June, 1910.] 



505 



MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTS. 



BAOBAB TREES USED FOR 

 STORAGE OP WATER. 



(From the Keio Bulletin, No. 3, 1910.) 



Sir Joseph Hooker has called our 

 attention to an account of the manner 

 in which the natives of Kordofan form 

 reservoirs for rain water in the trunks of 

 living Baobab trees (A dansonia digita). 

 The paper by Capt. Watkins Lloyd, 

 late Governor of Kordofan, Soudan, from 

 which the following extract is taken is 

 published in the Geographical Journal, 

 March, 1910, pp. 253 254, with an illustra- 

 tion of the tree on p. 251. The country- 

 referred to lies to the west of El Obeid. 



"Elsewhere the people are dependent 

 on water-melons and the water they 

 store in baobab trees. The melons are 

 small and almost tasteless, and are grown 

 in enormous quantities amongst the 

 corn When ripe tney are collected in 

 heaps and protected from the sun until 

 required for use. 



"The baobab trees have to be care- 

 fully prepared for use as reservoirs. 

 The large branches are first cut off near 

 the trunk. If this is not done, the trunk 

 is apt to split as soon as it is hollowed 

 out. Round the bottom of the tree a 

 shallow basin some 20 or 30 feet in 

 diameter is made, in which the rain- 

 water collects. As soon as there is a 

 storm, the people go out and fill their 

 trees. The water so stored remains per- 

 fectly good until the end of the next hot 

 weather, or even longer. A few trees, 

 naturally hollow, have a hole at the top 

 between the branches, and fill them- 

 selves, the branches catching the water 

 and acting gutters. These are called 

 "lagai"and are highly valued by the 

 Hamara. 



" The Arabs did not invent this method 

 of storing water, but improved on the 

 system of their predecessors, who 

 made the hole in the trunk only 10 or 12 

 feet from the ground. The present 

 system gives a cistern 20 feet high and 

 from 8 to 10 feet, or even more in 

 diameter. Owing to the labour involved 

 in preparing and filling the trees, water 

 is usually bought and sold, and on the 

 main roads where there is much traffic, 

 as between Nahud and Jebel el Hilla on 

 the way to El Fasher, the capital of 

 Darfur, the people do a regular trade by 

 supplying merchants aud travellers with 

 water. 



"The bucket, called a ' dilwa,' used by 

 the Arabs deserves mention. It consists 

 of a piece of leather suspended by strings 

 64 



6 inches long from a piece of wood bent 

 in a circle, to which the rope used for 

 drawing the water is fastened by three 

 or four strings. On reaching the bottom 

 of the well the leather opens out and 

 collects the water, however little there 

 may be." 



Though this appears to be the first 

 reference by an English geographer to 

 the process of hollowing out the trunks 

 of Baobab trees so as to serve as reser- 

 voirs, it is not the earliest record of 

 the practise of storing water in this 

 fashion in Kordofan. We are indebted 

 to Captain H. G. Lyons, R.B., F.R.S., 

 for having called our attention to a 

 passage in Mr, J. Petherick's account 

 of Egypt, the Soudan and Central 

 Africa, published in 1861. At pp. 208, 209, 

 Petherick says of the Baobab : — "Its 

 trunk and even branches, for the most 

 part hollow, are of immense size, the 

 diameter of the former attaining as much 

 as 40 feet. .... 



"These trees, in many parts of the 

 country where water is scarce, form 

 highly valuable natural tanks, and when 

 filled by the rains are carefully pre- 

 served aud tapped by the natives during 

 the drought, and enable them to inhabit 

 parts of tha country which otherwise, 

 for want of water, would be untenable." 



HISTORY OF THE SEA COCOA-NUT 

 (LODOICEA SECH ELLA RUM, 

 LABILL.) 



By E. Blatter, S. J. 



(From the Journal oj the Bombay Natu- 

 ral History Society, Vol. XIX., No. 4, 



28th February, 1910.) 

 There is scarcely any other palm which 

 has been so little known and was yet 

 the most celebrated formerly as the Sea 

 Cocoa-nut or Double Coco-nut. The 

 French call it Coco de mer, Coco de 

 Salomon, and Coco des Maldives, and it 

 was known to the writers of the 16th 

 and 17th centuries under the names of 

 Nux Mediea and Cocos Maldivicus- Be- 

 fore the exploration of the Seychelles 

 in 1743, by order of Mahe de la Bourdon- 

 nais, then Governor of Mauritius, the 

 nuts were only known from having 

 been found floating on the surface of 

 the Indian Ocean, and near the Mal- 

 dive Islands,, whence their French name 

 was derived, and even in the time of 

 Rumphius the nut was spoken of as 



