high, here single, there double, common in Ashanti and Congo-land.  Like most of their congeners, the animals die when exposed to the sun.  The “Bashikouay” and Nchounou (Nchu’u) of M. du Chaillu are the common “driver-ant” of West Africa (Termes bellicosa).  It is little feared in the Gaboon; when its armies attack the mission-houses, they are easily stopped by lighting spirits of turpentine, or by a strew of quicklime, which combines with the formic acid.  The different species are described in “Palm Land” and “Western Africa” (pp. 369-373), from which even the account of the “tubular bridge” is taken—­Mr. Wilson less sensationally calls it what it is, a “live raft.”  The most common are the Nkazeze, a large reddish and fetid ant, which is harmless to man; the Njenge, a smaller red species, and the Ibimbizi, whose bite is painful.

We passed the mortal remains of a gorilla lashed to a pole; the most interesting parts had been sold to Mr. R. B. N. Walker, and were on their way to England.  I was shown for the first time the Ndambo, or Ndambie (Bowdich, “Olamboo"), which gives the india rubber of commerce; it is not a fat-leaved fig-tree (Ficus elastica of Asia) nor aeuphorbia (Siphonia elastica), as in South America, but a large climbing ficus, a cable thick as a man’s leg crossing the path, and “swarming up” to the top of the tallest boles; the yellow fruit is tart and pleasant to the taste.  In 1817 the style of collecting the gum (olamboo) was to spread with a knife the glutinous milk as it oozed from the tree over the shaved breast and arms like a plaister; it was then taken off, rolled up in balls to play with or stretched over drums, no other use being known.  The Rev. Mr. Wilson declares (chap. ii.) that he “first discovered the gum elastic, which has been procured, as yet, only at Corisco, Gabun, and Kama.”  In 1854, Mr. Thompson (p. 112) found it in the Mendi country, near Sherbro; he describes it as a vine with dense bark, which yields the gum when hacked, and which becomes soft and porous when old.  The juice is milk-white, thick, and glutinous, soon stiffening, darkening, and hardening without aid of art.  I should like to see the raw material tried for making waterproofs in the tropics, where the best vulcanized articles never last.  The Ndambo tree has been traced a hundred miles inland from the Liberian Coast; that of the Gallinas and Sherbro is the best; at St. Paul’s River it is not bad; but on the Junk River it is sticky and little prized.  The difficulty everywhere is to make the negro collect it, and, when he does, to sell it un-adulterated:  in East Africa he uses the small branches of the ficus for flogging canes, but will not take the trouble even to hack the “Mpira” tree.