THE CEREALS. 



243 



best Lucchese olive. In London I have vainly 

 asked for ' cucumber-oil : ' the vegetable is pro- 

 bably too expensive, and the seeds are too small 

 to be thus used at home. About Lagos on the 

 Slave Coast, however, there is a cucumber nearly 

 a foot long, with large pips, which might be sent 

 northwards, and I commend the experiment to 

 the civilized lover of oil. All kinds of ' Chilis,' 

 from the small wild 6 bird-pepper ' to the large 

 variety of which the Spaniards are so fond, thrive 

 in Zanzibar, which appears to be their home. 

 There are extensive plantations of betel-pepper 

 on the Eastern coast of the Island. 



Wheat, barley, and oats here run to straw. 

 Hice is the favourite cereal. The humid low-lands 

 are cleared of weeds by burning, and the seed is 

 sown when the first showers fall. To judge from 

 the bazar-price, the home-grown article is of a 

 superior quality ; but nowhere in East Africa did 

 I find the grain so nutritious as that of the 

 Western Coast. The hardest working of all 

 African tribes, the Kru-men, live almost entirely 

 upon red rice and palm-oil. The clove mania has 

 caused the cereal to be neglected ; formerly an ex- 

 port, it is now imported, and in 1860 it cost the 

 Island £38,000. Jowari (Holcus Sorghum), here 

 called by the Arabs Ta'am (food), and by the Was- 



