DISCOVERY OF THE VICTORIA N'i'ANZA. 103 



those countries are everywhere healthy. The best 

 proof we have that the district is largely productive, 

 is the fact that the caravans and competition increase 

 on those lines more and more every day. I would 

 add, that in the meanwhile the staple exports derived 

 from the far interior of the continent will consist of 

 ivory, hides, and horns ; whilst from the coast and 

 its vicinity the clove, the gum copal, some textile 

 materials drawn from the banana, aloe, and pine- 

 apples, with oleaginous plants such as the ground- 

 nut and cocoa-nut, are the chief exportable products. 

 The cotton-plant which grows here, judging from its 

 size and difference from the plant usually grown in 

 India, I consider to be a tree cotton and a perennial. 

 It is this cotton which the natives weave into coarse 

 fabrics in their looms. Then, again, the coffee-plant 

 of Uganda, before alluded to, being a native of that 

 place, and being consequently easily grown, ought 

 in time to afford a very valuable article of export. 

 Rice, although it is not indigenous to Africa, I 

 believe is certainly capable of being produced in 

 great quantity and of very superior quality; and 

 this is also the case with sugar-cane and tobacco, 

 both of which are grown generally over the continent. 

 There is also a species of palm growing on the bor- 

 ders of the Tanganyika Lake, which yields a concrete 

 oil very much like, if not the same as, the palm-oil 

 of Western Africa ; but this is limited, and would 

 never be of much value. Salt, which is found in 



