198 THE AFRICAN SUGAR CANE. 
served, numerous arts and manufactures may be there 
existent at the present moment, which are nevertheless 
wholly unknown to us, or perhaps have been heard of 
only through the medium of unauthenticated and unsatis- 
factory rumors. 
In the manufacture of crystallized sugar, and other 
products, from the imphee and Holcus saccharatus, I have 
had the most signal success, and in the following pages 
I will endeavor to set the value of these plants in a true 
light before the public, hoping very soon to present to 
the attention of my kind readers, a much larger and more 
comprehensive edition of this work. 
BOTANICAL NOTICE AND HISTORY. 
It is indeed most difficult for me, not being a botanist, 
to give a botanical description of the Zulu-Kaffir Jmphee 
that could be deemed altogether satisfactory; for, after 
the most careful research among the best botanical works, 
and after consulting very eminent botanists personally, 
T can come to no other conclusion than that the most sin- 
gular uncertainty and confusion reign among them all 
in their several accounts of this species, arising, evidently, 
from the fact of no sufficiently competent botanist having 
yet thoroughly investigated the differences existing be- 
tween the several kinds of imphee and the several kinds 
of Mabaalee or Kaffir corn. 
This lamentable state of things will, however, be ter- 
minated, I trust, in a few days, as I have now flowering 
in England three kinds of real imphee, besides my dried 
specimens, which will enable me to obtain from Dr. 
