CHAP. I. VEGETABLE AND MINERAL PRODUCTIONS. 35 



Indigo, about three or four feet high, grows in great 

 luxuriance in the streets of Tette, and so does the senna 

 plant. The leaves are undistinguishable from those im- 

 ported in England. A small amount of first-rate cotton is 

 cultivated by the native population for the manufacture of 

 a coarse cloth. A neighbouring tribe raises the sugar- 

 cane, and makes a little sugar ; but they use most primi- 

 tive wooden rollers, and having no skill in mixing lime 

 with the extracted juice, the product is of course of very 

 inferior quality. Plenty of magnetic iron ore is found near 

 Tette, and coal also to any amount; a single cliff-seam 

 measuring twenty-five feet in thickness. It was found 

 to burn well in the steamer on the first trial. Gold is 

 washed for in the beds of rivers, within a couple of days 

 of Tette. The natives are fully aware of its value, but 

 seldom search for it, and never dig deeper than four or 

 five feet. They dread lest the falling in of the sand of 

 the river's bed should bury them. In former times, when 

 traders went with hundreds of slaves to the washings, the 

 produce was considerable. It is now insignificant. The 

 gold-producing lands have always been in the hands of in- 

 dependent tribes. Deep cuttings near the sources of the 

 gold-yielding streams seem never to have been tried here, 

 as in California and Australia, nor has any machinery 

 been used save common wooden basins for washing. 



