It is a great indication of the foreign origin of this plant that there is not a tribe from the Niger to the Nile which has a native word of their own to denote it. Throughout all the districts over which I travelled, the Niam-niam formed the solitary exception to this by naming the Virginian tobacco “gundeh;” but the Monbuttoo, who grow only this one kind and are as little familiar with _N. rustica_ as the Niam-niam, call it “Eh-tobboo.” The rest of the people ring every kind of change upon the root word, and call it “tab, tabba, tabdeet,” or “tom.” The plant is remarkable here for only attaining a height of about eighteen inches, for its leaves being nearly as long as one could span, and for its blossoms being invariably white. Quite an open question I think it is, whether the _N. rustica_ is of American origin. Several of the tribes had their own names for it. Here amongst the Bongo, in distinction from the “tabba,” it was known as “masheer.” The growth it makes is less than in Europe, but it is distinguished by the extreme strength and by the intense narcotic qualities which it possesses. It is different in this respect from what is grown in Persia, where it is used for the narghileh or water-pipes, and whence there is a large export of it, because of its mildness and aromatic qualities. Barth[27] has given his opinion that the tobacco is a native of Logane (Mosgoo). At all events, the people of Africa have far surpassed every other people in inventing various contrivances for smoking, rising from the very simplest apparatus to the most elaborate; and thus the conjecture is tenable, that they probably favoured the propagation of the foreign growth, because smoking, either of the common tobacco (_N. rustica_) or of some other aromatic weed, had in some way already been a practice amongst them. To such a hypothesis might be opposed the important fact that on all the monuments of the ancient Egyptians that afford us so clear an insight into the details of their domestic life, there has never been found a written inscription or pictorial representation that could possibly afford a proof that such a custom was known to exist. In conclusion, it deserves to be mentioned that the pagan negroes, as far as they have remained uninfluenced by Islamism, smoke the tobacco whilst those who have embraced Mohammedanism prefer the chewing of the leaf to the enjoyment of a pipe. FOOTNOTES: [24] The illustration on the following page represents a young fish, about nine inches long, and is remarkable for the long, thread-like spikes of skin on the lids of the gills. This peculiarity has been observed in Senegal, and probably is only seen whilst the fish is young. [25] The head of the Madoqua is represented as accurately as possible in the accompanying illustration.