The life is regular, and society is simple and patriarchal, as amongst the Iroquois and Mohawks, or in the Shetlands two centuries ago. The only excitement, a fight or a slave hunt, is now become very rare. Yet I can hardly lay down the "curriculum vitae" as longer than fifty-five years, and there are few signs of great age. Merolla declares the women to be longer-lived than the men. Gidi Mavunga, who told me that the Congo Expedition visited their Banza when his mother was a child, can hardly be forty-five, as his eldest son shows, and yet he looks sixty. The people rise at dawn and, stirring up the fire, light the cachimbos or large clay pipes which are rarely out of their mouths. Tobacco (nsunza) grows everywhere and, when rudely cured, it is sold in ringlets or twisted leaves; it is never snuffed, and the only chaw is the Makazo or Kola nut which grows all over these hills; of these I bought 200 for 100 coloured porcelain beads, probably paying treble the usual price. No food is eaten at dawn, a bad practice, which has extended to the Brazil and the Argentine Republic; but if a dram be procurable it is taken "por la manana." The slave-women, often escorted by one of the wives, and accompanied by the small girls, who must learn to work whilst their brothers are idling with their rattles, set out with water- pots balanced on their Astrachan wool, or with baskets for grain and firewood slung by a head-strap to the back The free-born remain at home, bathing and anointing with palm-oil, which renders the skin smooth and supple, but leaves a peculiar aroma; they are mostly cross enough till they have thoroughly shaken off sleep, and the morning generally begins with scolding the slaves or a family wrangle. I have seen something of the kind in Europe.

Visiting, chatting, and strolling from place to place, lead to the substantial breakfast or first dinner between 9 and 10 A.M. Meat rarely appears; river fish, fresh or sun-dried, is the usual "kitchen," eaten with manioc, toasted maize, and peeled, roasted, and scraped plantain: vegetables and palm-oil obtained by squeezing the nut in the hands, are the staple dish, and beans are looked upon rather as slaves' food. They have no rice and no form of "daily bread:" I happened to take with me a few boxes of "twice-baked," and this Mbolo was the object of every chiefs ambition. "Coleworts" are noticed by Merolla as a missionary importation; he tells us that they produce no seed; and are propagated by planting the sprouts, which grow to a great height. The greens, cabbages, spinach, and French beans, mentioned by Tuckey, have been allowed to die out. Tea, coffee, sugar, and all such exotics, are unappreciated, if not unknown; chillies, which grow wild, enter into every dish, and the salt of native manufacture, brown and earthy, is bought in little baskets.

Between breakfast and midday there is a mighty drink. The palm- wine, here called "Msamba," and on the lower river "Manjewa," is not brought in at dawn, or it would be better. The endogen in general use is the elai's, which is considered to supply a better and more delicate liquor than the raphia. The people do not fell the tree like the Kru-men, but prefer the hoop of "supple-jack" affected by the natives of Fernando Po and Camarones. A leaf folded funnel-wise, and inserted as usual in the lowest part of the frond before the fruit forms, conveys the juice into the calabashes, often three, which hang below the crown; and the daily produce may be ten quarts. On the first day of tapping, the sap is too sweet; it is best during the following week and, when it becomes tart, no more must be drawn or the tree will be injured. It cannot be kept; acetous fermentation sets in at once, and presently it coagulates and corrupts. At Banana and Boma it is particularly good; at Porto da Lenha it is half water, but the agents dare not complain, for the reason which prevents them offering "spliced grog" to the prepotent negro. Europeans enjoy the taste, but dislike the smell of palm-wine; those in whom it causes flatulence should avoid it, but where it agrees it is a pleasant stimulant, pectoral, refreshing, and clearing the primae vice. Mixed with wine or spirits, it becomes highly intoxicating. The rude beers, called by Merolla Guallo and by Tuckey (p. 120) Baamboo, the Oualo of Douville, and the Pombeof East Africa, mentioned by almost every traveller, are not now found on the lower river.

About noon the slaves return from handling their trowel-shaped iron hoes, and the "gentleman" takes a siesta proportioned to his drink. The poorer classes sit at home weaving, spinning, or threading beads, whilst the wives attend to household work, prepare the meals, buy and sell, dig and delve. Europeans often pity the sex thus "doomed to perform the most laborious drudgery;" but it is a waste of sentiment. The women are more accustomed to labour in all senses of the word, and the result is that they equal their mates in strength and stature; they enjoy robust health, and their children, born without difficulty, are sturdy and vigorous. The same was the case amongst the primitive tribes of Europe; Zamacola (Anthrop. Mem. ii. 38), assures us that the Basque women were physically powerful as the men, with whom they engaged in prize-fights.

The master awakes about 3 P.M. and smokes, visits, plays with his children, and dawdles away his time till the cool sunset, when a second edition of the first meal is served up. If there be neither dance nor festival, all then retire to their bens, light the fire, and sit smoking tobacco or bhang, with frequent interruptions of palm wine or rum, till joined by their partners. Douville (ii. 113), says that the Pangue or chanvre, "croit naturellement dans lepays" I believe the questions to be still sub judice, whether the intoxicating cannabis be or be not indigenous to Africa as well as to Asia; and whether smoking was not known in the Old World, as it certainly was in the New, before tobacco was introduced. The cannabis Indica was the original anaesthetic known to the Arabs and to civilized Orientals many centuries before the West invented ether and chloroform.

Our landlord has two wives, but one is a mother and will not rejoin him till her child can carry a calabash of water unaided. To avoid exciting jealousy he lives in a hut apart, surrounded by seven or eight slaves, almost all of them young girls. This regular life is varied by a little extra exertion at seed-time and harvest, by attending the various quitandas or markets of the country side, and by an occasional trip to "town" (Boma). When the bush is burning, all sally out with guns, clubs, and dogs, to bring home "beef." And thus they dwell in the presence of their brethren, thinking little of to-day, and literally following the precept, "Take no thought for the morrow." As the old missioners testify, they have happy memories, their tempers are mild, and quarrels rarely lead to blows; they are covetous, but not miserly; they share what they have, and they apply the term "close-fist" to the European who gives "nuffin for nuffin."

The most superstitious of men, they combine the two extremes of belief and unbelief; they have the firmest conviction in their own tenets, whilst those of others flow off their minds like water from a greased surface. The Catholic missioners laboured amongst them for nearly two hundred years; some of these ecclesiastics were ignorant and bigoted as those whom we still meet on the West African Coast, but not a few were earnest and energetic, scrupulous and conscientious, able and learned as the best of our modern day. All did not hurry over their superficial tasks like the Neapolitan father Jerome da Montesarchio, who baptized 100,000 souls; and others, who sprinkled children till their arms were tired. Many lived for years in the country, learning the language and identifying themselves with their flocks. Yet the most they ever effected was to make their acolytes resemble the Assyrians whom Shalmaneser transplanted to Assyria, who "feared the Lord and served their graven images" (2 Kings, xvii. 33-41). Their only traces are the word "Deus," foully perverted like the Chinese "joss;" and an occasional crucifix which is called cousa de branco—white man's thing. Tuckey was justified in observing at Nokki that the crucifixes, left by missioners, were strangely mixed with native fetishes, and that the people seemed by no means improved by the muddle of Christian and Pagan idolatry.

