INEBRIENTS. HONEY. 



287 



heady. As these liquors consume a quantity of grain, 

 they are ever expensive ; the large gourdful never 

 fetches less than two khete or strings of beads, and 

 strangers must often pay ten khete for the luxury. 

 Some years ago an Arab taught the Wanyamwezi to 

 distil : they soon, however, returned to their favourite 

 fermentation. 



The use of pombe is general throughout the country: 

 the other inebrients are local. At the island and on 

 the coast of Zanzibar tembo, or toddy, in the West 

 African dialects tombo, is drawn from the cocoa-tree; and 

 in places a pernicious alcohol, called mvinyo, is ex- 

 tracted from it. The Wajiji and other races upon the 

 Tanganyika Lake tap the Guinea-palm for a toddy, 

 which, drawn in unclean pots, soon becomes acid and 

 acrid as the Silesian wine that serves to mend the 

 broken limbs of the poor. The use of bhang and 

 datura-seed has already been alluded to. " Mawa," or 

 plantain-wine, is highly prized because it readily intoxi- 

 cates. The fruit when ripe is peeled and hand-kneaded 

 with coarse green grass, in a wide-mouthed earthen 

 pot, till all the juice is extracted : the sweet must is then 

 strained through a comet of plantain-leaf into a clean 

 gourd, which is but partially stopped. To hasten fer- 

 mentation a handful of toasted or pounded grain is 

 added : after standing for two days in a warm room the 

 wine is ready for drinking. 



The East Africans ignore the sparkling berille or 

 hydromel of Abyssinia and Harar, and the mead of the 

 Bushman race. Yet honey abounds throughout the 

 country, and near the villages log-hives, which from 

 their shape are called mazinga or cannons by the people, 

 hang from every tall and shady tree. Bees also swarm 

 in the jungles, performing an important part in the 



