COTTON. 



271 



with red argillaceous soil : they produce in plenty 

 a fine, long-stapled, firm and heavy cotton, 

 Avith peculiarly flexible and tenacious filament. 

 Yarn is hand- spun by the women with two 

 wooden bobbins, and the primitive loom is worked 

 by both sexes : the result is a cloth, warm and 

 soft as silk, which surpasses in beauty and dura- 

 bility the vapid produce of our power-looms, as 

 much as the perfect hand of man excels the finest 

 machinery. The ' Tobe ' of Harar consists of a 

 double length of 11 x 2 cubits, with a bright 

 scarlet border, and the value of a good article 

 even in the city is $8. The laziness of the people 

 and the risks of the journey, 15 days of wild 

 travel to the coast, prevent any exportation of 

 made cloth, and years must elapse before the 

 obstacles are removed. 



The coast of Eastern Intertropical Africa 

 produces everywhere, as far as my wanderings 

 extended, a small quantity of cotton now used 

 only for domestic purposes. The rich ochreous 

 clays and the black earths fat with decayed vegeta- 

 tion, cause the neglected shrub to grow luxuriantly. 

 The mountains of TJsumbara north of the Pan- 

 ga-ni river are pecuHarly fitted by climate and 

 geological formation for growing the shrub. I 

 afterwards found it in Unyamwezi planted here 



