and is eaten by men and elephants. The
natives bury the nuts until the kernels begin to sprout; when dug up and
broken, the inside resembles coarse potatoes, and is prized in times of
scarcity as nutritious food. During several months of the year, palm-
wine, or sura, is obtained in large quantities; when fresh, it is a
pleasant drink, somewhat like champagne, and not at all intoxicating;
though, after standing a few hours, it becomes highly so. Sticks, a foot
long, are driven into notches in the hard outside of the tree--the inside
being soft or hollow--to serve as a ladder; the top of the fruit-shoot is
cut off, and the sap, pouring out at the fresh wound, is caught in an
earthen pot, which is hung at the point. A thin slice is taken off the
end, to open the pores, and make the juice flow every time the owner
ascends to empty the pot. Temporary huts are erected in the forest, and
men and boys remain by their respective trees day and night; the nuts,
fish, and wine, being their sole food. The Portuguese use the palm-wine
as yeast, and it makes bread so light, that it melts in the mouth like
froth.

Beyond the marsh the country is higher, and has a much larger population.
We passed a long line of temporary huts, on a plain on the right bank,
with crowds of men and women hard at work making salt. They obtain it by
mixing the earth, which is here highly saline, with water, in a pot with
a small hole in it, and then evaporating the liquid, which runs through,
in the sun. From the number of women we saw carrying it off in bags, we
concluded that vast quantities must be made at these works. It is worth
observing that on soils like this, containing salt, the cotton is of
larger and finer staple than elsewhere. We saw large tracts of this rich
brackish soil both in the Shire and Zambesi valleys, and hence, probably,
sea-island cotton would do well; a single plant of it, reared by Major
Sicard, flourished and produced the long staple and peculiar tinge of
this celebrated variety, though planted only in the street at Tette; and
there also a salt efflorescence appears, probably from decomposition of
the rock, off which the people scrape it for use.

The large village of the chief, Mankokwe, occupies a site on the right
bank; he owns a number of fertile islands, and is said to be the Rundo,
or paramount chief, of a large district. Being of an unhappy suspicious
disposition, he would not see us; so we thought it best to