SOME ABYSSINIAN GENEEA. 249 



hill or valley. " When in blossom," says an English traveller,* 

 " many of them emit a fragrance so powerful as to render the whole 

 neighbourhood more odorous than a perfumer's shop. The jessamine 

 is seen in profusion in many parts, but principally on the hills ; and 

 there is also a beautiful parasitical creeper (an reschynanthus), which 

 grows, like the mistletoe, from the bark of other trees. It has a bright 

 dark-green fleshy leaf, with brilliant scarlet flowers." 



The same traveller describes a tree called the dima,-\- which, 

 though not very solid as food, adds much to the flavour of the 

 cuisine. It has a large greenish shell, some nine inches long ; inside 

 of it lie a number of seeds, and attached to them by fibres a quantity 

 of yellowish-white cakey powder, having a sweetish acid taste, and 

 when mixed with water forming an agreeable beverage, somewhat 

 resembling lemonade. The Abyssinians mix with it red pepper 

 and salt, and eat it as a relish with their, bread. When the tree 

 reaches a certain size, its trunk almost always becomes hollow ; and 

 then it frequently contains a store of wild honey, which may easily 

 be obtained by means of a small axe and fire. 



More to the south, in the Shoa, we meet with an almost analo- 

 gous vegetation : the Socotrine Aloes (Aloe socotrina), which supplies 

 our Pharmacopoeia with an active cathartic, is particularly abundant. 

 The Celastrus edulis,+ a small branching shrub whose leaves possess 

 very similar properties to those of the Tea-plant, and are employed 

 for the same purpose by the Abyssinians, is widely cultivated. The 

 Arabs distil from them a stimulating drink called Kat. Nor should 

 I forget the Cousso, or Casso, named after its discoverer Bray era 

 anthelmintica,\\ an infusion of whose bark or leaves forms one of the 

 most powerful vermifuges in the world; and the Musa ensete, a 

 magnificent banana, with gigantic leaves and nerves of a vivid red, 

 which now flourishes in our European plantations. 



Among the cultivated plants may be included most of those which 



* Mansfield Parkyns, " Life in Abyssinia," i. 226, 227. 



f Aclansonia digitata, a species of Baobab (Order, Stercubaccx} . 



i Order, Celastracex. II Order, Rosacese, 



16 a 



