Baskets are of many kinds, each with its own use and name, and it is characteristic of the native habit of mind (one illustrated in all primitive languages), that there is no _general_ term for a basket pure and simple without reference to its kind or use. This, I fancy, touches on the old controversy between Nominalists and Realists. But that the Bantu are not incapable of the degree of mental abstraction implied in general notions is shown by the fact that they have words for ‘tree’ and ‘bird,’ quite irrespective of the species of either, all of which have their own proper names. One of the commonest kinds of basket is the _mtanga_, used for bringing in maize from the harvest-field, for carrying provisions or anything else that will go into it (being of convenient size and shape for carrying on the head), and, very often, for storing things inside the hut. It is made of flat slips of bamboo, woven at first as if for a mat; when a square of a little more than a foot across is finished, the slips are turned up, the corners rounded, and the upright part of the basket woven in a circle, which is finished by cutting off the ends at the top and enclosing the rim between two thin bamboo hoops, sewn on with strips of bark. _Mtangas_ are made in several sizes, being both larger and smaller than the above; the diameter is always about equal to the height. They are very strong and serviceable, and Europeans find them useful in many ways. The _mtungwi_ is a double basket with flat wooden rims, one of which fits into the other; it is made of split bamboo, like the _mtanga_, but the slips are narrower, and both halves are rounded, instead of beginning as a square. The rims are of white wood, often charred or otherwise blackened, and ornamented with patterns cut out on it with a knife. Small flat baskets (_nsengwa_), from four to eight inches across, are used as plates, or to bring eggs, or other small articles for sale. They sometimes have an ornamental rim, worked in herring-bone pattern with a certain fibrous root, alternated with the rind of cane. The large flat baskets used for winnowing or sifting are eighteen inches or two feet across, and three or four inches deep in the middle; they slope more from the rim than the _nsengwa_, which is flat-bottomed. Bags of different shapes and sizes, which men wear round their necks on a journey, are woven out of palm-fibre. A much rougher construction is the coop or crate made for the transport of fowls, which is sometimes round, sometimes cylindrical. [Illustration: MAKING “MTANGA” BASKET] [Illustration: BOY WITH CRATE OF FOWLS]