Page:A pilgrimage to my motherland.djvu/60

Rh handles are short, rendering it necessary for the opera-tor to stoop in using them. The soil is prepared by heaping the surface-earth in hills, close together and regularly in parallel lines. Cotton, yams, corn, cassava, beans, grow close together in the same field.

The beautiful blue, almost purple dye of their cloths is not from the common indigo-plant of the East and West-Indies, but from a large climbing plant. The leaves and shoots are gathered while young and tender. They are then crushed in wooden mortars, and the pulp made up in balls and dried. For dyeing, a few of these balls are placed in a strong lye made from ashes, and suffered to remain until the water becomes offensive from the decomposition of vegetable matter. The cloths are then put in, and moved about until sufficiently colored. There are dyeing establishments in all the towns from Lagos to Ilorin.

Palm-oil factories, as one would suppose from the quantity of the oil exported from Lagos and other parts of the West-African coast, are very numerous. The process of extracting the oil is simple. The nuts are gathered by men. From one to four or five women separate them from the integuments. They are then passed on to other women, who boil them in large earthen pots. Another set crush off the fibre in mortars. This done, they are placed in large clay vats