344 



the cut endsof the assimilating stems. The plant continues to grow 

 with the increasing height of the dune, so that its younger shoots 

 remain at the surface forming a dense thorny shrub. The leaves 

 are minute, and the cucurbitaceous tendrils are replaced by thorns. 

 The old stems when buried in the accumulating sand become as 

 stout as one's arm and ensheathed in a thick layer of corrugated 

 cork (Fig. 1) ; they obviously function in part as water- storers. 

 The plant is dioecious. Each dune apparently contains a single 

 individual, for the two sexes are never found together. Flowering 

 commences in November, and this year by the middle of February 

 all the female plants were in fruit, and only a few male flowers 

 were open. For about four months in the year the fruits and 

 seeds render the Hottentots independent of other sources of food, 

 and to a large extent of water also. The spheroidal fruit, whose 

 ripeness is indicated by the pale yellow colour of its thorn-beset, 

 leathery pericarp, is about 9 in. in diameter, and is borne in great 

 profusion (Fig. 2). The seeds, which are of the usual cucurbi- 

 taceous type, are very nutritious. They were formerly exported 

 to Cape Town in small quantity and sold under the name of 

 "Butter-nuts." They found a market among the native popula- 

 tion, by whom they were used in the same way as are the seeds of 

 Arachis hypogaea ; in more refined circles they were substituted 

 for sweet almonds. The juicy yellow flesh of "the fruit is much 

 relished by the Hottentots, who consume it in large quantities 

 while fresh and lay by a store for winter use in the form of hard, 

 flat cakes obtained by evaporation. It is said that the contrast 

 between the emaciated, half -starved native at the beginning of the 

 fruiting season and the sleek, well-fed product of a month or two 

 on the « Naras-veld " is most remarkable. The faculty of enjoying 

 the taste of the Naras juice is undoubtedly one which must be 

 acquired ; to the uninitiated it has a sweet, sickly flavour, and it 

 contains an acid principle which produces very unpleasant effects 

 upon the tongue and palate, lasting for several hours. I am told 

 that at the end of the season the lips of even the habitual con- 

 sumers are swollen and inflamed. Each family resident in the 

 Naras region claims the fruit produced on one or more dunes, 

 the land itself, m British territory at least, being owned by the 

 government These rights of property in the fruit are tacitly 

 allowed by the Government and are strict! v respected among the 

 natives themselves. Mr. Eadie, the magistrate at present in charge 

 or the territory, tells me that during his two years' administration 

 ne has not had to deal with a single case of disputed possession. 

 1 he owners are for the most part Hottentots, but about seven miles 

 irom the coast I was hospitably regaled with fruit by the Berg- 

 Damara proprietor of a number of hills which he had inherited 



Khu\ b • ^ immigrant from the u PPer reaches of the 



Walfish 



fmnJS *k « 8aid . for ' exce Pt ««» the Khuiseb bed near the 

 flnwS the 1 tlo f a ? onsists of probably less than a dozen species of 

 aZ^ g X^ t9 m addition t0 those ill,, ea<ly named. Acacia 



y it lit/Lie* YYlllfl. rnrn&a Arx^T*. ±~ ....-iL! i , - ... .x . 



th* T7*™™ • 7T ' ~ w,,li ^ vviLuin ituont •> miles or me ciraot , 



tad fS iSSTJTSSSL^!. is «*<»»*« ^ a few specimen, , 



ergrow 



