238 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 



used for building labourers' lines and in some European houses. 

 In a similar way the leaves themselves have been used as a 

 roofing material after being made up into small mats. 



Native Use. — The tree is tapped near the base of the leading 

 leaves, or at the base of the male inflorescence, for the produc- 

 tion of the sap, which is collected in calabashes. These are placed 

 in position every evening and emptied every morning, and 

 replaced in position. Occasionally the chimpanzees climb up 

 the palms, drink the wine in the calabash and replace it. A 

 native once shot a chimpanzee, finding it was the thief of 

 his palm wine and not a human being. The wine is of a 

 white, sometimes almost creamy colour, and when fresh is 

 quite thin and foamy. It has a rather pleasant, sweet, and 

 almost sharp taste. After being kept a few days it begins 

 to ferment, and even moderate quantities are intoxicating. 

 Either fresh or fermented, it is sold in bottles or calabashes 

 in the local markets. The supply scarcely, if ever, exceeds 

 the demand. The natives often j)ut pieces of the bark of 

 Tala, Saccoglottis Gabunensis, in the wine to give it a more 

 bitter taste. Occasionally also the bark of mahogany and 

 other trees is used. Tala, however, is the correct bark to use, 

 and it forms an article of local commerce for this purpose. 

 Owing to the comparative inaccessibility of some of the " stands " 

 of this tree away in the swampy regions near the estuaries 

 of some of the larger rivers, such as the Benin and the Siluko, 

 there are still vast areas where neither the leaves are cut nor 

 the palms tapped for wine. The seeds are boiled and placed 

 in the bottom of a canoe, and when sufficient canoes have 

 been got together, each with its quota of boiled nuts, these 

 are trodden with the feet of those in the canoe, and both the 

 nuts and the scaly shell as well as the small amount of yellow 

 flesh are thrown in the water of a half -stagnant river. This 

 yellow substance partly blinds and stupefies the fish, the smaller 

 ones of which come half floating and swimming to the surface, 

 the larger ones being washed along near the bed of the 

 river. These are caught in convenient places where the river 

 has been staked all across its width and bamboo netting put down, 

 except for an opening where a flexible net is used. Some 

 of the people go about in small canoes, netting the fish that 

 come to the surface. One of the most famous spots to see 

 this is in the Osse River, in the reach just below Noami, 

 where the combined fishery forces of the Jekris and, to a 

 lesser extent, Sobos and Ijors, for a day or two in succession 

 in April each year, carrj'^ on this work. The catch of fish 

 obtained is enormous. Unless, however, it can be soon 



