ported to be very clever as a healer. This old person
has European features but has an unpleasant expression. The native women
wear nothing but a thin belt with a small piece of cloth attached but
they are covered with brass rings, and the principle wife of an
important chief here was wearing a necklet of solid brass which must
have weighed thirty or forty pounds. This was fixed on and had to be
worn night and day.

[Illustration: THE FARM AT EALA.]

In spite however, of clever doctors, the men do not live to be much over
forty years of age. Perhaps they have too many wives for there are far
more old women than men. On the other hand, as there must be two or
three women to each man, it is only natural to find more of the former
at any given age. The infants are not weaned for three or four years and
during that period the woman it is said refuses to lie with her husband.
Another wife therefore, cohabits with the man while the first rears her
child. Polygamy is thus a custom which the missionaries find very
difficult to change. The State however, refuses to recognise more than
one wife and many of the soldiers are legitimately married by the
officials qualified to perform that office.

Much palm wine is consumed by the natives for its manufacture is very
simple. A gourd is tied to an upper branch of a palm which is then
tapped and the sap drops into the vessel. If this is left all night,
fermentation takes place without artificial aid, and at midday a kind of
highly scented alcoholic cider is produced which however, is acid and
undrinkable by the evening. This natural wine must therefore, be drunk
on the day of fermentation and does not improve on keeping.

What a useful tree the palm is! Its trunk, branches and leaves are fine
building materials; its matting forms beds and furniture; its oil gives
light, acts as butter or lard for cooking, makes soap when mixed with
banana juice or an alkali, and indeed, can be used for all the purposes
of oil; it forms wine, and the heart of the plant is most excellent
eating as a salad. Therefore given meat, the palm tree and the banana,
and a town can be built and its inhabitants fed. Both sexes smoke a
great deal of tobacco and also Indian hemp, which latter has however,
been found so injurious that it is illegal to grow the plant but the
native tobacco is not at all unpleasant when smoked in a pipe.

On August 22nd we take a trip up a small river to the East of Ikoko
which win