TRAFFIC IN COLAT-NUTS. 
331 
his hand, makes a^hole in it with his thumb, and dips it 
into the sauce. When the rice is well cleaned and boiled in 
water, the cook adds to it a sauce made of pistachios and 
leaves of Guinea sorrel, but no salt. This article being 
expensive is used only at festivities, or on occasion of the 
visits of strangers of consequence. The people themselves are 
so accustomed to dispense with it, that they cannot feel the 
want of it as a great privation. Yet they invariably use a little 
salt whenever they eat meat, and I have heard them say that 
they would rather postpone their entertainments for a few 
days than go without salt. When they kill a kid or a 
sheep, they collect several of their neighbours, but they do 
not feast together. Each carries away his share to regale 
himself w^ith his family at home. 
The inhabitants of Time are Mandingoes, and they all 
make journeys to Jenne. I inquired of them the distance 
from one city to the other, to ascertain whether they agree 
on this point with the people of Sambatikila. They all 
assured me that I required two months to go, and two 
months to return ; but that they could only make two jour- 
neys in the course of the year, because they were obliged 
to travel to Teute and Cani, a fortnight's journey to the 
south of Jenne, to purchase their colats. I also learned 
that the inhabitants of those villages themselves go very far 
to the south, to a place called Toman, to procure these colats. 
On their return they cover them with leaves, and then bury 
them under ground to preserve them. This fruit may be 
kept fresh for nine or ten months by taking the precaution 
to renew the leaves. The colat-tree flourishes in the south; 
it is very abundant in the Kissi, the Couranco, the Sangaran 
and the Kissi-kissi. It is a general article of trade in the 
interior ; for the inhabitants, having no kind of fruits, highly 
esteem the colat, and, indeed, regard it as a sort of luxury. 
Old men who have lost their teeth reduce the colats to 
powder by means of a small grater, consisting merely of a 