The system is at once complicated and unsettled. There is, apparently, the sensus numinis; the vague deity being known as Nzambi or Njambi, which the missionaries translated into God, as Nganna Zambi—Lord Zambi. Merolla uses Zambiabungu, and in the vocabulary, Zabiambunco, for the "Spirit above" (Zambi-a-npungo): Battel tells us that the King of Loango was called "Sambee and Pango, which mean God." The Abbe Proyart terms the Supreme "Zambi," and applies Zambi-a-n-pongou to a species of malady brought on by perjury. He also notices the Manichaean idea of Zambi-a-Nbi, or bad-God, drawing the fine distinction of European belief in a deity supremely good, who permits evil without participating in it. But the dualism of moral light and darkness, noticed by all travellers,[FN#25] is a bona fide existence with Africans, and the missionaries converted the Angolan "Cariapemba" into the Aryo-Semitic Devil.

Zambi is the Anyambia of the Gaboon country, a vox et praeterea nihil. Dr. Livingstone ("First Expedition," p. 641), finds the word general amongst the Balonda, or people of Lunda: with the "Cazembes" the word is "Pambi," or "Liza," and "O Muata Cazembe" (p. 297) mentions the proverb, "Ao Pambi e ao Mambi (the King) nada iguala." In the "Vocabulario da lingua Cafrial" we see (p. 469) that "Murungo" means God or thunder. It is the rudimental idea of the great Zeus, which the Greeks worked out, the God of AEther, the eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient, "who was, who is, and who is to come," the Unknown and Unknowable, concerning whom St. Paul quoted Aristaeus on Mars' Hill. But the African brain naturally confused it with a something gross and material: thus Nzambi-a-Npungu is especially the lightning god. Cariambemba is, properly, Kadi Mpemba or Ntangwa, the being that slays mankind: Merolla describes it as an "abominable idol;" and the word is also applied to the owl, here as in Dahome the object of superstition. I could trace no sign of worship paid to the sun (Tangwa or Muinyi), but there are multitudes of minor gods, probably deified ghosts, haunting particular places. Thus, "Simbi" presides over villages and the "Tadi Nzazhi," or Lightning Rock, near Boma; whilst the Yellala is the abode of an evil being which must be propitiated by offerings. As usual amongst Fetish worshippers, the only trace of belief in a future state is faith in revenants—returning men or ghosts.

Each village has an idol under a little wall-less roof, apparently an earthern pot of grease and feathers, called Mavunga. This may be the Ovengwa of the "Camma people," a "terrible catcher and eater of men, a vampire of the dead; personal, whilst the Ibamba are indistinct; tall as a tree; wandering through the woods, ever winking; whereas the Greek immortals were known by their motionless eyelids. "Ngolo Wanga" is a man-shaped figure of unpainted wood, kept in the hut. Every house is stuck inside and outside with idols and fetishes, interpreters of the Deity, each having its own jurisdiction over lightning, wind, and rain; some act as scarecrows; others teach magic, avert evils, preserve health and sight, protect cattle, and command fish in the sea or river. They are in all manner of shapes, strings of mucuna and poison-beans; carved images stuck over with feathers and tassels; padlocks with a cowrie or a mirror set in them; horns full of mysterious "medicine;" iron- tipped poles; bones; birds' beaks and talons; skins of snakes and leopards, and so forth. We shall meet them again upon our travels.

No man walks abroad without his protecting charms, Nkisi or Nkizi, the Monda of the Gaboon, slung en baudrier, or hanging from his shoulder. The portable fetish of our host is named "Baka chya Mazinga: Professor Smith (p. 323) makes "Mazenga" to be "fetishes for the detection of theft." These magicae vanitates are prophylactics against every evil to which man's frailty is heir. The missioners were careful not to let their Congo converts have anything from their bodies, like hair or nail parings, for fear lest it be turned to superstitious use; and a beard (the price of conversion) was refused to the "King of Micocco." Like the idols, these talismans avert ill luck, bachelorhood, childlessness, poverty, and ill health; they are equally powerful against the machinations of foes, natural or supernatural; against wild beasts, the crocodile, the snake, and the leopard; and against wounds of lead and steel. They can produce transformation; destroy enemies; cause rain or drought, fine or foul weather; raise and humble, enrich and impoverish countries; and, above all things, they are sovereign to make man brave in battle. Shortly before we entered Banza Nkaye a propitiation of the tutelary gods took place: Coxswain Deane had fired an Enfield, and the report throughout the settlement was that our guns would kill from the river-bank.

The Nganga of Congo-land, the Mganga of the Wasawahili and the Uganga of the Gaboon, exactly corresponds with M. Michelet's Sorciere of the Middle Ages, "physicienne," that is doctor for the people and poisoner; we cannot, however, apply in Africa the adage of Louis XIII.'s day, "To one wizard ten thousand witches." In the "Muata Cazembe" (pp. 57, et passim) we read "O Ganga or O Surjao;" the magician is there called "Muroi," which, like "Fite," is also applied to magic. The Abbe Proyart opines of his professional brother, "he is ignorant as the rest of the people, but a greater rogue,"—a pregnant saying. Yet here "the man of two worlds" is not l'homme de revolution, and he suffices for the small "spiritual wants" of his flock. He has charge of the "Kizila," the "Chigella" of Merolla and the "Quistilla" of James Barbot—Anglice putting things in fetish, which corresponds with the Tahitian tapu or taboo. The African idea is, that he who touches the article, for instance, gold on the eastern coast of Guinea, will inevitably come to grief. When "fetish is taken off," as by the seller of palm wine who tastes it in presence of the buyer, the precaution is evidently against poison. Many of these "Kizila" are self-imposed, for instance a water melon may never enter Banza Nokki, and, though slaves may eat bananas upon a journey, the master may not. Others refuse the flesh of a fowl until it has been tasted by a woman. These rules are delivered to the young, either by the fetishman or the parents, and, when broken, they lead to death, doubtless often the consequence of strong belief. The Nganga superintends, as grand inquisitor, the witch-ordeal, by causing the accused to chew red-wood and other drugs in this land ferax venenorum. Park was right: "By witchcraft is meant pretended magic, affecting the lives and healths of persons, in other words it is the administering of poison." European "Narratives of Sorcery and Magic" exactly explain the African idea, except in one point: there the witch "only suffered from not being able to prove to Satan how much she burned to suffer for his sake;" here she has no Satan. Both European and African are the firmest believers in their own powers; they often confess, although knowing that the confession leads directly to torture and death, with all the diabolical ingenuity of which either race was capable. In Tuckey's time a bargain was concluded by breaking a leaf or a blade of grass, and this rite it was "found necessary to perform with the seller of every fowl:" apparently it is now obsolete. Finally, although the Fetish man may be wrong, the fetish cannot err. If a contretemps occur, a reason will surely be found; and, should the "doctor" die, he has fallen a victim to a rival or an enemy more powerful than himself.

