358 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
which are almost universally swarming in warm climates. 
From the abundance of bees, and the hills being well 
clothed with grass, Congo might be made a land * flowing 
with milk and honey.” 
The lower part of the river abounds with excellent fish, 
which would appearto be an important article of subsistence 
to those who inhabit the woody banks occupied by the 
mangrove. Bream, mullet and cat-fish are the most abun- 
dant. A species of Sparus, of excellent flavour, was caught 
by the party in large quantities, each of them weighing 
generally from thirty to forty pounds, and some of them 
even sixty. Mr. Fitzmaurice observes that, near Draper's 
islands, he fell in with three or four hundred canoes, in 
which the people were busily employed in dragging up a 
species of shell-fish, which he compares to what is usually 
in England called the clam, and which is stated by Captain 
Tuckey to be a species of Mya. Most of these fishermen, 
it was thought, had no other abode than the shelter which 
the woods afforded them ; that they form a kind of hut by 
bending and entwining the living branches, in the same 
manner as is sometimes practised by the roving Caffres 
bordering on the colony of the Cape of Good Hope ; others 
make the caverns in the rocks the abodes of themselves and 
families during the fishing season; for it would seem that 
these huts and retreats were but temporary, as the shells 
of these fish were opened, the animal taken out, and dried 
in the sun. In the upper parts of the river, women were 
frequently seen fishing with scoop nets, made from the fi- 
bres of some creeping plants ; and in one village, a woman 
