330 GRAIN, AND MODE OF USING IT. 
is very useful to the negroes^ for it often happens that their 
supplies of provisions are not sufficient to last them till the 
following year. They might make two harvests in the course 
of the year, as is done in Wassoulo, if they were not too 
indolent. The foigne is abundant throughout the whole of 
the south. The women take great pains in separating it 
from extraneous matters. They expose the grain to the heat 
of the sun, after which they put it into a mortar and clear it 
from the chaff, which requires considerable time and trouble. 
The bran is afterwards extracted in the same way, as on 
the Senegal ; the foigne is then pounded a second time, and 
when the grain is thoroughly cleared, it appears white and of 
about the coarseness of gunpowder. It is next washed and 
drained through a basket, in which it is allowed to remain 
until it swells a little. After this it is again consigned to 
the mortar, and a few strokes of the pestle suffice to reduce 
it to flour. If it were not wetted, the process of trituration 
would require longer time. The flour thus produced is 
made into a sort of pudding or paste called tau, which is 
the sangleh of the negroes of the Senegal. When this tau 
is baked it is put into a calabash, and seasoned with a sauce 
made of giraumon leaves, various herbs, and allspice; a little 
gombo is also added to render it glutinous, but neither salt 
nor butter is used in this sauce, The yams are cooked in a 
different manner. They are first boiled, and then pounded, and 
they are eaten with a sauce composed of dried fish reduced 
to powder, a little gombo, allspice, and zambala, or nede seeds 
boiled, dried, and pulverized; which gives them a very 
agreeable flavour. Though the nede seeds are very abundant 
in this country, yet the women use them but sparingly in 
their cookery, because, to preserve them all the year, they 
must be steeped in brine, and salt is scarce in this part of 
Africa In general the sauces are strongly seasoned with 
allspice. At meal-times the guests assemble round the dish, 
and each in his turn takes a handful of yams, rolls it up in 
