of Blantyre and Zomha Districts of Africa. 241 



become a staple industry. The Sanscvicra longifloi'o, 

 perhaps the most valuable of the fibre-producing plants, 

 grows plentifully on mountain sides and on dry stony 

 places. Its leaves are often 5 feet long, with a diameter 

 of 2^ to 3 inches. The fibre is roughly made by 

 beating the bark on stones in streams, and from it 

 ropes are made. The import of Manilla hemp is thereby 

 lessened. Plantains do not flourish in Blantyre, though 

 they flourish at the north end of Lake Nyassa. The 

 Bwasi, a species of Polygala mentioned by Livingstone as 

 yielding fibre worth £40 per ton, is getting scarce. I 

 have not seen fibre-producing aloes. The bark of Gar- 

 cinia yields a red dye used by the natives for their cloth, 

 who at the same time use ashes as a dye. Samples of 

 gum from Acacias were reported, when sent home, as 

 inferior. A red astringent gum, similar but inferior to 

 kino, is obtained from a Pterocarpus, n.n. illonebiua ; but 

 this appears valueless as an export. Hemp, though grown 

 round ever}-- village, is cultivated not for its fibre, but as 

 a smoking material. I need not refer to the pharmacopoeia 

 of the native doctors, which includes many herbs. 



Soil of the District. — At both Blantyre and Zomba the 

 country is not a level flat, but a vast undulating plain. 

 Li it you have every variety of soil, except stiff white 

 clay. On the hills, where the slope is great, the soil is 

 thin, most of it having been carried down into the 

 valleys ; this is specially the case along the sides of 

 streams, where again black loam may be found from a foot 

 to sixteen feet thick, with a subsoil. In the Blantyre 

 district of red clay, which makes good bricks, the soil is 

 well suited for cereal growing, but the farmer in Blantyre 

 must manure from the beginning. No forests add their 

 3'early quota of decaying leaves to enrich the soil ; and 

 though this is made up somewhat by the natives burning 

 the bush, we can here expect no constant successive crops, 

 as at the wheat farms of the American prairies. I do not 

 hesitate to pronounce the climate good and healthy, although 

 there is danger from fever at Blantyre. On the river 

 Shire the average temperature throughout the year is 

 about 50^. The highest I have known is 95' in the shade, 

 and the lowest 90°. This low temperature did immense 



