206 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



AFRICA 



As stated, Africa outside of the advanced cultured areas around the 

 Mediterranean was entirely in the torch stage. A variety of torches 

 were used but not much information on them is available. The 

 resin torch, is like the East Indian, found in Africa. A specimen 54 

 inches long was collected at Loango, French Congo, in 1885. The 

 torch is a long cylindrical mass of resin wrapped in palm leaf and 

 encased in cane splints interwoven by a spirally worked strip. It 

 was used by natives when fishing, traveling, or when engaged in fetish 

 rites (pi. 33, fig. 6). A smaller resin torch mounted on a stick is from 

 West Africa (pi. 33, fig. 12). Doctor Verneau, describing his researches 

 in the ancient caves of the Grand Canary, says: "I found fragments 

 of tea, Pinus canariensis, a very resinous wood, playing apparently, 

 as in our days, an important r61e in illumination." ^° 



In Madagascar torches made of bamboo were used." 



In Abyssinia rags dipped in the juice of the Euphorbia ahyssinica 

 are rolled up for torches." 



The torch used by the link boys of Cairo, Egypt, were iron openwork 

 baskets secured to the end of a pole, and sometimes three such baskets 

 were placed on a staff which could be thrust in the ground. In them 

 was burnt flax imbued with resin or pitch after the European 

 method. 



JAPAN, KOREA, WESTERN CHINA, MONGOLIA, TIBET 



The Japanese employ the torch form of lighting mainly for fishings 

 and under exceptional circumstances where their elaborate illuminat- 

 ing devices are not available. The Aino burn birch bark stuck in 

 the split end of a stick planted by the fireplace, and also use portable 

 torches. The western Koreans burri bundles of reeds for light. '^ 



In the Lob Nor, Chinese Turkestan, Prince Henri d'Orleans found 

 bundles of reeds used for the double purpose of light and fire.^* At 

 Kholon Fi, southwestern China, Bower says : "However, from a house 

 close by a bundle of canes of a sort that burnt like a torch was pro- 

 cured, and by its aid the halting place was reached at 9.20 p. m." 

 The ever-useful bamboo is used in China for torches. In northern 

 China bamboo is crushed and twisted into a rope, sections of which 

 are burnt for torches.^^ A torch candle was observed by Bonvalot in 

 western MongoHa. A light is thrown on the pot by means of the 

 branch of a tree which has been rubbed with mutton fat to make it 

 answer as a torch.^^ Rockhill describes a Tibetan torch and holder 



'0 Revue d'Ethnographie, pts. 5-6, 1887, p. 377. 



" Ellis. Madagascar, New York, 1859, p. 352. 



" Lindley's Botany. Euphorbia. 



" W. R. Carles. Life in Corea, New York, 1888, p. 218. 



'< Bonvalot's Across Thibet, New York, 1892, pp. 93-94. 



'6 Across Tibet, New York, 1894, p. 248. 



" Information by W. W. Rockhill. 



" Across Thibet, New York, 1892, p. 139. 



