1 04 Journal of Travel and Ahxtural History 



(Balanites y-Egyptiaca) favourably, as a fruit. The account we 

 have heard of it is, that it is only a little more unpalatable 

 than an acorn ; but Sir Samuel seems not to have disliked 

 it ; Lady Baker made preserves of it, with honey ; and one 

 of their servants sacrificed her life to her predilection for it — 

 continuing to eat it, although warned against its noxious or 

 indigestible properties. Sir Samuel also speaks of the valuable 

 qualities of the cultivated onion as food, he having lived for days 

 on nothing but rusks and them ; of the uneatable properties of a 

 wild onion (may we be pardoned for suggesting that the bulb was 

 possibly a lily) ; of several varieties of wild spinach ; and a plant 

 called regly, that makes a good salad. He also tells of the 

 Adansonia, its spongy wood being not much firmer in substance 

 than cork, and as succulent as a carrot — the refreshing sub-acid 

 flavour of its seeds, and its immense girth (the largest he measured 

 being 51^ feet in circumference) ; of the poisonous and irritant 

 Asclepias gigantea; the thorny mimosas; and, generally, the thorny 

 vegetation usually confined to dry and desert districts ; the quanti- 

 ties of gum-arabic to be had for the picking up, &c. ; but, so 

 far as the kitchen or dessert table is concerned, there does not 

 appear to be much scope for the exertions of the Horticultural 

 Society in the districts he visited. Mansfield Parkyns told us long 

 ago that a man who cares a straw about what he eats should never 

 attempt to travel in Africa : his life would be anything but one of 

 pleasure. It would, indeed, be a matter of hardship ; but then, he 

 says, the semi-starvation to which one is now and then reduced, so 

 far from being a hardship in travelling, as it is often represented 

 by tourists, is, if not continued to extremity, one of the greatest 

 possible blessings. Senna is another unpalatable blessing which 

 this land possesses in abundance ; curiously enough, the camels 

 are very fond of it. 



Of the geology and mineralogy of the country we learn little. 

 Limestone, sandstone, with fossilized wood and basalt, are spoken 

 of, also gold in small quantities ; copper, in some places so abun- 

 dant as to poison the water of the river-pools on whose bed it 

 occurs ; agates ; cornelian ; masses of exquisite bloodstone, the 

 size of a man's head, &c. 



Of the climate — healthy and delightful where high and dry, 

 villanous in low and damp localities — we need not speak. Neither 

 is there much to say of the natives. Not that we mean that the 

 subject is a barren one, Init that Sir Samuel has not looked at it 



