THE COPAL OF EASTERN AFRICA. 307 



Wasawahili sandarusi, and by the Wanyamwezi — who employ it, like the 

 people of Mexico and Yucatan, as incense, in incantations and medicinings— 

 sirokko and niamnangu. This semi-fossil is not " washed out by streams 

 and torrents," but " crowed " or dug up by the coast clans and the barbarians 

 of the maritime regions. In places it is found when sinking piles for huts, 

 and at times it is picked up in spots overflowed by the high tides. The East 

 African seaboard from Eas Gomani, in S. lat. 3 deg., to Ras Delgado, in 10 deg. 

 41 min., with a medium depth of thirty miles, may be called the Copal coast ; 

 every part supplies more or less the resin of commerce. Even a section of 

 this line, from the mouth of the Pangani River to Ngao (Monghou), would, 

 if properly exploited, suffice to supply all our present wants. 



The Arabs and Africans divide the resin into two different kinds. The raw 

 copal (copal vert of the French market) is called sandarusi za miti, " tree 

 copal," or chakdzi, corrupted by the Zanzibar merchant to " jackass," 

 copah This chakazi is either picked from the tree, or is found, as in the 

 island of Zanzibar, shallowly embedded in the loose soil, where it has not 

 remained long enough to attain the phase of bitumenisation. To the eye 

 it is smoky or cloudy inside ; it feels soft, becomes like putty when exposed 

 to the action of alcohol, and viscidises in the solution used for washing 

 the true copal. Little valued in European technology, it is exported to 

 Bombay, where it is converted into an inferior varnish for carriages and 

 palanquins, and to China, where the people have discovered, it is said, a pro- 

 cess for utilising it, which, like the manufacture of rice-paper and of Indian 

 ink, they keep secret. The price of chakazi varies from four to nine dollars 

 per frasilah (of 351b.) The true or ripe copal, properly called sandarusi, is 

 the produce of vast extinct forests, overthrown in former ages, either by some 

 violent action of the elements, or exuded from the roots of the tree by an 

 abnormal action which exhausted and destroyed it. 



The gum, buried at depths beyond atmospheric influence, has, like amber 

 and similar gum-resins, been bitumenised in all its purity, the volatile prin- 

 ciples being fixed by moisture and by the exclusion of external air. That 

 it is the produce of a tree, is proved by the discovery of pieces of resin 

 embedded in a touchwood which crumbles under the fingers ; the " goose- 

 skin," which is the impress of sand or gravel, shows that it was buried in a 

 soft state ; and the bees, flies, gnats, and other insects, which are sometimes 

 found in it delicately preserved, seem to disprove a remote geologic antiquity. 

 At the end of the rains, it is usually carried ungarbled to Zanzibar. When 

 garbled upon the coast, it acquires an additional value of one dollar per 

 frasilah. The Banyan embarks it on board his own boat, or pays a freight 

 varying from two to four annas (3d. to 6d.) ; and the ushur or govern- 

 ment tax is six annas per frasilah, with half an anna for charity. About 

 eight annas per frasilah are deducted for " tare and tret." At Zanzibar, 

 after being sifted and freed from heterogeneous matter, it is sent by the 

 Banyan retailers to the India market, or sold to the foreign merchant. It 

 is then washed in solutions of various strengths : the lye is supposed to be 

 composed of soda and other agents for softening the water ; its proportions, 



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