246 Wild Life in Central Africa. 



If the knife bends, which it often does, it is quickly 

 straightened with a stone or lump of wood, or with the 

 fingers. 



I once saw a native arrive at the cutting up of an 

 elephant with an old bayonet, but he did not do as good 

 work as others with their scraps of hoop-iron. 



Natives are very handy at making baskets, and their 

 small, flat ones, called " luchairo," are used for cleaning 

 the chaff from the flour after it has been pounded in their 

 wooden mortars, the pestles of which are simply 5-ft. poles 

 of some hard wood, roughly smoothed up to begin with, 

 which take a fine polish with the constant rubbing of the 

 hands. 



The young girls are fond of pounding the grain and 'if 

 a woman has a daughter old enough, it is usually her duty 

 to do most of the flour-making for the family. 



Maize, of course, is the staple grain, but there are others 

 grown, such as mapiri, rapoko, and koche. Sugar-cane 

 ("imphfe," native name) is also grown. 



Then there are native potatoes; yams, in certain districts; 

 and a very nice vegetable, named itchasani, which tastes 

 something like a young English potato, with a flavour not 

 unlike an artichoke. 



In some places bananas or plantains will be seen, and 

 I have even seen the natives growing pineapples and the 

 paw-paw, or papaya, fruit ; but I expect these men had 

 worked for Europeans, and got a liking for such fruits. 



Considering that many settlers and most of the missions 

 grow fruits, it is strange that the natives do not care to 

 plant them, as they could easily get the seeds by asking 

 for them ; but the fact is that they are too lazy. 



That fine fruit, the mango, is now found throughout 

 Central Africa in certain localities, and there is a par- 

 ticularly fine lot of huge mango trees about thirty-five 

 miles north of Tete, on the old Fort Jameson road from 

 that place. 



These trees were planted by the old Jesuit missionaries 

 over three hundred years ago, and, if they could arise and 



