Chap. XIII. 
FEUITS—KAPIDS. 
237 
rind is hard, and, with the pips and bark, contains much of the 
deadly poison. They evince their noxious qualities by an in¬ 
tensely bitter taste. The nuts, swallowed inadvertently, cause 
considerable pain, but not death; and to avoid this inconveni¬ 
ence, the people dry the pulp before the fire, in order to be able 
the more easily to get rid of the noxious seeds. 
A much better fruit, called mobola, was also presented to us. 
This bears, around a pretty large stone, as much of the fleshy part 
as the common date, and it is stripped off the seeds and preserved 
in bags in a similar manner to that fruit. Besides sweetness, the 
mobola has the flavour of strawberries, with a touch of nauseous¬ 
ness. We carried some of them, dried as provisions, more than 
a hundred miles from this spot. 
The next fruit, named mamosho (mother of morning), is the 
most delicious of all. It is about the size of a walnut, and, un¬ 
like most of the other uncultivated fruits, has a seed no larger 
than that of a date. The fleshy part is juicy, and somewhat like 
the cashew-apple, with a pleasant acidity added. Fruits similar 
to those which are here found on trees are found on the plains 
of the Kalahari, growing on mere herbaceous plants. There are 
several other examples of a similar nature. Shrubs, well known 
as such in the south, assume the rank of trees as we go to the 
north; and the change is quite gradual as our latitude decreases, 
the gradations being herbaceous plants, slmubs, bushes, small, 
then large, trees. But it is questionable if, in the cases of ma¬ 
mosho, mabola, and mawa, the tree and shrub are identical, 
though the fruits so closely resemble each other; for I found 
both the dwarf and tree in the same latitude. There is also a 
difference in the leaves, and they bear at different seasons. 
The banks of the river were at this time appearing to greater 
advantage than before. Many trees were putting on their fresh 
green leaves, though they had got no rain, their lighter green 
contrasting beautifully with the dark motsouri, or moyela, now 
covered with pink plums as large as cherries. The rapids 
having comparatively little water in them, rendered our passage 
difficult. The canoes must never be allowed to come broadside 
on to the stream, for, being flat-bottomed, they would, in that 
case, be at once capsized, and everything in them be lost. The 
men work admirably, and are always in good humour; they 
