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night to dry, and any soft, pulpy substance is scraped off the 
inside. The worker then lays the strip of bark, which is some 
four to six feet long, on a log with a flattened surface, and beats 
it with a mallet(*) which is not unlike a stone-magon’s, but has 
ridges cut round it, thus leaving fine lines on the bark-cloth as 
it is beaten. The man goes over the material with the mallet 
until it is beaten out to the thickness of strong brown paper, and 
by the time he has finished a strip of bark which was four feet 
long by eighteen inches wide will have become about six feet long 
and four feet wide. It is then spread out in the sun to dry, 
and the exposure to light gives the upper surface a By somewhat 
like terra-cotta, while the underside is of a lighte 
holes where branches have grown or any flaws in " the cloth, are 
cut into neat squares and patched with pieces taken from the 
edges so deftly that in a well-made bark-cloth they are not 
noticeable. These cloths are usually made up by the men into 
sheets eight feet square, two lengths beirig stitched er and 
pressed in such a manner that the seam is not seen when the 
cloth is being worn. For thread they use strips of fibre from the 
dry plantain stem. Women rarely, if ever, learn to stitch these, 
and the work is left to the men, for sewing is not the women ’3 work, 
and it is only where there are mission schools that women are 
now being taught to use the needle. (Roscoe.*) 
Further information on the preparation of Uganda bark- cloth 
is given by Roscoe in his book “ The Baganda. 
“The trees grow readily and rapidly, sail yield annual barks 
of good quality for some seven years ; they require no culti- 
vation.” ‘ The cost of bark-cloth lay in the labour of growing the 
trees, stripping them of their bark, and beating it out to the re- 
qu uired thickness; this was, after all, trifling in a land where time 
is of little value.” (Roscoe. ) 
In the district of Sango, in the kingdom of Budu, are said to 
grow trees which produce the finest kind of bark-cloth in Uganda, 
of a better quality and a richer colour than any other. ‘This 
particular species is said not to grow freely in other places, 
and it is uncertain whether it is a Brachystegia, a Berlinia, or a 
Fieus. Only one species of Brachystegia (B. venosa) is known 
to occur in Uganda. 
The following species, and perhaps others also, are known to 
furnish bark suitable for making cloth:—B. Boehmi, B. 
Woodiana, B. Randii and Berlinia globiflora of Tanganyika 
Territory, Nyasaland and Rhodesia; B. longifolia and B. utilis 
of Nyasaland; B. Bragaei of Rhodesia and Portuguese E. Africa, 
which is said to furnish exceptionally good bark-cloth; B. edulis 
of Kenya Colony, Tanganyika Territory and Rhodesia; Berlina 
Bauwmit of Angola; and Ficus natalensis which extends from 
Uganda south to Natal. 
Water-baskets.—Sim ae states that in the sandy districts of 
parts of Portuguese East Africa, where water is only obtainable 
at distances of several miles, the water-basket is an implement 
