To Sdnga-Tdnga and Back. 123 
tart and pleasant to the taste. In 1817 the style 
of collecting the gum (olamboo) was to spread with 
a knife the glutinous milk as it oozed from the 
tree over the shaved breast and arms like a 
plaister; it was then taken off, rolled up in balls 
to play with or stretched over drums, no other use 
being known. The Rev. Mr. Wilson declares 
(chap, ii.) that he “ first discovered the gum 
elastic, which has been procured, as yet, only at 
Corisco, Gabun, and Kama.” In 1854, Mr. 
Thompson (p. 112) found it in the Mendi country, 
near Sherbro; he describes it as a vine with 
dense bark, which yields the gum when hacked, 
and which becomes soft and porous when old. 
The juice is milk-white, thick, and glutinous, soon 
stiffening, darkening, and hardening without aid of 
art. I should like to see the raw material tried 
for making waterproofs in the tropics, where the 
best vulcanized articles never last. The Ndambo 
tree has been traced a hundred miles inland from 
the Liberian Coast; that of the Gallinas and 
Sherbro is the best; at St. Paul’s River it is not 
bad; but on the Junk River it is sticky and little 
prized. The difficulty everywhere is to make the 
negro collect it, and, when he does, to sell it un¬ 
adulterated : in East Africa he uses the small 
branches of the ficus for flogging canes, but will 
not take the trouble even to hack the “ Mpira ” 
tree. 