A striking institution of the Congo region is that of the Jinkemba, which, curious to say, is unnoticed by Tuckey. It is not, however, peculiar to the Congo; it is the "Semo" of the Susus or Soosoos of the Windward Coast, and the "Purrah" of the Sherbro-Balloms or Bulloms, rendered Anglice by "free-masonry." The novitiate there lasts for seven or eight years, and whilst the boys live in the woods food is placed for them by their relations: the initiation, indeed, appears to be especially severe. Here all the free-born males are subjected to the wrongly called "Mosaic rite." Merolla tells us that the wizards circumcise children on the eighth day (like the Jews), not out of regard for the law, but with some wicked end and purpose of their own. At any time between the ages of five and fifteen (eight to ten being generally preferred), boys are taken from their parents (which must be an exceeding comfort to the latter), and for a native year, which is half of ours, they must dwell in the Vivala ya Ankimba, or Casa de Feitico, like that which we passed before reaching Banza Nokki. They are now instructed by the Nganga in the practices of their intricate creed; they are taught the mysteries under solemn oaths, and, in fine, they are prepared for marriage. Upon the Congo they must eat no cooked food, living wholly upon roots and edibles; but they are allowed to enter the villages for provisions, and here they often appear armed with matchets, bayonets, and wooden swords. Their faces and necks, bodies and arms, are ghastly white with chalk or ashes; the hair is left in its original jet, and the dingy lower limbs contrast violently with the ghostlike absence of colour above. The dress is a crinoline of palm-fronds, some fresh and green, others sere and brown; a band of strong mid-rib like a yellow hoop passed round the waist spreads out the petticoat like a farthingale, and the ragged ends depend to the knees; sometimes it is worn under the axillae, but in all cases the chalked arms must be outside. The favourite attitude is that of the Rhodian Colossus, with the elbows bent to the fore and the hands clasped behind the head. To increase their prestige of terror, the Jinkomba abjure the use of human language, and, meeting a stranger, ejaculate with all their might, "Har-rr-rr-rr-rr!" and "Jojolo! Jojolo!" words mystic and meaningless. When walking in procession, they warn the profane out of the way by striking one slip of wood upon another. They are wilder in appearance than the Hindu Jogi or Sanyasi, who also affects the use of ashes, but neglects that of the palm-thatch. It is certainly enough to startle a man of impressible nerves— one, for instance, who cannot enter a room without a side-long glance at an unexpected coffin—to see these hideous beings starting with their savage cry from the depths of an African forest. Evidently, also, such is the intention of the costume.

Contrasting the Congoese with the Goanese, we obtain a measure of difference between the African and the Asiatic. Both were Portuguese colonies founded about the same time, and under very similar circumstances; both were catechized and Christianized in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; both had governors and palaces, bishops and cathedrals, educational establishments and a large staff of missioners. But Asia was not so inimical, mentally or bodily, to the European frame as Africa; the Goanese throve after a fashion, the mixed breed became the staple population, and thus it continues till this day. On the other hand the Hamitic element so completely asserted its superiority over insititious Japheth, that almost every trace has disappeared in a couple of centuries. There lingers, it is true, amongst the Congoese of the coast-regions a something derived from the olden age, still distinguishing them from the wild people of the interior, and at times they break out naturally in the tongue of their conquerors. But it requires a practised eye to mark these minutiae.

The Congoese are passably brave amongst themselves; crafty and confined in their views, they carry "knowledge of life" as far as it is required, and their ceremonious intercourse is remarkable and complicated. They have relapsed into the analphabetic state of their ancestors; they are great at eloquence; and, though without our poetical forms, they have a variety of songs upon all subjects and they improvise panegyrics in honour of chiefs and guests. Their dances have been copied in Europe. Without ever inventing the modes of the Greeks, which are still preserved by the Hindoos, they have an original music, dealing in harmony rather than in tune, and there are motives, of course all in the minor key, which might be utilized by advanced peoples; these sons of nature would especially supply material for that recitative which Verdi first made something better than a vehicle for dialogue. Hence the old missioners are divided in opinion; whilst some find the sound of the "little guitar," with strings of palm-thread and played with the thumbs of both hands, "very low, but not ungrateful," others speak of the "hellish harmony" of their neophytes' bands. The instrument alluded to is the nsambi or nchambi; four strings are attached to bent sticks springing from the box; it is the wambi of the Shekyanis (Du Chaillu, chap. xii), but the bridge, like that of our violin, gives it an evident superiority, and great care and labour are required in the maker.

This form of the universal marimba is a sounding-board of light wood, measuring eight inches by five; some eight to eleven iron keys, flat strips of thin metal, pass over an upright bamboo bridge, fixed by thongs to the body, and rest at the further end upon a piece of skin which prevents "twanging." The tocador or performer brings out soft and pleasing tones with the sides of the thumbs and fingers. They have drums and the bell-like cymbals called chingufu: M. Valdez (ii. 221 et passim), writes "Clincufo," which he has taken from a misprint in Monteiro and Gamitto. The chingufu of East Africa is a hollow box performed upon with a drum-stick of caoutchouc. The pipes are wooden tubes with sundry holes and a bridge below the mouth-piece; they are played over edge like our flutes. The "hellish harmonies" mostly result from an improvised band, one strumming the guitar, another clapping the sticks, and the third beating the bell-shaped irons that act as castanets.

The language of the people on and near the Congo River is called "Fiote," a term used by old travellers to denote a black man as opposed to Mundele (white), and also applied to things, as Bondefiote or black baft. James Barbot (p. 512) gives specimens of some thirty-three words and the numerals in the "Angoy language, spoken at Cabinde," which proves to be that of the River. Of these many are erroneous: for instance, "nova," to sleep (ku-nua); "sursu," a hen (nsusu): while "fina," scarlet; "bayeta," baize; and "fumu," tobacco, are corrupted Portuguese. A young lad, "muleche" (moleque), Father Merolla's "molecchas, a general name among the negroes," for which Douville prefers "moleke" (masc.) and "molecka" (fem.), is applied only to a slave, and in this sense it has extended west of the Atlantic. In the numerals, "wale" (2) should be "kwale," "quina" (4) "kuya," and "evona" (9) "iowa." We may remark the pentenary system of the Windward Coast and the Gaboon negroes; e.g., 6 is "sambano" ("mose" and "tano" 1 + 5), and 7 is "sambwale" ("mose" and "kwale") and so forth, whilst "kumi" (10), possibly derived from neighbouring races, belongs to the decimal system.

The first attempt at a regular vocabulary was made by Douville, (vol. iii. p. 261): "Vocabidaire de la Langue Mogialoua, et des deux dialectcs principaux Abunda (Angolan) et Congo" (Fiote); it is also very incorrect. The best is that published in Appendix No. I. to the Congo Expedition, under the name of "Embomma;" we may quote the author's final remark: "This vocabulary I do not consider to be free from mistakes which I cannot now find time to discover. All the objects of the senses are, however, correct." M. Parrot showed me a MS. left at Banana Point by a French medical officer, but little could be said in its praise. Monteiro and Gamitto (pp. 479-480) give seventeen "Conguez" words, and the Congo numerals as opposed to the "Bundo."

The Fiote is a member of the great South African family; some missionaries argued, from its beauty and richness, that it had formerly been written, but of this there is no proof. M. Malte- Brun supposes the Congoese dialects to indicate "a meditative genius foreign to the habitual condition of these people," ignoring the fact that the most complicated and laborious tongues are those of barbarous nations, whilst modern civilization in variably labours to simplify. It is copious; every place, tree, shrub, or plant used by the people has its proper name; it is harmonious and pleasing, abounding in vowels and liquids, destitute of gutturals, and sparing in aspirates and other harsh consonants. At the same time, like the rest of the family, it is clumsy and unwieldy, whilst immense prolixity and frequent repetition must develope the finer shades of meaning. Its peculiarity is a greater resemblance to the Zanzibarian Kisawahili than any tongue known to me on the Western Coast: often a question asked by the guide, as "Njia hapa?" (Is this the road?) and "Jina lako nani?" (What's your name?) was perfectly intelligible to me.The latter is a fair specimen of the peculiar euphony which I have noticed in "Zanzibar" (vol. i. chap. x.). We should expect "Jina jako," whereas this would offend the native ear. It requires a scholar-like knowledge of the tongue to apply the curious process correctly, and the self-sufficient critic should beware how he attempts to correct quotations from the native languages.

