332 
TIIE KILIM A- NJA E 0 EXPEDITION. 
there is water. It is also met with in the Taveitan 
forest at the base of Kilima-njaro. It seems to be in 
fruit at all seasons of the year, but the bunch here 
illustrated was cut in September. The colour of the 
ripe fruit is a pale orange. The length about 3J inches. 
Inside there are varying rows of seeds, from two to 
five or more, and in each row there may be either 
two, three, four, five, six, or seven seeds. Each seed 
is irregularly shaped, about \ inch in diameter, and 
very black. The pulp which surrounds and closely 
adheres to the seeds is orange in colour, when fresh, 
and somewhat pithy in texture, although very glutinous. 
The inside of the seeds is a friable white pith, easily 
rubbed into a white powder by the natives. When 
in this state it is used for divinations and augury. 
Blown from the palm of the hand into the air, its 
capricious wafting by the breeze is supposed to indicate 
the direction of an expected attack during war, or the 
most favourable quarter in which to travel for com¬ 
merce. The thin pulp of this fruit is just eatable; 
faintly sweet, but leaving a somewhat acrid taste in the 
mouth like an unripe banana of the cultivated species. 
Its structure is somewhat curious, for it is composed 
of long veins at wide intervals, and in between are 
thin delicate lines running at right angles. It is sup¬ 
posed by the natives that children grow up fine and 
tall if they eat the pulp of Musa Ensete. 1 The natives 
recognize its relationship to the cultivated banana. 
At a height of 7000 to 8000 feet tree-ferns may be 
met with, belonging to the species Lonchitis pubescens 
(illustrated on p. 231). Then above that the arborescent 
heaths begin to appear, and the orchilla lichen covers 
nearly all the forest with a grey-green veil. Between 
4 This belief also prevails in the Nyassa region. 
