Chap. III. 



NATIVE MANUFACTURES. 



81 



foreign cotton; the third variety is not found here. It 

 was remarked to a number of men near the Shire Lakelet, 

 a little further 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." Our own obser- 

 vation on the cotton cultivated convinced us that this was 

 no empty nourish, but a fact. Everywhere we met with 

 it, and scarcely 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 



Blacksmith's Forge and Bellows of Goatskiu. 



