Having stated that they use in Congo to make “clothes of the _Enzanda_
tree,[222] of which some write the same things that are reported of the
Indian fig-tree,” that it sends forth a hairy substance from the
branches, which no sooner touch the ground but they take root, and grow
up in such sort, that one tree would multiply itself into a wood if
nature set not some obstacle (a marginal note adds that “Andrew Battell
saith that the tree which thus strangely multiplieth itself is called
the _Manga_ tree”[223]). Purchas continues as follows:—
“But more admirable is that huge tree called _Alicunde_,[224] of which
my friend Andrew Battell supposeth some are as big (besides their
wonderful tallness) as twelve men can fathom. It spreads like a oak.
Some of them are hollow, and the liberal clouds into those natural casks
disperse such plenty of water, that one time three or four thousand of
them, in that hot region, continued four and twenty hours at one of
these, which yielded them all drink of her watery store, and was not
emptied. Their negroes climbed up with pegs[225] (for the tree is smooth
and not therefore otherwise to be climbed, and so soft that it easily
receiveth pegs of harder wood, driven into her yielding substance with a
stone), and dipped the water, as it had been out of a well. He supposed
that there is forty tuns of water in some one of them. It yielded them a
good opportunity for honey, to which end the country people make a kind
of chest, with one hole in the same, and hang it upon one of these
trees, which they take down once a year, and with fire or smoke chasing
or killing the bees, take thence a large quantity of honey.[226] Neither
is it liberal alone to the hungry or thirsty appetite, but very
bountifully it clothes their backs, and the bark thereof, which, being
taken from the younger _Alicundes_ [_nkondo_], and beaten, one fathom
which they cut out from the tree will by this means extend itself into
twenty, and presently is cloth fit for wearing, though not so fine as
that which the _Inzanda_[227] tree yieldeth. [It serves them also for
boats, one of which cut out in proportion of a scute[228] will hold
hundreds of men.”][229] In a further marginal note Purchas adds: “These
boats, saith Andrew Battell, are made of another tree, for the
_Alicunde_ is of too spongy a substance for that purpose.”