The natives of British Central Africa . d by itself=money, is, Ifancy, a borrowed word—the Arabic dirhem. I oncebought (in the West Shire district) a bangle of purecopper, which was vaguely said to have been obtainedfrom a place to the north-west, but where it had beenworked, I could not ascertain. The brass which isfashioned by native craftsmen is always bought fromtraders. There are no deserts in this part, neither are thereany dense forests of huge trees, such as we usuallythink of when Central Africa is mentioned, and suchas are really to be found in the Upper Congo basin,on the Gold Coast
The natives of British Central Africa . d by itself=money, is, Ifancy, a borrowed word—the Arabic dirhem. I oncebought (in the West Shire district) a bangle of purecopper, which was vaguely said to have been obtainedfrom a place to the north-west, but where it had beenworked, I could not ascertain. The brass which isfashioned by native craftsmen is always bought fromtraders. There are no deserts in this part, neither are thereany dense forests of huge trees, such as we usuallythink of when Central Africa is mentioned, and suchas are really to be found in the Upper Congo basin,on the Gold Coast, and elsewhere. Two Yao boys,who had served in Ashanti with the Kings AfricanRifles, spoke of the West African forest with the samesort of surprise and wonder as any English rusticmight have done. Both, independently, answered thequestion, What is that country like? with the sameexpression— Palibc kuona, one cannot see ! addingthat the trees were high—very high (with an upwardgesture of hands and eyes)—away up above ones Tn face />. 9 INTRODUCTORY 9 Large trees, growing close together, are just what onedoes not find, as a rule, in the country we are thinkingof. The Bush {fengo, or cJiire) usually consists of smalltrees, thinly scattered, with tufts of grass, small bushes,and various herbaceous plants growing between them,and here and there a large tree standing by itself—perhaps a baobab, or a wild fig, or a silver-thorn acacia,covered with bright golden blossom. Or we have thekind of scenery described by travellers as park-like—open glades, covered with short grass (which, however,never makes turf; you can see the soil between theseparate tufts), and dotted with clumps of scrub andsmall trees, singly or in groups. This is the kind ofplace where the zebras come to graze—not that I everhad the luck to see any. The small boys who hadheld out hopes of this treat, said, when we passed theplace early in the afternoon, that it was still too hot—the mbidzi w
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