Though the native has not yet become convinced of the safety of banking, the sums placed by them on deposit in the three British colonies—Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Nigeria, are nearly £80,000. When we reflect upon these natives rising to positions of greater power and influence in British colonies, and when we are prone to criticize British administrations, it will not hurt any of us, either native or European, to remember that less than a century ago these centres were amongst the principal slave markets of the world. VI THE AFRICAN WOMAN There is assuredly no country whose women are more interesting than those of Central Africa. Certainly there can be no place on the habitable globe where women are so continuously industrious. Amongst African women there are no unemployed and no unemployables. In all the hinterland, the women are the agriculturists. In the early morning, often before sunrise, they file out of the village to their plots, perhaps a mile away from the town, where there is always something to do; weeding and planting being almost an integral part of the daily routine. When the gardens have received attention, meals must be considered and the woman proceeds to dig up the manioca tubers, but only to bury them beneath the water in some forest stream or pool to extract the injurious element. In a few days hence the load of sodden tubers will be ready for the native culinary art. [Sidenote: DAILY BREAD] Ten minutes in the forest and the woman has gathered the fuel required for her cooking; then loading her basket with the manioca left to soak six days before, she places a layer of leaves between it and the firewood, and shoulders her burden. She steps out brightly for home, in company with perhaps another twenty matrons. It is not every day that she is able to finish by noon, for in the planting season the gardens demand her labour for whole days at a stretch. Some weeks before the husband has perhaps started a new field by cutting down at immense labour hundreds of trees, which lie there scattered in all directions till the tropical sun dries up the leaves and smaller branches. Then a torch at one end of the clearing starts the whole area in a blaze. It is at this stage that the wife comes along with her seeds and cuttings, digging little mounds all over the area and raising the soil by heaping upon it the cinders, dead leaves and ash, which provide the only manure these primitive folk possess. Between the rows of manioca she may plant gourds, Indian corn and ground nuts, and thus secure a general crop all over her cultivated field. From Sierra Leone right away to the north bank of the Kasai, these domestic crops vary but little, but on arriving at the southern bank of the Kasai, the change becomes very marked, for the extensive fields of manioca and cassava give way to mealies as the staple food.