270 
colours used are five in number, and it may not be misplaced to 
record here how the natives obtain them. 
Red : — A yellow root, Curcuma (Kiswahili, Manjano) found 
almost everywhere, is dried, stamped, and left to soak for a week 
in a little alum and water. This mixture is then boiled together 
with a red root, the Rubia Cordifolia (Kiswahili, Fua), which is 
imported from India, and can be purchased in every shop. 
Yellow : — A piece of the bark of the Namavele acacia, called in 
Kiswahili, Mungamo, is pounded in a mortar and boiled with the 
strip of mat it is intended to colour. 
Orange : — The same process is performed as with yellow, only 
a little curcuma is added. 
Green : — The strip of mat is boiled with a concoction made up 
of the green leaves of Ricinus communis, Jatropha curcas, and 
Cordyla Africana (Kiswahili, Mche), which have previously been 
bruised. * 
Black : — Some dark-coloured slime , found in many of the rivers, 
is placed on the piece of mat and allowed to remain there for three 
days, after which it is removed. The strip is dried in the sun, and 
then boiled with a little pounded sorghum straw. 
Medicinal plants: — Various kinds of strophanthus and stry- 
ehnos are found in the plains. 
Wax : — A verv laudable effort is being made to establish a ra- 
tional bee culture. Up to within the last year or two the wax 
exported from German Fast Africa has solely come from Portu- 
guese territory. 
Forestry-Rufiji : — The numerous rivulets and creeks, which 
form the mouths of the Rufiji River, and which cover an area of 
100,000 acres, are lined by extensive mangrove swamps producing 
the timber known as boriti or Zanzibar rafters. J his timber, 
which is much used for the building of native houses, is also ex- 
ported to Zanzibar, Arabia, and India. 
It is the opinion of various botanists that when traders, both 
European and native, are allowed to cut bonds at will the mang- 
roves in course of time die out, as large numbers of big trees are 
usually cleared from one spot, thus exposing the young plants to 
the direct rays of the sun, which is said to kill them. In conse- 
quence, the only trees now to be found in various parts of the 
Rufiji Delta are Phoenix reclinata, Osmunda sp., and Barringtonia 
racemosa. 
In order to preserve, and if possible, to increase the present sup- 
ply of bonds, a forest officer and three wood-rangers have been 
stationed in the Rufiji sub-district. The trees are felled under 
their supervision, and the timber is sold by the German Govern- 
ment. 
'The custom of systematically stripping a part of the bark from 
the mangroves, as sometimes, practised in the East and West 
Indies, is not permitted, as it is held that such a course must be 
injurious to the trees. After the timber has been felled, the bark 
js stripped and sold. 
