Chap. XV. A EAVENOUS FISH. 305 



to her husband, and strangers sometimes receive the honour. 

 One of our party, having wandered, slept at the village of 

 Nambowe. When he laid down, to his surprise two of Nani- 

 bowe's wives came at once, and carefully and kindly spread 

 his kaross over him. 



A beautiful silvery fish with reddish fins, called Ngwesi, is 

 very abundant in the river; large ones weigh fifteen or twenty 

 pounds each. Its teeth are exposed, and so arranged that, 

 when they meet, the edges cut a. hook like nippers. The 

 Ngwesi seems to be a very ravenous fish. It often gulps down 

 the Konokono, a fish armed with serrated bones more than an 

 inch in length in the pectoral and dorsal fins, which, fitting 

 into a notch at the roots, can be put by the fish on full cock or 

 straight out, — they cannot be folded down, without its will, 

 and even break in resisting. The name " Konokono," elbow- 

 elbow, is given it from a resemblance its extended fins are 

 supposed to bear to a man's elbows stuck out from his body. 

 It often performs the little trick of cocking its fins in the 

 stomach of the Ngwesi, and, the elbows piercing its enemy's 

 sides, he is frequently found floating dead. The fin bones 

 seem to have an acrid secretion on them, for the wound they 

 make is excessively painful. The Konokono barks distinctly 

 when landed with the hook. Our canoe-men invariably 

 picked up every dead fish they saw on the surface of the 

 water, however far gone. An unfragrant odour was no 

 objection ; the fish was boiled and eaten, and the water 

 drunk as soup. It is a curious fact that many of the 

 Africans keep fish as we do woodcocks, until they are 

 extremely offensive, before they consider them fit to eat. 

 Our paddlers informed us on our way down that iguanas 

 lay their eggs in July and August, and crocodiles in Septem- 

 ber. The eggs remain a month or two under the sand where 

 they are laid, and the young come out when the rains have 



x 



