The gathering is nearly as simple a process as the planting. Each single plant is pulled away from the loose earth, and the tubers are allowed to remain attached. In quality and size they differ very materially. As the death of our poor Bongo bearer had testified, some of the varieties when eaten in a crude form are most poisonous, and even when boiled they are very injurious unless the fibrous fringes have been removed from the hearts. Scientific analysis has shown that they contain a certain proportion of prussic acid, and there is no doubt that their leaves when bruised emit the decided odour of bitter almonds. The unwholesome kinds are generally of small growth, and as a rule are of very woody texture. The finer and nutritious sorts grow as large as a man’s arm, and being very tender may be eaten with no more misgiving than the camanioc of Brazil, which is the form of the vegetable for which a great partiality is shown by the Monbuttoo south of the Welle.
No one can have travelled much in the tropics without being tolerably acquainted with the mode commonly practised of dressing the manioc. I will therefore only pause to mention that the method followed here of getting rid of the poisonous matter does not consist so much in expressing the juices as in cutting up the tubers into pieces, and allowing them to remain in water for more than four-and-twenty hours; the result is that they get a very tainted flavour, which, however, disappears again in the process of drying. A long boiling finally prepares the manioc for eating. The yield of starch, which is known as South American tapioca, is estimated as one third of the weight of the fresh tubers.
Very probably, I should think, manioc has found its way to this extreme limit of its culture from Angola, by means of the intercourse of the people with the states under the dominion of Miwata Yamvo, many of whose customs appear to have been transferred to the Monbuttoo. But in all the northern parts of the Nile region the cultivation of manioc is still unknown, and although it has made its way into nearly all countries on the coasts within the tropics, it has not advanced towards Egypt as far as Nubia, or towards Arabia as far as Abyssinia.
Thoroughly authenticated, meanwhile, stands the fact that it was originally planted by the Portuguese upon the western coasts, and first of all in Angola. An inference may very fairly be deduced that in this way various other plants, such as maize and tobacco, were introduced into Africa, and only became naturalised at some date subsequent to the discovery of America.
After scrutinising this district as fully as I could, I was surprised never to find a single instance of the existence of the Carica papaya, which has now for so long become indigenous to all the maritime tropical countries of the world. Barth speaks of its abundance in the states of Haussa, and other travellers in the tropics have made frequent mention of its growth, but I do not remember finding it in Egypt except as a garden curiosity, while in Nubia and Abyssinia I never met with it at all. I was the first to introduce tomatoes into the district of the Gazelle, and I have no doubt that ere long they will be extensively grown even in the most central localities of Africa. Cultivated so easily as they are, they nevertheless seem to be utterly wanting throughout all the wild districts that have been hitherto explored in the southern portion of the continent.
On the 8th of March some ivory business on the part of Mohammed entailed the break of a day in our continued march. The respite afforded me an opportunity, which I readily embraced, of making a botanising trip to the rich galleries of the woods on the Assika. Bribed by a few copper rings, some natives willingly came with me and were of infinite service in getting me the produce of some gigantic trees which otherwise had been quite inaccessible. Amongst these trees I may specially mention a Treculia, eighty feet high, known as the “pushyoh,” one of the family of the Artocarpeæ. The great globular fruit of this was larger than my head, and seemed to realise the wish of the peasant in the fable where he longed for a tree which would grow pumpkins. I stood and gazed with astonishment at the A-Banga, who seemed to have all the nimbleness of monkeys. By taking hold of the boughs of the smaller trees, and bending them down sideways, and tearing down the long rope-like creepers, they contrived to climb the tallest and the smoothest stems. Some of the trees were ten feet in diameter at the base, and had a bark without a wrinkle; not unfrequently they ran up to a height of some forty feet without throwing out a single branch, standing, as it were, like the columns of a thousand years in the piazzas of the Eternal City.
I had made some chain-shot, but neither by means of this nor by the use of my heaviest single bullets could I succeed in getting any specimens of the fruit which grew on the tops of the tallest trees; my ordinary shot, however, sufficed to bring down some detached leaves, from the examination of which I was able to form an opinion as to the true scientific character of these giants of the wood. My proceedings appeared to confirm the impression which the natives began to form that I must be a leaf-eater.
Here on the Assika I found a kind of muscat-nut (Myristica), and here too I gathered the first examples I had seen of the West African cam-wood (Pterolobium sandalinoides), which after it has been pulverised is commonly used as a favourite rouge for the skin of the Niam-niam and Monbuttoo men. The women, in both districts alike, are accustomed to stain themselves by preference with a black dye that is extracted from the pulp of the Gardenia fruit, known as blippo. Here, likewise, I again saw another of the notorious towering trees of Africa, the mulberry-tree of Angola, which Welwitsch has asserted is known to grow to a height of 130 feet.
OPPOSITION.
Reverting for a moment to what had transpired before, I may mention that, on the preceding day, we had had our first disagreement with the native population. Just before we reached the Assika we were about to halt for a few minutes’ rest, when, although our caravan was accompanied by Kollo and Bakinda, the chiefs of the district through which we were pushing, the owner of the land came and began to inveigh against us with the most abusive language, and, brandishing his spear in defiance, opposed our intention to advance. He wanted to know what right the Turks had to come spying out his place, and declared that he would not submit to have them defile any of his quarters. An outbreak seemed imminent; a mischievous combination was only too likely, when, acting on Kollo’s advice, Mohammed managed to quiet the uproar. He proceeded without further parley to set light to one of the straw huts which was being used as a granary; and it would be impossible to exaggerate the fright and amazement of the natives when they saw him take the flaming fire out of his hand. One single lucifer match had worked a miracle. There was no need of farther measures of reprisal for our protection; when we reached the hamlets on the Assika we found the natives quite amenable to our wishes, and ready to permit us to instal ourselves amidst their dwellings.