[Horses’ Tails.][220]
The men sometimes, in a valorous resolution, will devote themselves unto some haughty attempt in the wars; and, taking leave of the king, will vow never to return until they bring him a horse-head, or some other thing, very dangerous in the enterprise, and will either do it or die. Horse-tails are great jewels, and two slaves will be given for one tail, which commonly they bring from the River of Plate, where horses are exceedingly increased and grown wild. They will, by firing the grass round about, hem the horses about with a fiery circle, the fire still straightening and growing nearer till they have advantage enough to kill them. Thus have the European cattle, of horse and kine, so increased in the other world, as they spare not to kill the one for their hides, and the other for their tails.
Chapter IX, § II.—Of Congo.
[A Crocodile Story.][221]
... Andrew Battell told me of a huge crocodile which was reported to have eaten a whole Alibamba, that is, a company of eight or nine slaves chained together, and at last paid for his greediness: the chain holding him slave, as before it had the negroes, and by his undigestible nature devouring the devourer; remaining in the belly of him after he was found, in testimony of this victory. He hath seen them watch and take their prey, haling a gennet, man, or other creature into the water. A soldier thus drawn in by a crocodile, in shallower waters, with his knife wounded him in the belly, and slew him.
Chapter IX, § III.—Of their ... Strange Trees....
Having stated that they use in Congo to make “clothes of the Enzanda tree,[222] of which some write the same things that are reported of the Indian fig-tree,” that it sends forth a hairy substance from the branches, which no sooner touch the ground but they take root, and grow up in such sort, that one tree would multiply itself into a wood if nature set not some obstacle (a marginal note adds that “Andrew Battell saith that the tree which thus strangely multiplieth itself is called the Manga tree”[223]). Purchas continues as follows:—
“But more admirable is that huge tree called Alicunde,[224] of which my friend Andrew Battell supposeth some are as big (besides their wonderful tallness) as twelve men can fathom. It spreads like a oak. Some of them are hollow, and the liberal clouds into those natural casks disperse such plenty of water, that one time three or four thousand of them, in that hot region, continued four and twenty hours at one of these, which yielded them all drink of her watery store, and was not emptied. Their negroes climbed up with pegs[225] (for the tree is smooth and not therefore otherwise to be climbed, and so soft that it easily receiveth pegs of harder wood, driven into her yielding substance with a stone), and dipped the water, as it had been out of a well. He supposed that there is forty tuns of water in some one of them. It yielded them a good opportunity for honey, to which end the country people make a kind of chest, with one hole in the same, and hang it upon one of these trees, which they take down once a year, and with fire or smoke chasing or killing the bees, take thence a large quantity of honey.[226] Neither is it liberal alone to the hungry or thirsty appetite, but very bountifully it clothes their backs, and the bark thereof, which, being taken from the younger Alicundes [nkondo], and beaten, one fathom which they cut out from the tree will by this means extend itself into twenty, and presently is cloth fit for wearing, though not so fine as that which the Inzanda[227] tree yieldeth. [It serves them also for boats, one of which cut out in proportion of a scute[228] will hold hundreds of men.”][229] In a further marginal note Purchas adds: “These boats, saith Andrew Battell, are made of another tree, for the Alicunde is of too spongy a substance for that purpose.”