I need hardly say that the speakers are foul-mouthed as the Anglo-African of S'a Leone and the "English" Coast; they borrow the vilest words from foreign tongues; a spade is called a spade with a witness, and feminine relatives are ever the subject of abuse; a practice which, beginning in Europe with the Slav race, extends more or less throughout the Old World. I specify the Old World, because the so-called "Indians" of North and South America apparently ignore the habit except where they have learned it from Southern Europe. Finally, cursing takes the place of swearing, the latter being confined, I believe, to the Scandinavians, the Teutons, and their allied races.

Nothing can be more unpleasant than the Portuguese spoken by the Congoman. He transposes the letters lacking the proper sounds in his own tongue; for instance, "sinholo" (sinyolo) is "senhor;" "munyele" or "minyele" is "mulher;" "O luo" stands in lieu of "O rio," (the river); "rua" of "lua" (luna), and so forth. For to- morrow you must use "cedo" as "manhaa" would not be understood, and the prolixity of the native language is transferred to the foreign idiom. For instance, if you ask, "What do you call this thing?" the paraphrase to be intelligible would be, "The white man calls this thing so-and-so; what does the Fiote call this thing?" sixteen words for six. I have elsewhere remarked how Englishmen make themselves unintelligible by transferring to Hindostani and other Asiatic tongues the conciseness of their own idiom, in which as much is understood as is expressed. We can well understand the outraged feelings with which poor Father Cannecattim heard his sermons travestied by the Abundo negroes do Paiz or linguists, the effect of which was to make him compose his laborious dictionary in Angolan, Latin, and Portuguese. His wrath in reflecting upon "estos homems ou estos brutos" drives the ecclesiastic to imitate the ill-conditioned layman who habitually addresses his slave as "O bruto! O burro! O bicho! O diabo!" when he does not apply the more injurious native terms as "Konongwako" and "Vendengwandi." It is only fair to confess that no race is harsher in its language and manners to its "black brethren," than the liberated Africans of the English settlements.

At Banza Nokki I saw the first specimen of a Mundongo slave girl. The tribe is confounded with the Mandingo (Mandenga) Moslems by the author of the "Introduction to Tuckey's Journey" (p. Ixxxi.); by Tuckey (p. 141), who also calls them Mandonzo (p. 135), and by Prof. Smith (p. 315); but not by the accurate Marsden (p. 389). She described her tribe as living inland to the east and north- east of the Congo peoples, distant two moons—a detail, of course, not to be depended upon. I afterwards met many of these "captives," who declared that they had been sold after defeats: a fine, tall race, one is equal to two Congo men, and the boldness of demeanour in both sexes distinguishes them from other serviles. Apparently under this name there are several tribes inhabiting lands of various elevations; some are coloured cafe au lait, as if born in a high and healthy region; others are almost jet black with the hair frightfully "wispy," like a mop. Generally the head is bullet-shaped, the face round, the features negroid, not negro, and the hands and feet large but not ill- shaped. Some again have the Hausa mark, thread-like perpendicular cuts from the zygomatic arches running parallel with the chin; in other cases the stigmata are broad beauty-slashes drawn transversely across the cheeks to the jawbone, and forming with the vertical axis an angle of 45deg.. All are exceedingly fond of meat, and, like the Kru-men, will devour it semi-putrified. The Congoese declare them to be "papagentes" (cannibals), a term generally applied by the more advanced to the bushmen living beyond their frontier, and useful to deter travellers and runaways. They themselves declare that they eat the slain only after a battle—the sentimental form of anthropophagy. The slave- girl produced on this occasion was told to sing; after receiving some beads, without which she would not open her lips, we were treated to a "criard" performance which reminded me of the "heavenly muse" in the Lake Regions of Central Africa.

The neighbours of the Mundonoros are the Mubangos, the Muyanji (Muyanzi?), and the Mijolo, by some called Mijere. Possibly Tuckey alludes to the Mijolos when he tells us (p. 141), that the "Mandingo" slave whom he bought on the Upper River, called his country "M'intolo." I have seen specimens of the three, who are so similar in appearance that a stranger distinguishes them only by the tattoo. No. 1 gashes a line from the root of the hair to the commissure of the nose: No. 2 has a patch of cuts, five in length and three in depth, extending from the bend of the eye- brow across the zygomata to the ear, and No. 3 wears cuts across the forehead. I was shown a sword belonging to the Mijolo: all declared that it is of native make; yet it irresistibly suggested the old two-handed weapon of Europe, preserved by the Bedawin and the Eastern Arabs, who now mostly derive it from Sollingen. The long, straight, flexible, and double-edged blade is neatly mounted by the tang in a handle with a pommel, or terminating knob, of ivory; others prefer wood. The guard is very peculiar, a thin bar of iron springing from the junction of blade and grip, forming an open oval below, and prolonged upwards and downwards in two branches parallel with the handle, and protecting the hand. They dance, brandishing this weapon, according to the slaves, in the presence of their princes.

I inquired vainly about the Anzicos, Anzichi, Anzigui, Anzigi, or Anziki, whose king, Makoko, the ruler of thirteen kingdoms, was placed by Dapper north-west of Monemugi (Unyamwezi), and whom Pigafetta (p. 79) located close to the Congo, and near his northern Lake. "It is true that there are two lakes, not, however, lying east and west (Ptolemy's system), but north and south of each other, and about 400 miles asunder. The first is in south latitude 12deg.. The Nile, issuing from it, does not, according to Odoardo (Duarte Lopez), sink in the earth nor conceal itself, but, after flowing northwards, it enters the second lake, which is 220 miles in extent, and is called by the natives a sea." If the Tanganyika shall be found to connect with the Luta Nzige or Mwutan Lake, this passage will be found wonderfully truthful. The Tanganyika's southern versant is now placed in south latitude 8deg. 46' 54", or in round numbers 9deg., and the other figures are nearly as correct. James Barbot causes these Anzikos to wander "almost through all Africa," from Nubia to the Congo, like negro Bedawin or Scythians; the common food was man's flesh fattened for the market and eaten by the relatives, even of those who died diseased. Their "capital," Monsol, was built by D'Anville, close to the equator in the very centre of Africa (east longitude Greenwich, 26deg. 20') hard by Douville's "Yanvo;" and the "Opener of Inner Africa in 1852" (pp. 3, 4, 69), with equal correctness, caused them to "occupy the hills opposite to Sundi, and extending downwards to Emboma below the Falls."

