THE MALACHITE SUN-BIRD. 163 



Here is the delicate sensitive-plant that shrinks 

 at a touch; and the tamarind-tree with its graceful 

 foliage and yellow sweet -smelling flowers, and 

 which has stored up, in its pods, a soft acid pulp 

 pleasant to the taste. 



And growing nearer to the interior of the 

 continent, farther north than the colony, is the 

 curious butter - tree, so much prized by the 

 natives. 



It grows in the thickest part of the forest, and 

 is tall and straight, and with a bark that resembles 

 the ash. The branches spring from the tree at 

 a great height; and when the nuts are ripe they 

 are gathered by the black man as one of his richest 

 treasures. 



He prepares them by boiling until the oil or 

 butter is expressed; and in this state it is perfectly 

 white, like our English butter when newly-churned. 

 The native uses it in his cookery as we do 

 butter. And he has another object in preparing 

 it, and quite as important. His toilette could not 

 be made without it. He anoints his skin with 

 the product of the "fat-tree," as he calls it, to 



