spot where it rises from the stem, where there is a cavity
formed by nature. The water is evidently collected by the broad leaf,
and carried down a groove in the stem to the bowl, which holds a quart
or more, perhaps, at a time. The traveller's-tree is of great use for
other purposes to the natives. With the leaves they thatch their
houses; the stems serve to portion off the rooms; and the hard outside
bark is beaten flat, and is used for flooring. The green leaves are
used to envelop packages, and sometimes a table is covered with them
instead of a tablecloth, while they are also folded into various shapes,
to be employed as plates, bowls, and even spoons.

We had to cross a river said to be infested by crocodiles. The natives
walked close to us on either side, beating the water with long sticks to
keep them away. The natives look on them with great dread, and attempt
to propitiate them by charms or sacrifices, instead of endeavouring to
destroy them. They, however, take their eggs in great numbers, and dry
them for food.

Locusts in great numbers infest some of the provinces; but the people do
not allow them to pass without paying a heavy tribute, and eat them as
one of their chief luxuries, dressed in fat. They fly about two or
three feet from the ground. As soon as they appear, men, women, and
children rush out--the men catch them in sheets, the women and children
pick them from the ground, and then shake them in sacks till the wings
and legs are knocked off. The lighter parts are then winnowed away, and
the bodies are dried in the sun and sold in the markets.

The natives seem to have the same dread of serpents that they have of
crocodiles. The doctor found one, ten feet long, coiled away on the mat
where he had slept one morning, on going back to look for something he
had left there; but it escaped before it could be killed.

We slept during our journey sometimes at the habitations of chiefs,
sometimes at peasants' huts, and sometimes at houses in villages
provided for our accommodation. The chiefs' houses were small, but
compactly built. We remarked that the water was kept in large earthen
jars--like those used in the Holy Land, I conclude. The sleeping-places
were neatly arranged round the rooms, and there was a general air of
comfort and respectability perceptible in most of them. Very different
was a peasant's hut when we entered. It was not more than twenty feet
square, divided into two com