Mr. Cooley ("Ocean Highways," June, 1873), now explains the word as A-nzi-co, "people not of the country," barbarians, bushmen. This kind of information, derived from a superficial knowledge of an Angolan vocabulary, is peculiarly valueless. I doubt that a negative can thus be suffixed to a genitive. The name may simply have been A-nziko (man) of the back-settlement. In 1832, Mr. Cooley writes: "the nation of the Anziko (or Ngeco):" in 1845, "the Anziki, north of Congo:" in 1852, "the Micoco or king of the Anziko"—und so weiter. What can we make of this geographical Proteus? The first Congo Expedition who covered all the ground where the Creator of the Great Central Sea places the Anzikos, never heard of them—nor will the second.

Not being then so well convinced of the nonexistence of the Giaghi, Giagas, Gagas, or Jagas as a nation, I inquired as vainly for those terrible cannibals who had gone the way of all the Anzikos. According to Lopez, Battel, Merolla, and others, they "consider human flesh as the most delicious food, and goblets of warm blood as the most exquisite beverage." This act on the part of savage warriors might have been a show of mere bravado. But I cannot agree with the editor of Tuckey's "Narrative," "From the character and disposition of the native African, it may fairly be doubted whether, throughout the whole of this great continent, a negro cannibal has any existence." The year 1816 was the Augustan age of outrageous negrophilism and equally extreme anti- Napoleonism. "If a French general" (Introduction, p. i), "brutally seized the person and papers of a British naval officer, on his return from a voyage of discovery," who, I would ask, plundered and destroyed the fine botanical collection made at risk of health and life, during fifteen months of hard labour, by the learned Palisot de Beauvois, author of the "Flore d'Oware?" The "Reviewer" of Douville (p. 177) as sensibly declares that cannibalism "has hitherto continually retired before the investigation of sober-minded, enlightened men," when, after a century or two of intercourse with white traders, it still flourishes on the Bonny and New Calabar Rivers.

We are glad to be rid of the Jagas, a subject which has a small literature of its own; the savage race appeared everywhere like a "deus ex machina," and it became to Intertropical Africa what the "Lost Tribes" were and even now are in some cases, to Asia and not rarely to Europe. Even the sensible Mr. Wilson ("West Africa," p. 238) has "no doubt of the Jagas being the same people with the more modernly discovered Pangwes" (Fans); and this is duly copied by M. du Chaillu (chap. viii.). M. Valdez (ii. 150) more sensibly records that the first Jaga established in Portuguese territory was called Colaxingo (Kolashingo), and that his descendants were named "Jagas," like the Egyptian Pharaohs, the Roman Ceesars, the Austrian Kaisers, and the Russian Czars: he also reminds us (p. 150) that the chief of the Bangalas inhabiting Cassange (= Kasanji) was the Jaga or ruler par excellence.

Early on the morning of September 11, I was aroused by a "bob" in the open before us. We started up, fearing that some death by accident had taken place: the occasion proved, on the contrary, to be one of ushering into life. The women were assembled in a ring round the mother, and each howled with all the might of her lungs, either to keep off some evil spirit or to drown the sufferer's cries. In some parts of Africa, the Gold Coast for instance, it is considered infamous for a woman thus to betray her pain, but here we are amongst a softer race.



Chapter XII.

Preparations for the March.



Gidi Mavunga, finding me in his power, began, like a thoroughbred African, to raise obstacles. We must pass through the lands of two kings, the Mfumo ma Vivi (Bibbie of Tuckey) and the Mfumu Nkulu or Nkuru (Cooloo). The distance was short, but it would occupy five days, meaning a week. Before positively promising an escort he said it would be necessary to inspect my outfit; I at once placed it in the old man's hands, the better to say, "This is not mine, ask Gidi Mavunga for it."

My patience had been severely tried on first arrival at Banza Nokki. From ruler to slave every one begged for cloth and rum, till I learned to hate the names of these necessaries. Besides the five recognized kings of the district, who wore black cloth coats, all the petty chiefs of the neighbourhood flocked in, importunate to share the spoils. A tariff, about one-third higher than at Boma, was set upon every article and, if the most outrageous price was refused, the seller, assuming an insipid expression of countenance, declared that great white men travelled with barrels, not with bottles of aguardente, and that without liberality it would be impossible to leave the village. Nsundi, the settlement above the Falls, was a journey of two moons, and none of the ten "kings" on the way would take less than Nessudikira's "dash." Congo Grande, as the people call Sao Salvador, was only four marches to the E.S.E.; the road, however, was dangerous, and an escort of at least fifty men would be necessary.

But when I was "upon the head of Gidi Mavunga" matters changed for the better. Shortly after he took charge, one Tetu Mayella, "King" of Neprat, accompanied by some twenty followers, entered the village with a view to the stranger's rum: by referring them to the new owner they perforce contented themselves after three hours' "parliamenting," with a single bottle. The ruler of Nokki wanted, besides gin and cloth, a pair of shoes for his poor feet, which looked clad in alligator's skin; I referred him to his father, and he got little by that motion.

On the evening of September 10, Gidi Mavunga, who had been visiting his "small country," returned, and declared himself ready to set out. He placed before me ten heaps, each of as many ground-nuts, and made me understand that, for visiting Nsundi and S. Salvador, he would take fifty short "pieces" (of cloth) for himself and the same number for his slaves; one moiety to be advanced before the first trip to the Cataracts and the rest to follow. For half my store of beads he undertook to ration his men; a work which would have given us endless trouble. As I agreed to all his conditions he promised to move on the next day- -without the least intention of carrying out any one of his conditions.

These people are rich, and not easily tempted to hard work. During the French emigration, the district of Banza Nokki drove slaves to the value of 60,000 dollars per annum, and the dollar is to the African the pound sterling of Europe. It is one of the hundred out-stations which supplied the main depots, Boma and Porto da Lenha. Small parties went out at certain seasons provided with rum, gunpowder, and a little cloth; and either bought the "chattels" or paid earnest money, promising to settle the whole debt at their villages. Gidi Mavunga, like most of the elders, was perfectly acquainted with the routes to Nsundi, S. Salvador, and other frontier places, where the bush people brought down their criminals and captives for barter. Beyond those points his information was all from hearsay.

Besides the large stores in their "small countries," the middle- men have a multitude of retainers, who may at any moment be converted into capital. Yet "slave" is a term hardly applicable to such "chattels," who, as a rule, are free as their lords. They hold at their disposal all that the master possesses, except his wives; they sleep when they choose, they work when they like; they attend to their private affairs, and, if blamed or punished, they either run away, as at Zanzibar, to their own country, or they take sanctuary with some neighbouring Mfumo, who, despite the inevitable feud, is bound by custom to protect them. Cold and hunger, the torments of the poor in Europe, are absolutely unknown to them, and their condition contrasts most favourably with the "vassus" and the "servus" of our feudal times. Their wives and children are their own: the master cannot claim the tyrannous marriage-rights of the baron; no "wedding-dish" is carried up to the castle; nor is the eldest born "accounted the son of the serf's lord, for he perchance it was who begat him." The brutality of slavery, I must repeat, is mainly the effect of civilization. "I shall never forget," says Captain Boteler, "the impatient tosses of the head and angry looks displayed by a— lady—when the subject was canvassed. 'A negro, a paltry negro, ever understand or conform to the social tie of wedlock! No, never! never!' Yet this lady was an English-woman." And when James Barbot's supercargo begins to examine his negroes like cattle he is begged, for decency's sake, to do it in a private place, "which shows these blacks are very modest." It rather proved the whites to be the reverse.

