134 Wild Life in Central Africa. 



the fine, plump birds served up at home, and, instead of 

 having a delicate flavour, some of them are very distasteful. 



The things a man longs most for in tropical Africa are 

 fresh home fish, good, tasty meat, vegetables, bread and 

 butter, and milk. Sometimes the four latter can be got if 

 one can keep cows and has a good garden and a capable 

 cook. Some of the cooks make quite eatable bread, and 

 such a man is a treasure, for good bread is a luxury when 

 one can get it. 



There are several native vegetables that are good eating, 

 such as pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and ground nuts. 

 Maize, or Indian corn, when it is fresh and soft, well 

 boiled, and then eaten with a little butter and pepper, is quite 

 excellent. Sweet potatoes are good, but one tires of them 

 sooner than of European potatoes. The Angoni grow a 

 vegetable they call itchaysani, which has a taste reminding 

 one of fresh new potatoes and a slight flavour of 

 artichokes. 



There are a great many fungi in the country, some of 

 which are good eating while others are poisonous. A 

 small mushroom almost similar to those found at home, and 

 a pink colour underneath, is called manyama ; a bigger 

 white mushroom is named chipendi, and the biggest is 

 called boa. The latter is the first to appear when the 

 rains break, and they are quite good when chopped up and 

 boiled with chipped ground nuts as a seasoning. They 

 have a taste something like codfish ; and being rather 

 tough and stodgy, a little goes a long way. The natives 

 sometimes have a small variety of tomato growing in 

 their gardens, and chillies can be got. A man who used to 

 suffer a good deal from malarial fever told me that a native 

 told him if he ate a lot of chillies he would not suffer, so he 

 tried it, and found that he seldom got fever afterwards. 

 This may be only a yarn, but he seemed to be in earnest 

 when he told me of the fact, and I have seen him put 

 as much as a teaspoonful into his soup and other courses, 

 and seem to relish it ; so he practised what he preached at 

 any rate. 



