GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 359 



was obsei'ved spinning cotton for nets ; the herbaceous cot- 

 ton plant growing every where wild. In some places the 

 fish were caught in pots ; in others they took them by means 

 of a poisonous plant. 



A fish resembling the Silurus electricus was brought on 

 board the Congo from Embomma, which, by the account 

 of the natives, when alive and touched, communicates a 

 severe shock to the hand and arm, or to use their own ex- 

 pression '• it shoot through all the arm." It is thus descri- 

 bed by Mr. M'Kerrow: length tliree-feet six inches ; head 

 large, broad and compressed ; mouth furnished with six 

 long cirrhi, four on the under and two on the upper jaw; 

 mandibles dentated ; tongue short, and eyes small ; body 

 without scales ; pectoral fins near the branchial openings, 

 the ventrals near the anus ; dorsal fin soft, and placed near 

 the tail ; upper parts of the body thickly spotted black, 

 and the under of a yellowish white ; skin exceedingly thick. 



The Zaire swarms with those huge monsters the hippo- 

 potamus and the alligator, or rather crocodile, (for it appears 

 to be of the same species as the animal of the Nile,) and 

 particularly abov^e the narrows. Both these animals seem to 

 be gregarious, the former being generally met with in groups 

 of ten or twelve together ; the latter in two or three, sometimes 

 five or six. The flesh of the hippopotamus is excellent food, 

 not unlike pork ; but it does not appear that the negroes are 

 particularly fond of it, as the only one killed by the present 

 party was suffered to putrify on the margin of the river ; 

 though it is stated that the flesh is sometimes sold in the 

 market. One crocodile only was killed, whose length was 



