The manioc is of the white variety (Fatropha Aypim seu utilissima), and, as at Lagos, the root may be called the country bread:  I never saw the poisonous or black manioc (Fatropha manihot), either in East or in West Africa, and I heard of it only once in Unyamwezi, Central Africa.  Yet it is mentioned by all old travellers, and the sweet harmless variety gives very poor “farinha,” Anglice “wood meal.”

The vegetables are “Mbongwe” (yams), koko or Colocasia esculenta, Occras (Hibiscus esculentus), squashes (pumpkins), cucumbers, beans of several sorts, and the sweet potato, an esculent disliked by Englishmen, but far more nutritious than the miserable “Irish” tuber.  The ground-nut or peanut (Arachis hypogaea), the “pindar” of the United States, a word derived from Loango, is eaten roasted, and, as a rule, the people have not learned to express its oil.  Proyart (Pinkerton, xvi. 551) gives, probably by misprint, “Pinda, which we call Pistachio.”  “Bird-peppers,” as the small red species is called, grow wild in every bush; they are wholesome, and the people use them extensively.  Tomatoes flourish almost spontaneously, and there is a bulbless native onion whose tops make excellent seasoning.  Sugar-cane will thrive in the swamps, coffee on the hill-slopes:  I heard of, but never saw ginger.

The common fruits are limes and oranges, mangoes, papaws, and pineapples, the gift of the New World, now run wild, and appreciated chiefly by apes.  The forest, however, supplies a multitude of wild growths, which seem to distinguish this section of the coast, and which are eaten with relish by the people.  Amongst them are the Sango and Nefu, with pleasant acid berries; the Ntaba, described as a red grape, which will presently make wine; the olive-like Azyigo (Ozigo?); the filbert-like Kula, the “koola-nut” of M. du Chaillu ("Second Expedition,” chap, viii.), a hard-shelled nux, not to be confounded with the soft-shelled kola (Sterculia); and the Aba, or wild mango (Mango Gabonensis), a pale yellow pome, small, and tasting painfully of turpentine.  It is chiefly prized for its kernels.  In February and March all repair to the bush for their mango-vendange, eat the fruit, and collect the stones:  the insides, after being sun-dried, are roasted like coffee in a neptune, or in an earthern pot.  When burnt chocolate colour, they are pounded to the consistency of thick honey, poured into a mould, a basket lined with banana leaves, and set for three days to dry in the sun:  after this the cake, which in appearance resembles guava cheese, will keep through the year.

For use the loaf is scraped, and a sufficiency is added to the half-boiled or stewed flesh, the two being then cooked together:  it is equally prized in meat broths, or with fish, dry and fresh; and it is the favoured kitchen for rice and the insipid banana.  “Odika,” the “Ndika” of the Bakele tribes, is universally used, like our “Worcester,” and it may be called the one sauce of Gorilla-land,