At 7.20 A.M. on September 11, the "moleques" seized our luggage, and we suddenly found ourselves on the path. Gidi Mavunga, wearing pagne and fetish-bag, and handling a thin stick in which two bulges had been cut, led us out of Banza Nokki, and took a S.S.W. direction. The uneven ground was covered with a bitter tomato (nenga) and with the shrub which, according to Herodotus, bears wool instead of fruit. I sent home specimens of this gossypium arboreum, which everywhere grows wild and which is chiefly used for wicks. There is scant hope of cotton-culture amongst a people whose industry barely suffices for ground-nuts. The stiff clay soil everywhere showed traces of iron, and the guide pointed out a palm-tree which had been split by the electric fluid, and a broad, deep furrow, several feet long, ending in a hole. The Nzazhi (lightning) is as dangerous and as much dreaded on these hills as in Uganda: the south-west trade meets the land wind from the north-east; strata of clouds in different states of electricity combine, says the popular theory, to produce the thunder and lightning which accompany rain like the storms upon the mountains of Yemen. After 30' (- 1.50 miles) we reached our destination, Banza Chinguvu, the head-quarters of Gidi Mavunga. As we entered it he pointed to a pot full of greasy stuff under a dwarf shed, saying, "Isso e meu Deus:" it was in fact his Baka chya Mazinga. Beyond it stood the temple of Nbambi; two suspended pieces of wood, cut in the shape of horns, bore monkey skins on both sides of a dead armadillo, an animal supposed to attract lightning when alive, and to repel it after death.

The Banza was beautifully situated on a dwarf platform, catching the full force of the sea-breeze, and commanding to the north- west a picturesque glimpse of the

"waters rippling, flowing, Flashing along the valley to the sea;"

a mountain tarn representing the mighty stream. On the right lay fields, dotted with papaw-trees, and plantations of maize and manioc, thur (Cajanus), and sweet potatoes, a vegetable now common, but not noticed by Tuckey; on the left, a deep ravine, densely forested with noble growth, and supplying the best of water, divides it from Tadi ja Mfimo, a pile of rock on the opposite hill-side; here lay the Itombo village, belonging to Gidi Mavunga's eldest son. Beyond it, the tree-clad heights, rolling away into the distance, faded from blue-brown to the faintest azure, hardly to be distinguished from the empyrean above. The climate of these breezy uplands is superior even to that of Banza Nokki, which lies some 170 feet lower; and the nights are sensibly cooler.

A few fathoms of altitude here make a surprising difference. The little valleys with their chalet-like huts reminded me of the Maroro and Kisanga basins, in the sister formation, the East African Ghats, but now we have a hill-climate without ague and fever. Our parallel is that of Yorukan Abokuta, where the people are anti-oeci, both being about 6deg. distant from the Line,— those north, these south. There the bush is fetid, and the clammy air gives a sense of deadly depression; here the atmosphere is pure, the land is open, and there is enjoyment in the mere sense of life. The effete matter in the blood and the fatty degeneration of the muscles, the results of inactivity, imperfect respiration, and F. Po, were soon consumed by the pure oxygen of the highland air. I can attribute this superiority of the Congo region only to the labours of an old civilization now obsolete; none but a thick and energetic population could have cleared off the forest, which at one time must have covered their mountains.

The Banza consists of about fifty cottages, which are being new- thatched before the rains, and the population may number 300. Our host assigned to us one of his own huts; it fronted west, and was a facsimile of that which we had just left. The old fox, determined not to be "taken alive," has provided his earth with three holes, opening to the north, to the east, and to the west. We often detected him in the "ben," the matrimonial sanctum, listening to private conversations which he could not understand. Gidi Mavunga is decidedly a "serious person." The three walls round the standing bedstead are hung with charms and amulets, like the sacred pictures in country parts of Europe; and at the head is his "Mavunga," of which Tuckey says (p. 180), "Each village has a grand kissey (nkisi), or presiding divinity, named Mevonga:" it is an anthropoid log, about three feet high, red, white, and black, the former colour predominating. Two bits of looking-glass represent the eyes, the nose is patulous, as though offended by evil savour; the upper lip is drawn up in disdain, the under overlaps the chin; and a little mirror is inserted into the umbilical region. Mavunga's dress is represented by an English billy-cock hat; while all kinds of "medicines," calabashes, and a coarse knife depend from his neck to his shoulders. The figures at the door are generally called "Ngolowanda."

It is said, I believe, of the Englishwoman-

"If she will, she will, you may depend on't; If she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't."

I may safely predicate the same of the negro, who owns, like the goose, a "singularly inflexible organization." Whenever he can, he will, and he must, have his head. Gidi Mavunga would not even break his fast before touching the cloth and beads, which are to pay for guidance and carriage. The hut-door was closed, and in half an hour all was settled to every one's satisfaction. Yet the veteran did not disdain a little rascality. Awaiting his opportunity, he tossed into a dark corner a little bundle of two fancy cloths which I had given the "linguistero" and, when detected, he shamelessly declared that such people have no right to trade.

Finally, our departure was settled for the next morning, and the women at once began their preparations. Although they have sperm- candles, torches are preferred for the road; odoriferous gums are made up, as in the Gaboon, with rags or splints of bark; hence the old writers say, "instead of putting wicks into the torches, they put torches into the wicks." The travelling foods are mostly boiled batatas (sweet potatoes), Kwanga, a hard and innutritious pudding-like preparation of cassava which the "Expedition" (p. 197) calls "Coongo, a bitter root, that requires four days' boiling to deprive it of its pernicious quality;" this is probably the black or poisonous manioc. The national dish, "chindungwa," would test the mouth of any curry-eater in the world: it is composed of boiled ground-nuts and red peppers in equal proportions, pounded separately in wooden mortars, mixed and squeezed to drain off the oil; the hard mass, flavoured with salt or honey, will keep for weeks. The bees are not hived in Congo-land, but smoked out of hollow trees: as in F. Po and Camarones Peaks, they rarely sting, like the harmless Angelito of the Caraccas, "silla," or saddleback; which Humboldt ("Personal Narrative," chap. xiii.) describes as a "little hairy bee, a little smaller than the honey-bee of the north of Europe." Captain Hall found the same near Tampico; and a hive-full was sent to the blind but ingenious Francis Huber of Geneva, who died in 1831. This seems to be the case with the busy hymenopter generally in the highlands of Africa; the lowland swarms have been the terror of travellers from Mungo Park's day to that of the first East African Expedition.

About noon we were visited by the confidential slaves of a neighbouring chief, who prospectively welcomed us to his territory. These men were gaudily attired in cast-off clothes, and in the crimson night-caps formerly affected by the English labourer: on the mountains, where the helmet is confined to royalty, it is the head-dress used for state occasions. They sat in the hut, chatting, laughing, and discussing palm wine by the gallon, till they had their wicked will in the shape of a bottle of gin; after this, they departed with many low conges.

