THE TECHNOLOGIST. [June 1, 1865. 



518 THE KOLA-NUT. 



E. Lopez, one of the earliest Portuguese adventurers, writing on this 

 product, avers that it was the fashion in his day for the negroes " to hold 

 them in their mouths, and chew, or at least eat, them for the quenching 

 of their thirst, and better relishing of their water. They comfort and 

 preserve the stomach, but, above all other virtues, they are singularly 

 good against diseases of the liver. And it is said the liver of a hen, or 

 any other bird that is putrefied and stinketh, being sprinkled with the 

 matter of this fruit, returneth to its former state, and becomes fresh and 

 sound again.'' * In further evidence of the popular esteem they com- 

 manded at apparently such a distant age, we may allude to the custom 

 mentioned by a Capuchin missionary, Jerome de Sorrento, in his voyage 

 to the Congo, that when any gentleman of St. Paul de Loando (the 

 metropolis of the Portuguese possessions in South-West Africa) was 

 desirous of paying a compliment to any lady he met in the streets, he 

 offered her a present of a few of these nuts. It was evident even at this 

 date that some peculiar stimulant property was manifested, otherwise it 

 would be difficult to account for the subtle influence they exercised on 

 the human economy. That the taste for them was acquired there can 

 also be but slight doubt, for the bitter astriugency of the nuts was far 

 from being pleasant or palatable, at first, to those unaccustomed to their 

 use. 



Another point should always be kept in view, viz., that they were 

 not specially reserved for meals or bad water, but usually carried in the 

 hand of the owner whilst pursuing his ordinary avocations ; small frag- 

 ments being masticated at intervals, and the pulp, after the extraction 

 of their juice, thrown away. This addition to their daily habit brought 

 under their cognizance the remarkable faculty they possessed in causing 

 insomnia, or waut of sleep, and this property the natives probably ren- 

 dered available in protracting the festivities of their midnight orgies. 

 In other respects, the best, if not the most useful, application the Portu- 

 guese made in a practical point of view was the extraction of a beautiful 

 yellow dye from the fresh seeds, by a process still in vogue among 

 several aboriginal tribes, in proximity to their ancient colonial settle- 

 ments. 



Another interesting feature connected with the primitive nomen- 

 clature of this plant is the origin of the term Kola, and its widely- 

 spread diffusion along the shores of Western Africa bj 7 this designation, 

 — a fact which did not escape the notice of that celebrated botanist, 

 Robert Brown. From the earliest records relative to the discovery of 

 the Congo in which we find the seeds and tree being described by this 

 name, we might reasonably infer that it was either of Congoese or Por- 

 tuguese derivation. Respecting the latter, I may remark that during a 

 long residence in the districts of the Congo, I never knew their in- 

 habitants to acknowledge any other title than that of Makasso or 



* Pigafetta, ' Relatione del Reame di Congo,' &c, 1591. 



