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SOUDAN COFFEE.

(Parkia biglobosa.)

There are valuable plants on every continent.  Civilized Europe no longer counts them.  Mysterious Africa is no less largely and spontaneously favored with them than young America and the ancient territory of Asia.

The latter has given us the majority of the best fruits of our gardens.  We have already shown how useful the butter tree (Butyrospermum Parkii) is in tropical Africa, and we also know how the gourou (Sterculia acuminata) is cultivated in the same regions.  But that is not all, for the great family of Leguminosae, whose numerous representatives encumber this continent, likewise furnishes the negro natives a food that is nearly as indispensable to them as the gourou or the products of the baobab—­another valuable tree and certainly the most widely distributed one in torrid Africa.  This leguminous tree, which is as yet but little known in the civilized world, has been named scientifically Parkia biglobosa by Bentham.  The negroes give it various names, according to the tribe; among the Ouloffs, it is the houlle; among the Mandigues, naytay; in Cazamance (Nalon language), it is nayray; in Bornou, rounuo; in Haoussa, doroa; in Hant-fleure (Senegal), nayraytou.  On the old mysterious continent it plays the same role that the algarobas do in young America.  However, it is quite a common rule to find in the order Leguminosae, and especially in the section Mimosae, plants whose pods are edible.  Examples of this fact are numerous.  As regards the Mediterranean region, it suffices to cite the classic carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua), which also is of African nationality, but which is wanting in the warm region of this continent.

Throughout the tropical region of Africa, the aborigines love to consume the saccharine pulp and the seed contained in the pod of the houlle.  Prepared in different ways, according to tribe and latitude, these two products constitute a valuable aliment.  The pulp is consumed either just as it is or as a fermented beverage.  As for the seeds, they serve, raw or roasted, for the production of a tea-like infusion (whence the name “Soudan coffee"), or, after fermentation in water, for making a national condiment, which in certain places is called kinda, and which is mixed with boiled rice or prepared meats.  This preparation has in most cases a pasty form or the consistency of cohesive flour; but in order to render its carriage easier in certain of the African centers where the trade in it is brisk, it is compressed into tablets similar to those of our chocolate.  As these two products are very little known in Europe, it has seemed to us that it would be of interest to give a description and chemical analysis of them.  We shall say but little of the plant, which has sufficiently occupied botanists.