they never use it in the southern districts without pounding
it between two stones and sprinkling over it a few pinches of an earth
which they consider extremely good and nutritious; they then pound the
mould and root together into a paste, and swallow it as a bonne bouche,
the noxious qualities of the plant being destroyed by the earth.

Many other roots are pounded between flat stones into a paste and are
then made into a cake and baked. The two roots which taste the best, when
cooked in this way, are the jee-ta and yunjid.

The former of these resembles in appearance and taste the unripe seeds of
Indian corn; it is in season in June and is really very palatable. The
latter is the root of a species of flag, and consists of a case enclosing
a multitude of tender filaments, with nodules of farinaceous matter
adhering to them. These are collected into a mass by pounding the root,
and the cake formed from the paste is very nice. The natives must be
admitted to bestow a sort of cultivation upon this root, as they
frequently burn the leaves of the plant in the dry seasons in order to
improve it.

EDIBLE FUNGI AND GUMS.

The different kinds of fungus are very good. In certain seasons of the
year they are abundant and the natives eat them greedily.

Kwon-nat is the kind of gum which most abounds and is considered the
nicest article of food. It is a species of gum-tragacynth. In the summer
months the acacias growing in swampy plains are literally loaded with
this gum, and the natives assemble in numbers to partake of this
favourite esculent. As but few places afford a sufficient supply of food
to support a large assemblage of persons these Kwon-nat grounds are
generally the spots at which their annual barter meetings are held, and
during these fun, frolic, and quarrelling of every description prevail.

POISONOUS NUTS.

No article of food used by the natives is more deserving of notice than
the by-yu. This name is applied to the pulp of the nut of a species of
palm which, in its natural state, acts as a most violent emetic and
cathartic; the natives themselves consider it as a rank poison: they
however are acquainted with a very artificial method of preparing it, by
which it is completely deprived of its noxious qualities and then becomes
an agreeable and nutritious article of food. Europeans who are not
acquainted with this mode of preparing the nut, the stones of which they
find lying about the fireplaces of the native