NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 437 
softened with water, pounded in a large wooden mortar, winnowed in long 
flat baskets, then ground to flour by a smooth stone working on the flat 
smooth surface of a much larger block of stone. The flour thus made is 
whitish-grey—sometimes pure white — and feels more granular to the touch 
than would be the case with mill-ground wheat flour. It is said that the 
trituration between the stone surfaces causes minute particles of stone to 
mix with the flour (as must be the case since the nether stone is soon worn into 
a hollow by the process), and that this slight admixture of grit has a very bad 
effect on the digestive organs of Europeans and Indians. Certainly neither can 
eat “ ufa ” 1 (as the native flour is called) long without getting diarrhoea or 
dysentery. 
The flour made from various farinaceous substances is mixed with water and 
boiled in a pot, being constantly stirred with a stick to prevent lumps forming. 
When it is cool it is rolled into balls with the fingers and eaten usually with a 
relish 2 —fish, fowl, meat of any kind, spinach made from various leaves or 
flowers, white ants, etc. 
Rice is boiled in a measured quantity of water in a covered pot until the 
water is all absorbed by the swelled grain, which is thus “ steamed.” Those 
natives to whom rice is known cook it admirably. Indian corn if it be not 
made into porridge or boiled or roasted on the cob, 3 is (when the grain is old) 
held over the fire on a tin plate or dish cover until it is parched into “pop corn,” 
when it is eaten with much gusto. This is usually the way of feeding during 
a hurried march. 
Millet and eleusine 4 grains are usually reserved for making beer. For this 
purpose, too, large quantities of sorghum and maize are used. The grain is 
soaked till it sprouts. Then it is pounded and thrown into a large pot of 
boiling water, to which is also added a thickening of flour to give body to the 
beer. After boiling and straining the beer is poured out into pots or huge jars 
of basket work so tightly knit as to hold liquids. The beer must stand for 
a day and then it is fit for drinking, but after about four days it is sour and 
unwholesome. Sometimes bran, gruel of flour and water, half pounded corn, 
and the malt made from the germinating grain are all mixed together, and form 
a sweet thick beer full of nutriment. Sick or convalescent people are fed on 
this. Some chiefs at the south end of Tanganyika scarcely take any other food 
than this beer-gruel and grow fat on it. 
The sap of most of the palms is tapped and drunk as a sweet heady drink, 
which when quite fresh from the tree (palm wine) is not intoxicating but 
becomes very alcoholic after fermentation. Milk is the favourite food in North- 
West Nyasaland. It is also drunk in the Awemba country, and round Lake 
Bangweolo. On the other hand it is ignored or disliked by the Yao and the 
A-nyanja peoples. No tribe within the confines of this territory makes any 
form of butter or ghi out of the milk except the Arabs and their followers. 
Wherever Arabs are settled a supply of milk may almost always be counted 
on. Eggs are seldom eaten and then usually when they have been sat on for 
1 Ufa of many Nyasa tribes, Usu of South Tanganyika, Uta7idi of the Wa-yao, Uivufu of the 
Wankonde, Unga of the Swahili. 
2 Swahili, Kitoweo; Chi-nyanja, Ndiwo; Yao, Mboga; Iki-nkonde, Iliseke; Kifwa of South 
Tanganyika. 
J Sometimes the soft grain of the young sorghum and maize is mashed on a stone, tied up in leaves, 
and boiled. 
4 A small grain which grows at the end of a short stalk on three broad racemes like three split 
capsules. In Swahili, Ulezi; Chinyanja, Maere; Ki-mambwe, Malesi. 
