AFRICAN COTTON. 383 



small heaps, covered with earth, and burnt, the ashes and burnt 

 soil being used to fertilize the ground. Large crops of the 

 mapira, or Egyptian dura (Holeus sorghum) are raised, with 

 millet, beans and groundnuts ; also patches of yams, rice, 

 pumpkins, cucumbers, cassava, sweet potatoes, tobacco, and 

 hemp, or bang (Cannabis sativa). Maize is grown all the year 

 round. Cotton is cultivated at almost every village. Three 

 varieties of cotton have been found in the country, namely, two 

 foreign and one native. The tonje manga, or foreign cotton, 

 the name showing that it has been introduced, is of excellent 

 quality, and considered at Manchester to be nearly equal to the 

 best New Orleans. It is perennial, but requires replanting once 

 in three years. A considerable amount of this variety is grown 

 in the Upper and Lower Shire valleys. Every family of any 

 importance owns a cotton patch, which, from the entire absence 

 of weeds, seemed to be carefully cultivated. Most were small, 

 none seen on this journey exceeding half an acre ; but on the 

 former trip some were observed of more than twice that size. 



The tonje cadja, or indigenous cotton, is of shorter staple, and 

 feels in the hand like wool. This kind has to be planted every 

 season, in the highlands ; yet, because it makes stronger cloth, 

 many of the people prefer it to the foreign cotton ; the third 

 variety is not found here. It was remarked to a number of 

 men near the Shire lakelet, a little farther on towards Nyassa, 

 " You should plant plenty of cotton, and probably the English 

 will come and buy it." " Truly," replied a far-travelled Babisa 

 trader to his fellows, "the country is full of cotton, and if these 

 people come to buy they will enrich us." And it is encourag- 

 ing to know that the observation of the party inclined them to 

 give much credit to his statement. Though it may seem like 

 an idle flourish, they hardly ever entered a village without 

 finding a number of men cleaning, spinning and weaving. It 

 is first carefully separated from the seed by the fingers, or by 

 an iron roller, on a little block of wood, and rove out into long 

 soft bands without twist. Then it receives its first twist on the 

 spindle, and becomes about the thickness of coarse candlewick ; 

 after being taken off and wound into a large ball, it is given the 

 final hard twist, and spun into a firm cop on the spindle again : 

 all the processes being painfully slow. 



