224 GONDOKORO TO AGARU.

carried on by means of large nets, made from fibres of Sanseviera, which is very common over the whole of Latuka; they are spread out over a part of the khor by five or six persons, and then drawn to land. Large fish are killed with sticks, but crocodiles are allowed to escape.

About an hour and a half’s journey from here to the northwest lies an extensive forest of doléb palms called Kayala (a general name for all palm forests) ; it is about four hours’ march in length, and, in parts, two hours’ march across. Now that corn is scarce, it abundantly supplies all the surrounding villages with orange-coloured fruits, which are carried for miles by women in nets on their heads; the stringy husks are either eaten raw or macerated in water, which is then drunk. The kernels themselves are planted, and dug up again as soon as they begin to sprout, when they are eaten raw or boiled. The large village Loronio, about five hours’ journey distant, also draws its supplies from this forest; but as the elephants, and still more the very numerous baboons, like to have their share, -and are often very troublesome, the villagers have combined to send a guard in turns to the forest to protect the women and children.

Close beside the station stands the Negro village Okella, which must certainly have existed for very many years, for the original fence has gradually become such a thick entangled mass of bushes, briers, underwood, and trees, that it is quite impossible to get through it except at the entrances, which are kept free by the inhabitants, and which Baker mentions. This natural fort could hold out for a long time even against an attack with firearms. ‘The wood forming the rampart is in places nearly a mile broad. The village stands on a very large open space within this fortress of wood, and as Chief Chulong was killed in a quarrel, it is governed by his wife, until her son srows up. ‘The huts are built of straw in a peculiar form, and are arranged in groups separated from one another by fences and shockingly dirty narrow paths. At one end of the village an enclosure built round an immense fig-tree is used as a meeting-place by the men, Upon ahigh scaffolding there are numerous reclining-boards, which command a distant view, and are occupied at all hours of the day by men of all ages, talking,