The Bongo are essentially an agricultural people. With the exception of some occasional hunting and some intermittent periods devoted to fishing, they depend entirely upon the produce of the soil for their subsistence. Their cultivated plants have already been noticed in a previous chapter. To agriculture men and women alike apply themselves, devoting their greatest attention to the culture of their sorghum. The amount of labour they bestow upon this cereal is very large. The seed is lavishly broadcast into trenches which have been carefully prepared for its reception, and when it has germinated and made its appearance above the ground, two or three weeks are spent in thinning the shoots and in transplanting them away from the spots where they are too thick; a system which experience has shown can very advantageously be applied to maize. Very few vegetables are cultivated, but for these the people find a variety of substitutes in the wild plants and tubers which abound. Everywhere throughout the tropics the Gynandropsis, the Corchorus, and the Gieseckia grow close upon the confines of the abodes of men, and the leaves of these, like the leaves of the gourd, are frequently used as an ingredient in soup. The fleshy leaves of the _Talinum roseum_ are served up in the same way as our spinach; and the tough foliage of the Tirna-tree (_Pterocarpus_), as it becomes soft in the process of boiling, is employed as a vegetable, and is really sweet and tender. The fruit of the Hymenocardia, not unlike that of the maple, has an acid flavour far from unpleasant, and serves a similar purpose. [Sidenote: FUNGUSES.]