586 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 
water, whose existence and formation I attribute to the rains of winter. 
This is the more probable as it is remarked that these streams diminish 
in volume as the dry season advances. 
The whole of the island is covered with palm-trees. This precious 
tree must not be confounded with its congener of Algeria, which 
produces dates, and consequently obtains the name of date-palm. The 
paltn-tree of the Bissagos is a tree about 8 to 12 metres high, at 
the head of which bunches of spikes are produced, growing to the size 
of a man’s head. On each spike are hundreds of smalt nuts, covered 
with a fleshy-red skin. The natives gather the nuts and throw them 
into a vessel full of boiling water. The red skin of the nut, under the 
influence of water and heat, throws oft a quantity of oil of a brick-red 
colour, which, of course, rises to the surface. This, under the name of 
palm-oil, is in great demand for various industrial arts at Liverpool 
and Marseilles. 
When the nuts have been deprived of their skin they are set 
aside to he broken up by the women and children of the village, who 
extract from it a hard oleaginous kernel well known in all the 
markets of Europe under the name of palm-kernels. (This is, in 
fact, what in the cocoanut oil trade is known as “copra.” Trans.)* 
All the villagers possess herds of bullocks, pigs, and goats ; in 
fact, the flocks and herds are the only sign of wealth. A king without 
a herd is a poor kiug indeed. 
It seems almost superfluous to remark that coined gold and silver 
are quite unknown amongst these islanders. A native will sell you a 
fowl for four leaves of tobacco, and would refuse an offer of ten gold 
pieces for the bird. 
In this island, as in all the others composing the archipelago, the 
cultivation of rice is carried on to a greater extent than that of any 
other field produce. The natives sow it in May and June, and it is 
ready for harvesting in October and November. The soil is well 
suited for this grain, and the Bissagos rice has the reputation of being 
the best on the whole Guinea coast. 
Like the palm-nut cracking, the decortication of the paddy is 
carried on in a most primitive fashion. After it has lain exposed for 
drying to the sun’s rays, it is placed in a mortar made of hardwood, 
and the women, armed with a pestle of cailcedra, pound at it until the 
grain is perfectly free from its husk. I now give the products of 
Kagnabak in order of their importance : — Copra or palm-nut kernels, 
rice, palm-oil, oranges, bullocks, pigs, goats, bananas, mangoes, pine- 
apples, manioc, grey beans, mats, dried fish, palm- wine, monkeys, grey 
parrots. 
All these products are partly consumed by the natives, partly 
exported to the markets of Bolama and of Bissao. The export trade 
is carried on by means of the famous Bissagos pirogues, which are from 
* M. Olivier, Viscount de Sanderval, M.G.S. of Marseilles, whose name constantly 
occurs in connection with the Bissagos and Foulah-Djalou, invented la machine for 
breaking the palm-nuts and easily extracting the kernel. But the Bissagos are so 
ignorant and brutalised that it has been found impossible to induce them to make use 
of this ingenious apparatus, which in one hour will perform an amount of work whicn 
would employ a man working with a hammer for fifteen days. 
