314 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. XXX. 
ing about four pounds' weight. For wheat and rice 
the general rule in Negroland is, that they fetch 
double the price of the native corn. Eice might 
seem to be indigenous in Central Africa, growing wild 
everywhere, as well in Baghena, in Western Africa, 
as in Kotoko or Bagirmi. Wheat, on the contrary, was 
evidenty introduced some hundred years ago, together 
with onions, the favouri te food of the Arab, to the merits 
of which the native African is insensible, although 
it is a most wholesome article of diet in this climate, 
as I shall have repeatedly occasion to state. 
Of fruits the most common are — the two sorts of 
groundnut, " kolche" and " gangala," the former of 
which is a very important article of food, though by 
no means on so large a scale as in the eastern parts of 
Adamawa; the "bito," the fruit of the hajilij or Bala- 
nites JEgyptiaca (which is so much valued by the 
Kanuri that, according to a common proverb, a bfto- 
tree and a milch-cow are just the same, — "Keska, 
bitowa fewa madarabe kal") ; a kind of Physalis, the 
native name of which I have forgotten ; the birgim, 
or the African plum, of which I shall speak further on ; 
the korna, or the fruit of the Rhamnus lotus ; and the 
fruit of the dum-palm, " kirzim" or Cucifera Theba'ica. 
Of vegetables, the most common in the market are 
— beans of various descriptions, which likewise form 
a very important article of food in many districts, cer- 
tainly as much as the third of the whole consumption ; 
onions, consumed in great quantity by the Arabs, but 
not by the natives, who prefer to season their food 
