178 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



147 



the pounded roots of the manioca (Jatropha 

 Mdniliot). This meal, after being first ground 

 from the root, is made into a pulp and pressed 

 to get rid of a poisonous juice. It is then 

 redried and constitutes a wholesome farina, 

 which forms almost the entire food of the 

 slaves. 



1106. Benin is an extensive country, very productive 

 of fruits, trees, and plants, including the orange, cocoa, 

 cotton, &c. ; and abounding in animals, among which are 

 enumerated civet cats, and a sort of hairy sheep. Agri- 

 culture, however, is little attended to, the chief object 

 being the commerce of slaves. 



1107. The inhabitants of Loango, instead of cultivating 

 the land, content themselves with bread and fish, and 

 such fruits, greens, and pulse, as the soil naturally pro- 

 duces. Cocoas, oranges, or lemons are not much cul- 

 tivated; but sugar-canes, cassia, and tobacco, as well 

 as the palm, banana, cotton, and pimento trees, grow 

 here plentifully. They have also a great variety of roots, 

 herbs, fruits, grain, and other vegetables, of which they 

 make bread, or which they use for food. They have 

 few quadrupeds for domestic use, except goats and hogs ; 

 but poultry and various sorts of game are abundant. Among the wild beasts they have the zebra, and a 

 great number of elephants, whose teeth they exchange with the Europeans for iron. 



1 108. Congo is an extensive and very fertile country ; but the inhabitants are indolent, and neglect its 

 culture. The operations of digging, sowing, reaping, cutting wood, grinding corn, and fetching water, 

 they leave to their wives and slaves. Under their management, several sorts of grain and pulse are culti- 

 vated, especially maize, of which they have two crops in a year : but such is the heat of the climate, that 

 wheat will not produce plump seeds ; it shoots rapidly up into the straw and ear, the former high enough 

 to hide a man on horseback, and the latter unfilled. Grass grows to a great height, and affords sheltering 

 places for a number of wild animals and noisome reptiles and insects. The Portuguese have introduced a 

 variety of palm and other fruit trees, which are adapted for producing human food in such a climate. 



1109. The baobab {Adansbnia. dtgitata) is a native of Congo. This tree, discovered by the celebrated 

 French botanist, Adanson, is considered the largest in the world : several, measured by this gentleman, 

 were from sixty-five to seventy-eight feet in circumference, but not extraordinarily high. The trunks, 

 at the height of from twelve to fifteen feet, divided into many horizontal branches, which touched 

 the ground at their extremities ; these were from forty-five to fifty-five feet long, and were so large that 

 each branch was equal to a monstrous tree ; and where the water of a neighbouring river had washed 

 away the earth so as to leave the roots of one of these trees bare and open to the sight, they measured one 

 hundred and ten feet long, without including those parts of the roots which remained covered. It yields 

 a fruit which resembles a gourd, and which serves for vessels of various uses the bark furnishes them 

 with a coarse thread which they form into ropes, and into a cloth with which the natives cover their 

 middle from the girdle to the knees ; and the small leaves supply them 

 with food in a time of scarcity, while the large ones are used for cover- 

 ing their houses, or are by burning manufactured into good soap. At 

 Sierra Leone, this tree does not grow larger than an orchard apple- 

 tree. 



1110. Of the bark qf the infanda tree, and also of the mulemba, re- 

 sembling in many respects our laurel, they form a kind of stuff or cloth, 

 which is fine, and used for cloaks and girdles by persons of the highest 

 rank. The butter tree (Jig. 148.) affords an excellent substitute for that 

 European luxury. With the moss that grows about the trunk, the rich 

 commonly stuff their pillows ; and the Giagas apply it to their wounds 

 with good effect : with the leaves the Moors cover their houses, and 

 they draw from these trees, by incision, a pleasant liquor like wine, 

 which, however, turns sour in five or six days. 



1111. Among other fruits and roo^s, they have the vine, which was 

 brought thither from Candia, and yields grapes twice a year. 



1112. The live stock common to other agricultural countries are here 

 much neglected ; but the Portuguese settlers have directed their atten- 

 tion to cows, sheep, and goats, chiefly on account of their milk. Like 

 most parts of Africa, this country swarms with wild animals. Among 

 these, the zebra, buffalo, and wild ass are hunted, and made useful as 

 food or in commerce. The dante, a kind of ox, the skin of which is 

 sent into Germany to be tanned and made into targets called dantes, abounds, and also the cameleon, a 

 great variety of monkeys, and all the sorts of domestic poultry and game. 



SuBSECT, 5. Of the present State of Agriculture at the Cape of Good Hope. 



1113. The Dutch colonised the Cape qf Good Hope in 1660, and the English obtained 

 possession of it in 1795. 



1114. The climate of this Cape is not unfriendly to vegetation; but it is so situated, 

 within the influence of periodical winds, that the rains are very unequal, descending in 

 torrents during the cold season, though hardly a shower falls to refresh the earth in the 

 hot summer months, when the dry south-east winds prevail. These winds blast the 

 foliage, blossom, and fruit, of all those trees that are not well sheltered ; nor is the human 

 constitution secure against their injurious influence. As a protection from these winds, 

 the colonists who inhabit the nearest side of the first chain of mountains, beyond which 

 their effect does not very sensibly extend, divide that portion of their ground which 

 is appropriated to fruit groves, vineyards, and gardens, by oak screens ; but they leave 

 their corn lands altogether open. The temperature of the climate at the Cape is re- 

 markably affected by local circumstances. In summer the thermometer is generally 



