyssinia is to be found a drink of many names—tallah, or selleh, or donqua, or sona—commonly brewed from wheat, millet or barley, mixed with a bitter herb called geso. According to Bruce, Abyssinian beer of an inferior kind is made from tocusso. This is really a variety of bouza, which is also made from teff, the poa abyssinica of botanists.