214 FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 



I am informed that a shingle roof of this wood lasts 

 fifteen to twenty years. 



Then, again, the valley of the upper Volta river is 

 handsomely studded with the graceful West African 

 cycad — Encephalartos Barteri — a consignment of 

 which to Europe for distribution as a speculation is 

 worthy of consideration. 



On it, the Rev. C. Schonfelt, of the Basel Mission, 

 wrote in 1875 to Sir Joseph Hooker as follows : — 



"The first time I saw this tree (in 1865) I was 

 struck with its beauty. Imagine a rocky hill over- 

 grown with newly-sprouting grass, shortly after the 

 yearly burning of it, here and there a Shea-butter 

 tree, but above all this beauty for a palm, not more 

 than four to five feet high, with its erect, dark-green, 

 shiny branches, shooting out of the crevices of the 

 rocks, and you have the native home of my protig^. 

 I heard that it is confined to very few places there- 

 about. It is called by the natives the ghost palm, 

 with the explanation for this term that the oil palm 

 (JElais guineensis) was given by God to the living 

 Negro, the ghost palm to the shades (because the 

 living Negro finds no use for it). After 1865, the way 

 to those parts was shut up in consequence of the 

 Ashantee raid, which Sir John Glover opened again by 

 his successful campaign. This enabled me to revisit 

 the upper Volta again as far as Drome, and to bring 

 the tree with me." 



Growing specimens can now be seen in the Palm 



