At Zanzibar the traveller should train his stomach to this food, and take care not to call it ‘Manioc.’ When raw it resembles a poor chestnut, but in this state none save a servile stomach can eat it without injury. Europeans compare it with parsnips and wet potatoes: the Hindus declare it to be heavy as lead, and so ‘cold’ that it always generates rheumatism. The Wasawahili have some fifty different ways of preparing it. Boiled, and served up with a sauce of ground-nut cream, it is palatable: in every bazar sun-dried lengths, split by the women, and looking like pipe-clay and flour, are to be bought: a paste, kneaded with cold water, is cooked to scones over the fire: others wrap the raw root in a plantain-leaf and bake it, like greeshen, in the hot ashes. The poorer classes pound, boil, stir, and swallow the thick gruel till their stomachs stand out in bold relief. Full of gluten, this food is by no means nutritious; and after a short time it produces that inordinate craving for meat, even the meat of white ants, which has a name in most African languages. The Bhang (Cannabis Sativa), which grows plentifully, though not wild, in the interior of the Continent, is mostly brought to Zanzibar from India. In Mozambique the Portuguese call it Bange or Canhamo de Portugal (Portugal hemp), and in the Brazil it is also known as Bange, evidently the Hindustani ‘Bhang.’ The negroes smoke it for intoxication, but ignore the other luxurious preparations familiar to Hindustan, Egypt, and Turkey. Wanga or arrow-root, globular like a variety found in the Concan, is much less nutritious than the long kind. Here the best is brought from Mombasah, and after the rains the southern coast could supply large quantities. The people levigate the root, wash, and sun-dry it: the white powder is then kneaded with Tembú (palm-wine) into small balls, which are boiled in the same liquid. It is ‘cold’ and astringent: the Arabs use it as a remedy for dysentery, and the Hindus declare that it produces nothing but costiveness. Ginger thrives in the similar formation of Pemba, and yet it will not, I am assured, grow at Zanzibar, where it is imported from Western India, the tea being in this climate a good stomachic. The Calumba or Colombo root is largely exported to adulterate beers and bitters. Curious to say, the ground-nut, which extends from Unyamwezi to the Gambia, is rare at Zanzibar.