ARTIFICIAL BEE-HIVES. 265 



travelled much more in the deep gloom of the forest than 

 in open sunhght. No passage existed on either side of 

 the narrow path made by the axe. Large climbing plants 

 entwined themselves around the trunks and branches of 

 gigantic trees like boa-constrictors, and they often do 

 constrict the trees by which they rise, and, killing them, 

 stand erect themselves. The bark of a fine tree found in 

 abundance here, and called " motuia," is used by the 

 Barotse for making fish lines and nets, and the " molompi," 

 so well adapted for paddles by its lightness and flexibility, 

 was abundant. There were other trees quite new to my 

 companions ; many of them ran up to a height of fifty 

 feet of one thickness, and without branches. 



In these forests, we first encountered the artificial bee- 

 hives so commonly met with all the way from this to 

 Angola ; they consist of about five feet of the bark of a 

 tree fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter. Two incisions 

 are made right round the tree at points five feet apart, 

 then one longitudinal slit from one of these to the other ; 

 the workman next lifts up the bark on each side of this 

 slit, and detaches it from the trunk, taking care not to 

 break it, until the whole comes from the tree. The 

 elasticity of the bark makes it assume the form it had 

 before ; the slit is sewed or pegged up with wooden pins, 

 and ends made of coiled grass-rope are inserted, one of 

 which has a hole for the ingress of the bees in the centre, 

 and the hive is complete. These hives are placed in a 

 hoirzontal position on high trees in different parts of the 

 forest, and in this way all the wax exported from Benguela 

 and Ivoanda is collected. It is all the produce of free 

 labour. A " piece of medicine " is tied round the trunk 



between the east coast and the great falls would require less than 50a 

 feet to give the observed velocity, and the additional distance to this 

 point would require but 150 feet of altitude more. If my observation 

 of this altitude may be depended on, we have a steeper declivity for 

 the Zambesi than for some other great rivers. The Ganges, for 

 instance, is said to be at 1800 miles from its mouth only 800 feet 

 above the level of the sea, and water requires a month to come that 

 distance. But there are so many modifying circumstances, it is 

 difficult to draw any reliable conclusion from the currents. The 

 Chobe is sometimes heard of as flooded, about 40 miles above Lin- 

 yanti, a fortnight before the inundation reaches that point ; but it is 

 very tortuous. The great river Magdalena falls only 500 feet in a 

 thousand miles j other rivers much more. 



