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THE LAKE EEGIONS OF CENTRAL AFEICA. 



and pliable branches, freshly cut, form favourite "bakur," the 

 kurbaj or bastinadoing instrument of these regions ; after long 

 keeping they become brittle. The modern habitat of the tree 

 is the alluvial sea-plain and the anciently raised beach : though 

 extending over the crest of the latter formation, it ceases to be 

 found at any distance beyond the landward counterslope, and 

 it is unknown in the interior. 



The gum copal is called by the Arabs and Hindus sandarus, 

 by the Wasawahili sandarusi, and by the Wanyamwezi — who 

 employ it like the people of Mexico and Yucatan as incense in 

 incantations and medicinings — sirokko and mamnangu. This 

 semi-fossil is not " washed out by streams and torrents," but 

 " crowed " or dug up by the coast clans and the barbarians of 

 the maritime region. In places it is found when sinking piles 

 for huts, and at times it is picked up in spots overflowed by the 

 high tides. The East African seaboard, from Kas Gomani in 

 S. lat. 3° to Has Delgado in 10° 4 V, with a medium depth of 

 30 miles, may indeed be called the " copal coast ;" every part 

 supplies more or less the gum of commerce. Even a section of 

 this line, from the mouth of the Pangani River to Ngao 

 (Monghou), would, if properly exploited, suffice to supply ail 

 our present want?. 



The Arabs and Africans divide the gum into two different 

 kinds. The raw copal (copal vert of the French market) is 

 called sandarusi za miti, " tree copal," or chakazi, corrupted by 

 the Zanzibar merchant to "jackass" copal. This chakazi is 

 either picked from the tree or is found, as in the island of 

 Zanzibar, shallowly imbedded in the loose soil, where it has not 

 remained long enough to attain the phase of bitumenisation. 

 To the eye it is smoky or clouded inside, it feels soft, it becomes 

 like putty when exposed to the action of alcohol, and it viscidises 

 in the solution used for washing the true copal. Little valued 

 in European technology, it is exported to Bombay, where it is 

 converted into an inferior varnish for carriages and palanquins, 

 and to China, where the people have discovered, it is said, for 

 utilising it, a process which, like the manufacture of rice paper 

 and of Indian ink, they keep secret. The price of chakazi 

 varies from 4 to 9 dollars per frasilah. 



The true or ripe copal, properly called sandarusi, is the produce 

 of vast extinct forests, overthrown in former ages either by some 

 violent action of the elements, or exuded from the roots of the 

 tree by an abnormal action which exhausted and destroyed it. 

 The gum, buried at depths beyond atmospheric influence, has, 

 like amber and similar gum-resins, been bitumenised in all its 



