Note 113 — Chapter V

This variety everywhere yields the best palm wine, which is superior to the finest cider; but as the people fell the trees like Krumen, they are forbidden by a paternal government, which encourages the growth for exporting oil, to make it, except “in the bush.” When rumless, they must content themselves with bamboo-wine, which tastes like soapsuds laced with vinegar. Although one might hardly expect it, the yield of the cocoa-nut tree is by no means well-flavoured. The palm, after being felled, is allowed to lie for a couple of days, the cabbage is removed for food, and in its place a pipe, generally a bit of papaw-stalk, conducts the sap into the calabash below. At times, to make the juice flow more freely, a lighted stick is thrust into the hole, which is afterwards scraped clear of charred wood. This “toddy” is the drink of the maritime regions, where it is most impudently watered, and we shall not taste it beyond the Agrime swamp. The oil-palm extends from the sea to the north of Agbome, at least fifty-two direct miles, but how much further I cannot say. It usually bears fruit twice per annum, in six to eight bunches at a time, especially during a wet year. The nut is best here when gathered during the rains; whereas in the Bight of Biafra, at that time it becomes watery, and the yield is trodden out by both sexes, in canoe-shaped troughs. The palm oil of Dahome is of excellent quality, and a Mohammed Ali would soon make the land too rich for slave-exporting. But these are negroes.