UI TRA VE LS IN EAST AFRICA 63
formed, but still green, the sim-sim, then about 4 to 4
feet high, is uprooted, and after lying on the ground for
one day, is tied up in stooks, three or four supporting each
other, and thus left to dry for fifteen d a y s ; this causes the
pods’to open, and the seed, which is very minute, is shaken
out on to mats. The seed is then crushed locally in mills
very similar to the Indian and Ceylon chikku oil-mills, only
here they are driven by camels instead of bullocks. | The oil
is largely used by the people for cooking and anointing their
bodies, the price of a cupful being one pice. The prices
average from three to five and six dollars a gisla.
The following particulars may be of interest—
In millet or metamah cultivation only two shoots are left
in each hole, the remainder being either transplanted or
destroyed. Only two weedings of metamah are considered
necessary from the sowing to harvest.
Rice seed takes ten days to germinate. Sesame seed will
germinate in four days from sowing.
Only the bitter variety of cassava appeared to be cultivated.
It forms an important article of local consumption, it and
maize being eaten roasted and ground.
A basket o f ,cassava of from 50 to 60 lbs. sells for four
to five annas.
Beans and pulse at from two to three dollars a gisla.
Sugar-cane is here a permanent product; land once planted
remains so, and it is cut every month all the year round, and
the stumps are allowed to shoot up again. A sugar-cane
stick’. 4 to 5 feet long sells for about a pice. The brown
and white sugar sold locally is all imported, none being made
here, and the only attempt at manufacture that I heard of,
was that of Suliman bin Abdulla already mentioned.
Pineapples are cultivated to a small extent for their fruit
alone; they grow well.
Tobacco is not extensively grown along the immediate
coast-land, and so far I had only noticed small patches here
and there, generally near slave houses. A ll the plants that
I saw, though growing without any particular care or attention,
were luxuriant enough. The leaf, very dark-coloured, is
hung up in the roofs, of houses to cure. The tobacco is strong