It was a study to see Gidi Mavunga amidst the vassals and serfs of his own village. He had no moated castle, no "Quinquengrogne;" but his habitation was grander far,—that glorious hill-side, with all its prospects of mountain and river, field and forest, valley and village. As he sat upon the mat under his little piazza, all the dependants gathered in an outer semicircle, the children, dogs, and cats forming an inner chord. A crowd of "moleques" placed before him three black pots, one containing a savoury stew, the others beans and vegetables, which he transferred to a deep platter, and proved himself no mean trencherman. The earthenware is of native make, by no means ornamental, but useful because it retains the heat; it resembles the produce of the Gold Coast, and the "pepper-pot" platter of the West Indies. His cup was filled as fast as he drained the palm wine, and, at times, he passed a huge mouthful to a small son or daughter, smiling at the serious and awkward attempts at deglutition. The washing of hands and mouth before and after feeding shows progress after Tuckey's day (p. 360). We were not asked to join him: an African, when upon a journey, will beg for everything he sees you eat or drink, but there is no return in kind. I have read of negro hospitality, but it has never been my fate to witness an approach to that virtue. The chief will, it is true, quarrel with you if his house be passed without a visit; but his object in taking you in is to make all he can of you. If a purse be pulled out, he waxes wroth, because he wishes to secure at once the reputation of generosity and the profits of a present doubling the worth of a regular "addition." When Gidi Mavunga rose from his meal, the elder dependants took his place; the junior bipeds followed, and the remnants were thrown to the quadrupeds. It was a fair copy in black of a baronial and mediaeval life.

The dogs were not neglected during the meal; but over-eagerness was repressed by a stout truncheon lying handily near the old negro Jarl. The animals are small and stunted, long-nosed and crooked-limbed, with curly tails often cut, sharp ears which show that they have not lost the use of the erecting muscles, and so far wild that they cannot bark. The colour is either black and white or yellow and white, as in Stambul and India. Overrun with ticks and foul with mange, they are too broken-spirited to rob, except by secretly sneaking into the huts, and, however often beaten off, they return to the charge like sitting hens. The people prize these wretched tikes, because they are ever ready to worry a stranger, and are useful in driving game from the bush. Yet they barbarously ill-treat them. The hungry cats are as poor a breed as the pure English, and, though no one feeds them, these domesticated tigerkins swarm. The only happy pets are the parrots. Every village swarms with hogs, the filthy wealth of the old Saxon proprietor, and their habits are disgusting as their forms are obscene. Every Anglo-Indian will understand what I mean.

My memory of "Congo chop" is all in its favour: I can recommend it even to "Fin Bee." The people of S'a Leone declare that your life is safe when you can enjoy native food. Perhaps this means that, during the time required to train the palate, strangers will have escaped their "seasoning" fevers and chills. But foreigners will certainly fare better and, caeteris paribus, outlive their brother whites, when they can substitute African stews for the roast and boiled goat and cow, likest to donkey- meat, for the waxy and insipid potato and for heavy pudding and tart, with which their jaded stomach is laden, as if it had the digestion of north latitude 50deg.. It is popularly believed that the Germans, who come from the land of greatest extremes, live longer at the White Man's Grave than the English, whereas the Spaniards are the most short-lived, one consul per annum being the normal rate. Perhaps the greater "adaptability" of the Teuton explains the cause.

The evening began with a game of ball in the large open space amongst the houses forming the village square. The implement was a roll of palm-coir tightly bound with the central fibre of the plantain-leaf. The players, two parties of some twenty slaves, of all ages and sizes, mingled, each side striving to catch the ball, and with many feints and antics to pass it on to a friend. When it fell out of bounds, the juniors ran to pick it up with frantic screams. It was interesting, as showing the difference between the highlander and the lowlander; one might pass years on the Congo plains without seeing so much voluntary exertion: yet a similar game of ball is described by the Rev. Mr. Waddell ("Twenty-nine years in the West Indies and Central Africa," chap. xvii. London, Nelsons, 1863). The evening ended, as it often does before a march, when rest is required, with extra hard work, a drinking bout deep as the Rhineland baron's in the good old time, and a dance in which both sexes joined. As there were neither torches nor moon, I did not attend; the singing, the shouting, and the drumming, which lasted till midnight, spoke well for the agility and endurance of the fair montagnardes.

What lightens Gidi Mavunga's steps is the immediate prospect of the Munlola or preliminary showers, which, beginning in mid- September, last, with a certain persistence of fall, till October. During the Munlola, the sea-breeze is silent, and the sky is clad with a very thin mist, which, however, supplies abundant downfalls. The year in the Lower Congo corresponds with that of the Gaboon in practice, if not in theory, and the storms are furious as those of Yoruba, where the seasons are, of course, inverted, the great rains extending from May to August. The climate is capricious, as everywhere about the equator, and the nearer the river the heavier are the showers. The people double their lives by reckoning the rains as one year, and the dries as another: when the old missionaries wished to explain that the Saviour offered Himself for the sins of man at the age of thirty- three, they said that he was sixty-six seasons old.

After the light rains of the autumnal equinox, come the Mvula za Chintomba, the "Chuvas grandes" of the Portuguese, lasting to the end of November. They are heavy, accompanied by violent tornadoes and storms, greatly feared by the people. The moisture of the atmosphere, not being gradually condensed by forests, must be precipitated in violent downfalls, and this is perhaps the principal evil of clearing the country. December begins the "little dries," which extend to February and March; then set in the rains of the vernal equinox, with furious discharges of electricity; June is the wettest month on the highlands, but not on the lower river. In mid-July commence the "middle-dries," here called Ngondi Asivu (Tuckey's "Gondy Assivoo"); upon the upper river this Cacimbo lasts between April and September; when it passes over the bush is burned, and the women hoe the ground to receive its seed. Carli well describes this season when he says:- -"The winter of the kingdom of Congo is the mild spring or autumn of Italy; it is not subject to rains, but every morning there falls a dew which fertilizes the earth." This meteor was not observed on the highlands of Banza Nokki and Nkulu; it is probably confined to the low country, where I found it falling heavily.



Chapter XIII.

The March to Banza Nkulu.



But revelry at night brings morning headache, and we did not set out, as agreed, at dawn. By slow degrees the grumbling, loitering party was mustered. The chiefs were Gidi Mavunga, head guide, and his son Papagayo, a dull quiet body; Chico Mpamba, "French landlord" of Banza Nokki, and my interpreter Nchama Chamvu. Fourteen armed moleques carried our hammocks and our little viaticum in the shape of four bottles of present-gin, two costa- finas, (= twenty-four yards of fancy cotton), and fourteen fathoms of satin-stripe, the latter a reserved fund. The boy "Lendo," whose appropriate name means "The Go," bore a burden of his own size all day, and acted as little foot-page at the halt. The "gentlemen" were in full travelling costume. Slung by a thong to the chief guide's left shoulder were a tiger-cat skin, cardamom-sheaths and birds' beaks and claws clustering round a something in shape like the largest German sausage, the whole ruddled with ochre: this charm must not be touched by the herd; a slave-lad, having unwittingly offended, knelt down whilst the wearer applied a dusty big toe between his eyebrows. Papagayo had a bag of grass-cloth and bits of cane, from which protruded strips of leather and scarlet broadcloth.

At 6.45 A.M. on Saturday, September 12, we exchanged the fields surrounding Banza Chinguvu for a ridge or narrow plateau trending to the north-east and bending to the magnetic north. A few minutes led to a rock-slope, fit only for goat-hoofs or nude- footed natives. Winding along the hill-sides, we passed out of the Nokki territory into that of Ntombo, the property of Mfumo Nelongo: here we descended into a little vale or gorge bright as verdure could make it—

"arborets and flowers Imborder'd on each bank"

of a bubbling brook, a true naiad of the hills, which ran to the embrace of the mighty stream; it characteristically stained its bed with iron. On our right was a conspicuous landmark, Zululu ke Sombe, a tall rock bearing the semblance of an elephant from the north-east, visible from the Congo's right bank and commanding a view of all the hills. Banza Vivi, our first destination, perching high on the farther side of the blue depression, bore due north. We then struck the roughest of descents, down broken outcrops and chines of granite—no wonder that the women have such grand legs. This led us into a dark green depression where lay Banza Chinsavu, the abode of King Nelongo. Our course had been three miles to the north-north-east.

