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I saw as soon as I had embarked on the affair, from the Kruboys' manner, I was down the wrong path, but how, or why, I did not see until a neat arrangement of ebony billets tied together with tie-tie was in the water.

A handful of broken quartz is placed upon the 'cankey-stone, with which the gudewife grinds her 'mealies. It is a slightly hollowed slab of granite or hard conglomerate, some two feet square, sloping away from the worker, and standing upon a rude tripod of tree-branches secured by a lashing of 'tie-tie. The stuff is then rubbed with a hand-stone not unlike a baker's roll, and a slight deviation is given to it as it moves 'fore and aft. The reduced stone is caught in a calabash placed at the lower end of the slab.

The thump, thump, thump of this manioc beating is one of the most familiar sounds in a bush village. The meal, when beaten up, is used for thickening broths, and rolled up into bolsters about a foot long and two inches in diameter, and then wrapped in plantain leaves, and tied round with tie-tie and boiled, or more properly speaking steamed, for a lot of the rolls are arranged in a brass skillet.

The tops of the leaves are then tied together with fine tie-tie, and the bundle, without any saucepan of any kind, stood on the glowing embers, the cook taking care there is no flame. The meat is done, and a superb gravy formed, before the containing plantain leaves are burnt through plantain leaves will stand an amazing lot in the way of fire.

There were rude ladders, but useful enough, two bamboos connected by rungs of 'tie-tie. The 'sollars' were shaky platforms of branches, but there was no sign of a winch. We set Krumen and porters to clear and lay out the southern boundary, and to open a path leading direct to the beach.

Knocking the ash end off the smouldering bush-light that lay burning on the floor, I investigated, and tracked it to those bags, so I took down the biggest one, and carefully noted exactly how the tie-tie had been put round its mouth; for these things are important and often mean a lot. I then shook its contents out in my hat, for fear of losing anything of value.

This is bound firmly round the rim of each chamber with tie-tie, and the bag of it at the top is gathered up, and bound to a small piece of stick, to give a convenient hand hold.

Two men came forward and bound his hands and his feet and his body with tie-tie. Then they carried him within a hut. "That's sheer murder," thought Walker. He could not rescue the victim, he knew. But he could get a nearer view of that witch doctor. Already the man was packing up his paraphernalia.

The native doctor got a piece a very nice piece of bamboo, drove it in through the muscles and integuments from the wrist to the elbow, then encased the limb in plantain leaves, and bound it round, tightly and neatly, needless to say with tie-tie. The arm and hand when I saw it, some six or seven months after the operation, was quite useless, and was withering away.

There is the usual wasteful profusion of growth. Ferns ramp upon the trees; Cameron counted at Akankon two dozen different species within a few hundred yards. Orchids bunch the boughs and boles of dead forest-giants; and llianas, the African 'tie-tie, varying in growth from a packthread to a cable, act as cordage to connect the growths.