Salt is so much in demand, for reasons already adverted to, in this part of Africa, that its production is an important industry. Its principal centre is near Lake Chilwa, but inferior salt is made in places at a distance from that lake, for home consumption, by burning various grasses and other plants. In either case the process is the same. The ashes, or the salt earth dug up from the banks of the lake, are put into a flat basket, preferably an old, worn _nsengwa_, and water slowly poured on and allowed to drain through into a pot placed beneath to receive it. ‘The water so strained through is saltish,’ says the Rev. H. Barnes, speaking of Likoma, ‘and is used with food to flavour it. In some parts this water is boiled till it is boiled away, and the result is a very white salt.’ Sometimes the water is allowed to evaporate without boiling; I do not know if this is done at Chilwa, but the salt brought from thence is distinctly grey—certainly not white. People come in small parties from a distance, and live at the _kulo_, or salt-pit, where the earth is dug, till they have finished making all they want. The process is a slow one; it usually takes a month to make eighty pounds of salt, as large numbers of people do not engage in the work at once. They pack it in matting bags holding about twenty pounds’ weight apiece, and carry it down to Blantyre and elsewhere for sale. A ‘salt _ulendo_’ is always sure of a speedy sale for its wares. People who make salt at home—it is generally the women—do not, as a rule, take the trouble to boil or evaporate it, but use the liquor as it is for cooking. Besides Lake Chilwa, there are some places near the mouth of the Ruo, whence salt is obtained, and some is said to come from the neighbourhood of Lake Nyasa, but this last is bitter and more like saltpetre. Sir A. Sharpe describes the process of salt-making in the saline swamps of Mweru, in very much the same way as the above, only the apparatus is different—‘funnels made of closely woven grass rope’ taking the place of baskets. Evidently these funnels or strainers are specially made for the purpose, showing that the industry is more specialised. CHAPTER IX LANGUAGE AND ORAL LITERATURE Structure of the Bantu languages. Riddles. Songs. Music and dancing. Story-telling. The languages spoken in British Central Africa belong to the great Bantu family, which, as is now known, occupies (with a few exceptions) the whole continent of Africa south of a line drawn from the Gulf of Cameroons to the mouth of the Tana River on the east coast. Those spoken within the Protectorate are Nyanja, Yao, the Lomwe dialect of Makua, Tonga, Tumbuka, Nkonde, and a Zulu dialect spoken by the Angoni clans. In Northern Rhodesia we may mention Bisa, Bemba, Luba, and Lunda as the principal languages.