436 



TOBACCO. 



is not so common on the Island as npon the Con- 

 tinent. These women are said to be prolific, but 

 apparently they have small families : the child is 

 carried in a cloth called Mbereko, and, curious to 

 say, they do not bind up its head immediately 

 after birth. They are hard-worked; and, like the 

 dames of Harar, they buy and sell with men in 

 the bazar. Their food is manioc, holcus, rice, and 

 sometimes fish ; a fowl is the extent of luxury, 

 flesh being mostly beyond their means. Pew 

 smoke, but almost all chew tobacco as lustily as 

 their husbands, and their mouths are horrid 

 chasms full of ' Tambul ' — quids of betel-nut and 

 areca leaf peppered with coarse shell-lime. 1 This 

 astringent, like the Kola-nut of the Guinea 

 Regions, acts preventive against the effect of damp 

 heat, and it is a stomachic, consequently a tonic. 

 The habit of fi chawing ' it becomes inveterate : 

 Hindostanis visiting Portugal, and unable to 

 procure the favourite c Pan-Supari,' have imitated 

 it with cuttings of cypress-apples and ivy leaves. 

 Ibn Batuta declares the betel to be highly 

 aphrodisiac, and hence partly the high esteem in 

 which this masticatory is held. 



1 The areca-nut is called in Arabic Fofal, and in Kisa- 

 wahili Popo : the betel-nufc, Tambul and Tambuli, and the lime 

 iNurah and Choka. 



