500 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
tripled, and new founts of wealth, now choked and 
unused through want of security, welling forth and 
giving life to European industry. 
The people of the Bihe are admirably fitted to carry 
out great undertakings. If we could only eradicate the 
viper of ignorance which devours their very entrails, 
raise them from their brute condition to the height of 
men, and direct them in the right road, we should soon 
see them take the lead in the march of progress and 
leave most of the other African peoples far behind them. 
The African negroes are not unlike the best breeds of 
horses, and those among them who at the outset are 
the most difficult of control end by becoming, with 
proper training, the most docile and obedient. The 
tribes in which indolence and cowardice predominate 
can with difficulty be civilised : but the laborious and 
high-spirited would offer a far easier task to their 
instructors. 
The Bihenos, like all the tribes of this part of Africa, 
are much given to drunkenness. The inevitable aguar- 
d elite has found its way hither, and where that fails 
they manufacture capata. Capata, quimbombo or chim- 
bombo, for they call the liquor indifferently by the three 
names, is a species of beer made from Indian corn. In 
those parts where the hop {Hum,ulus lupulus ) is culti¬ 
vated, the people use the conical seeds of that plant 
wherewith to make their drink. For this purpose the 
seeds are reduced to powder, and being mixed with 
maize flour, the whole is put with a large quantity of 
water into an enormous pipkin and made to boil for 
some eight or ten hours. When taken from the fire 
and allowed to cool, it is capata, which is drunk at 
once. Acetic fermentation predominates in this pre¬ 
paration, and the alcoholic fermentation is so small 
that it requires a great quantity to produce intoxication. 
As the liquor is not filtered, it of course holds a good 
deal of the flour in suspension, and is therefore rather a 
fluid mass than a pure liquid. It must have great 
nourishing power, as there are many of the negroes who 
will pass a whole day and even more without food, 
