MEDICINAL PLANTS. 459 tion. Casati is in Monbuttu, and is getting ready for a tour to the south-east.

My collections increase very slowly, for there is nothing to collect in Ladd but mosquitos and bats. However, my herbarium begins to assume more respectable proportions, and I shall soon get together a small collection if I go once more on my travels. These are certainly castles in the air at present. I have a most delightful piece of news to tell you—at least I consider it such—namely, that the first female datepalm in this province is now bearing fruits as large as a bean. I will send them to you if they ripen.

You will receive another curiosity in the shape of a black powder, which the Monbuttu extol as an aphrodisiac. Our people here swear to its efficacy, and so I enclose directions for its use. Only persons presumably sterile, whether men or women, ought to take it. The powder is composed of the ashes of two roots, one of which looks and smells just like a radish. I was, unfortunately, not able to obtain whole tubers, but I have written for some. Bruised leaves of a liliaceous plant, which the Monbuttu and Zande grow for the purpose beside their huts, are added to beverages. I have brought four bulbs of it with me, and have planted them for the present to keep them from spoiling. If they blossom, I will send you a whole plant ; if not, I will send the bulb in clay.

A quantity of sweet-smelling resin from the mpafu-tree, of which I have already sent seeds, will do for analysis. In Unyoro, I heard the Amaranthus praised as a good remedy for worms, and therefore I brought seeds of it with me; it grows wild everywhere, and is eaten like spinach. Its efhcacy has been confirmed by trials in the hospital here; perhaps something might also be done with it in Hurope. The leaves of the Papaw are excellent for inflammatory swellings, as well as for swellings of the glands and for bubos. I prefer it to all the other remedies I know. There is much to learn here in this direction. But how is it that the _Papaw,. which is looked upon as the type of dicotyledonous trees with an unramified trunk, often forms branches here which also bear fruit like the main stem itself? I am impa--tiently waiting for the mango seeds to try and cultivate them.