215 
Life at Banza Nokki . 
health, and their children, born without difficulty, 
are sturdy and vigorous. The same was the case 
amongst the primitive tribes of Europe ; Zamacola 
(Anthrop. Mem. ii. 38), assures us that the Basque 
women were physically powerful as the men, with 
whom they engaged in prize-fights. 
The master awakes about 3 p.m. and smokes, 
visits, plays with his children, and dawdles away 
his time till the cool sunset, when a second edition 
of the first meal is served up. If there be neither 
dance nor festival, all then retire to their bens, 
light the fire, and sit smoking tobacco or bhang, 
with frequent interruptions of palm wine or rum, 
till joined by their partners. Douville (ii. 113), 
says that the Pangu6 or chanvre, “ croit naturelle- 
ment dans le pays” I believe the questions to be 
still sub judice, whether the intoxicating cannabis 
be or be not indigenous to Africa as well as to 
Asia; and whether smoking was not known in the 
Old World, as it certainly was in the New, be¬ 
fore tobacco was introduced. The cannabis Indica 
was the original anaesthetic known to the Arabs 
and to civilized Orientals many centuries before 
the West invented ether and chloroform. 
Our landlord has two wives, but one is a 
mother and will not rejoin him till her child can 
carry a calabash of water unaided. To avoid 
exciting jealousy he lives in a hut apart, sur¬ 
rounded by seven or eight slaves, almost all of 
