406 MR. W. T. T. DYER ON SOME NEW ECONOMIC 
cens, Benth., a species not uncommon in the Upper Guinea dis- 
trict of Oliver’s ‘Flora of Tropical Africa.’ Barter in fact remarks 
of this, in a manuscript note accompanying a specimen (1593) 
in the Kew Herbarium, collected at Nupe on the Niger:—“ Yields 
a blue dye, which is used in the lower parts of the river.” 
Captain Moloney has recently returned to England on leave. 
He brought with him a selected sample of Yoruba indigo, which 
he presented to the Kew Museum. A portion of this I sub- 
mitted to Dr. Hugo Miiller, F.R.S., Foreign Secretary to the 
Chemical Society, who is well acquainted with the commercial 
value of indigo samples. He very kindly examined the Yoruba 
indigo, and informs me that it is worth from 4s. to 4s. 6d. per 1b., as 
compared with fine Bengal, which is worth from 7s. to 7s. 6d. per 
Ib. It contained, however, a good deal of earthy matter; and if 
this could be eliminated in the manufacture, it would of course 
be worth more. Captain Moloney tells me that the indigo is 
prepared by pounding the leaves in a mortar, and then soaking 
them in a pot containing 14 or 15 gallons of water; the dye 
subsides to the bottom. 
2. Inhambane Copal. 
The history of East-African or Zanzibar copal, the produce of 
Trachylobium Hornemannianum, Hayne, has been so thoroughly 
ascertained by Sir John Kirk*, that it seemed scarcely probable 
that East Tropical Africa would yield another somewhat similar 
but distinct product. 
In the course of last year, however, we received from the 
Foreign Office a copy of a despatch (dated June 11, 1882) to 
the Secretary of State from Mr. Henry G. O'Neill, H.M. Consul 
for Mozambique. I extract the following passages from it f. 
“I have the honour to report that from Mr. James Heathcote, 
of Inhambane (the trader that was employed by me for the 
recovery of the body of the late Captain Wybrants), l have 
received information of the discovery of a considerable tract of 
copal-forest, which, if it should turn out to be as rich as he 
anticipates, will add a valuable export to the trade of that place. 
“He had just returned from an expedition to the interior, and 
writes, the forest where I obtained this gum, of which I send 
* Journ. Linn, Soc. Botany, vol. xi. pp. 1-4 and 479-481, xy. pp. 234-235. 
+ Some extracts from Consul O'Neill's despatch appeared in ‘ Nature’ for 
Aug. 10, 1882, p. 351; but I reproduce the substance here in order to make 
the whole account complete. 
