1867.] ARAB INFORMATION. SINGULAR SPIDER. 227 



northwards, but no reliance can be placed on the statements. 

 Kiombo is said to be chief of Ena country. 



Another man asserts that Tanganyika flows northwards 

 and forms a large water beyond Uganda, but no dependence 

 ■can be placed on the statements of these half Arabs ; they 

 pay no attention to anything but ivory and food. 



25th August. — Nsama requested the Arabs to give back 

 his son who was captured; some difficulty was made about 

 this by his captor, but Hamees succeeded in getting him 

 and about nine others, and they are sent off to-day. We 

 wait only for the people, who are scattered about the country. 

 Hamees presented cakes, flour, a fowl and leg of goat, with 

 a piece of eland meat : this animal goes by the same name 

 here as at Kolobeng — " Pofu." * 



A fig-tree here has large knobs on the bark, like some 

 species of acacia ; and another looks like the Malolo of the 

 Zambesi magnified. A yellow wood gives an odour like 

 incense when burned. 



A large spider makes a nest inside the huts. It consists 

 of a piece of pure white paper, an inch and a half broad, 

 stuck flat on the wall ; under this some forty or fifty eggs 

 are placed, and then a quarter of an inch of thinner paper 

 is put round it, apparently to fasten the first firmly. When 

 making the paper the spider moves itself over the surface 

 in wavy lines; she then sits on it with her eight legs 

 spread over all for three weeks continuously, catching and 

 eating any insects, as cockroaches, that come near her nest. 

 After three weeks she leaves it to hunt for food, but always 

 returns at night : the natives do not molest it. 



A small ant masters the common fly by seizing a wing or 

 leg, and holding on till the fly is tired out ; at first the fly 



* Che'fu amongst the Manganja. Any animal possessing strength, has 

 the terminal " fu " or " vu ;" thus Njobvu, an elephant ; MVu, the hip- 

 popotamus. — Ed. 



Q 2 



