296 



ACROSS AFRICA. 



[Chap. 



October, 

 1874. 



hata, was reported to be hungry. The guide was a Warua named 

 Xgooni, who had been lent to Juniah by Kasongo during his 

 stay, and who had learned to talk Kisuahili very fairly. 



We made two marches through fertile and open country, with 

 many villages, lately destroyed by parties reported to belong to 

 Kasongo and the Portuguese. The people had been carried off 

 as slaves, the country laid waste, and banana-trees and oil-palms 

 cut down. 



Situated in the middle of an extensive plain, we saw a few 

 huts occupied by people employed in the manufacture of salt. 

 This plain, I was informed, was Kasongo's own especial prop- 

 erty, and worked by his own slaves and retainers. There were 

 many others in the surrounding country, which were the prop- 

 erty of a chief who paid heavy tribute to Kasongo for the right 

 of manufacturing salt. There is scarcely any vegetation in 

 these 23lains, the soil, springs, oozes, and pools being all salt. 



In one instance a small 

 running stream is also salt, 

 but it soon falls into a 

 fresh-water river. 



The manner in which 

 salt is manufactured here 

 differs somewhat from 

 that already described. 

 A frame shaped like an 

 inverted cone, made of 

 sticks joined together by 

 hoops at short intervals, 

 is fastened to four or live 

 stout stakes planted in the 

 ground. The inside of 

 this cone being carefully 

 lined with large leaves, 

 and grass being put into 

 the apex to act as a lilter, 

 it is filled with the soil. Boiling water is then poured into it, 

 and the salt, being dissolved, oozes through the grass, and drips 

 out at the apex of the cone into a gourd or earthen pot. The 

 water is then evaporated, and the salt, which is im|)ure and 



8ALT-MAK1NO. 



