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A Giant Tree
HE Baobab on the pointed at one of its extremities, and banks of the Niger, from eight to eighteen inches long by six in its splendid lux- or seven broad. It encloses in its interior uriance of growth, from ten to forty cells, containing kidneysurpasses nearly all shaped seed, surrounded by mucilaginous other giants of the pulp, which is sweet, and of an agreeable vegetable kingdom. flavor; the juice, when extracted and It is especially remark- mixed with sugar, forms a beverage very able for its thickness, con- useful in the putrid and pestilential trasted with its want of fevers of the country. The fruit is transheight. It is a colossus ported into the eastern and southern of ungraceful look. Occa- parts of Africa; and the Arabs carry it to sionally without leaves, the countries round Morocco, whence it bearing them only in the finds its way into Egypt. The negroes rainy season, its whitish take part of the damaged fruit and the conical trunk, scarcely fif- ligneous bark, and burn them for the sake teen to twenty feet in of the ashes, from which they manufacheight, is more than a hundred feet in ture soap by means of palm oil. circumference at the level of the ground. They make a still more singular use of This short and robust support is neces- the trunk of the Baobab; they deposit in sary to sustain its incredibly large dome it the bodies of those among them whom of leaves, the bulk of which is sometimes they consider unworthy of the honors of so great that, seen from a distance, the sepulture. They select the trunk of some Baobab looks rather like a small forest | Baobab already attacked and hollowed out than a single tree. Its large branches are by insects or decay; they increase the fifty to sixty feet long. cavity, and make a kind of chamber, in The bark and leaves of this tree possess which they suspend the body. This considerable healing properties, of which done, they close up the entrance of this the natives take advantage. The natives natural tomb with a plank. The body make a daily use of the pounded leaves of becomes perfectly dry in the interior of the Baobab, which they call lalo, to mix this cavity, and becomes a perfect mummy with their food, for the purpose of induc- without further preparation. This kind ing perspiration. Its flowers are propor- of sepulture is especially reserved for the tioned to the gigantic trunk, their breadth Gueriots; they are the musicians and being from five to six inches. poets, who preside at all fêtes and dances at the courts of the negro kings.
The fruit, called by the French settlers on the Senegal monkey bread, is ovoid, During their life this kind of talent (214)