Nothing can be more charming than the site, a small horseshoe valley, formed by a Wady or Fiumara, upon whose raised left bank stands the settlement, sheltered by palms, plantations, and wild figs. Eastward is a slope of bare rock polished by the rain- torrents; westward rise the grassy hills variegated with bush and boulder. We next crossed a rocky divide to the north and found a second basin also fertilized by its own stream; here the cactus and aloes, the vegetation of the desert, contrasted with half-a- dozen shades of green, the banana, the sycamore, the egg-plant, the sweet potato, the wild pepper, and the grass, whose colours were paling, but not so rapidly as in the lower lands.

We dismounted in state from our tipoias at the verandah of an empty house, where a chair had been placed; and we prepared for the usual delay and display. The guides will not leave these villages unvisited lest a "war" result; all the chiefs are cousins and one must not monopolize the plunder. A great man takes an hour to dress, and Nelongo was evidently soothing the toils of the toilette with a musical bellows called an accordeon. He sent us some poor, well-watered Msamba (palm toddy), and presently he appeared, a fat, good-natured man, as usual, ridiculously habited. He took the first opportunity of curtly saying in better Portuguese than usual, "There is no more march to-day!" This was rather too much for a somewhat testy traveller, when he changed his tone, begged me not to embroil him with a powerful neighbour, and promised that we should set out that evening. He at once sent for provisions, fowls, and a small river-fish, sugar-cane, and a fine bunch of S. Thome bananas.

About noon appeared Chico Furano, son of the late Chico de Ouro, in his quality of "English linguister;" a low position to which want of "savvy" has reduced him. His studies of our tongue are represented by an eternal "Yes!" his wits by the negative; he boasts of knowing how to "tratar com o branco" and, declining to bargain, he robs double. He is a short, small, dark man with mountaineer legs, a frightful psora, and an inveterate habit of drink. He saluted his superior, Nelongo, with immense ceremony, dating probably from the palmy times of the Mwani-Congo. Equals squat before one another, and shaking hands crosswise clap palms. Chico Furano kneels, places both "ferients" upon the earth and touches his nose-tip; he then traces three ground-crosses with the Jovian finger; again touches his nose; beats his "volae" on the dust, and draws them along the cheeks; then he bends down, applying firstly the right, secondly the left face side, and lastly the palms and dorsa of the hands to mother earth. Both superior and inferior end with the Sakila or batta-palmas,[FN#26] three bouts of three claps in the best of time separated by the shortest of pauses, and lastly a "tiger" of four claps. The ceremony is more elaborate than the "wallowings" and dust- shovellings described by Ibn Batuta at the Asiatic courts, by Jobson at Tenda,by Chapperton at Oyo,by Denham amongst the Mesgows, and by travellers to Dahome and to the Cazembe. Yet the system is virtually the same in these distant kingdoms, which do not know one another's names.

Chico Furano brought a Mundongo slave, a fine specimen of humanity, some six feet high, weighing perhaps thirteen stone, all bone and muscle, willing and hard-working, looking upon the Congo men as if they were women or children. He spoke a few words of Portuguese, and with the master's assistance I was able to catechize him. He did not deny that his people were "papagentes," but he declared that they confined the practice to slain enemies. He told a number of classical tales about double men, attached, not like the Siamese twins, but dos-a-dos; of tribes whose feet acted as parasols, the Plinian Sciapodae and the Persian Tasmeh- pa, and of mermen who live and sleep in the inner waters—I also heard this from M. Parrot, a palpable believer. He described his journey down the great river, and declared that beyond his country's frontier the Nzadi issues from a lake which he described as having a sea-horizon, where canoes lose sight of land, and where they are in danger from violent storms; he described the latter with great animation, and his descriptions much reminded me of Dibbie, the "Dark Lake." Probably this was genuine geography, although he could not tell the name of the inner sea, the Achelunda of old cosmographers. Tuckey's map also lays down in N. lat. 2deg. to 3deg. and in E. long. (G.) 17deg. to 18deg. a great swamp draining to the south; and his "Narrative" (p. 178) tells us that some thirty days above Banza Mavunda, which is 20 to 24 miles above the Yellala, "the river issues by many small streams from a great marsh or lake of mud." This would suggest a reservoir alternately flooded and shrinking; possibly lacustrine bays and the bulges formed by the middle course of the Lualaba.

Despite the promise, we were delayed by King Nekorado, whose town, Palabala, lies at some distance, and who, negro-like, will consult only his own convenience. In the afternoon we were visited by a royal son, who announced that his royal father feared the heat, but would appear with the moon, which was equivalent to saying that we might expect him on the morrow. He is known to be a gueux, and Gidi Mavunga boasts of having harried and burned sundry of his villages, so he must make up by appearance for deficient reality. His appearance was announced by the Mpungi, the Egyptian Zagharit, the Persian Kil; this "lullilooing" in the bush country becomes an odd moaning howl like the hyaena's laugh. Runners and criers preceded the hammock, which he had probably mounted at the first field; a pet slave carried his chair, covered with crimson cloth, and Frederique his "linguister" paced proudly by its side.

After robing himself in Nelongo's house, King Nekorado held a levee under the shadiest fig, which acted bentang-tree; all the moleques squatting in a demi-lune before the presence. A short black man, with the round eyes, the button-like nose, the fat circular face, and the weakly vanishing chin which denote the lower type of Congoese, he coldly extended a chimpanzee's paw without rising or raising his eyes, in token that nothing around him deserved a glance. I made him au-fait as to my intentions, produced, as "mata-bicho," a bottle of gin, and sent a dash of costa-fina, to which a few yards of satin-stripe were thrown in.

The gin was drunk with the usual greed, and the presents were received with the normal objections.

"Why should not I, a king like Nessudikira, receive a 'dash' equal to his?"

"He is my host, I pay him for bed and board!"

"We are all cousins; why shall one be treated better than the other?"

"As you please! you have received your due, and to-day we march."

After this I rose and returned to my hut ready for the inevitable "row."

It was not long coming; the new arrivals set up the war-song, and Gidi Mavunga thought it time to make a demonstration. Drawing an old cutlass and bending almost double, he began to rush about, slashing and cutting down imaginary foes, whilst his men looked to their guns. The greenhorn would have expected a regular stand- up fight, ending in half-a-dozen deaths, but the Papagayo snatched away his father's rusty blade, and Chico Furano, seizing the warrior's head, despite the mildest of resistance, bent it almost to the ground. Thus valour succumbed to numbers. "He is a great man," whispered my interpreter, "and if they chaunt their battle-song, he must show them his bravery." The truly characteristic scene ended in our being supplied with some fourteen black pots full of flesh, fowl, beans, and manioc, together with an abundance of plantains and sugar-cane; a select dish was "put in fetish" (set aside) for Gidi Mavunga, and the friendly foes all sat down to feast. The querelle d'Allemand ended with a general but vain petition for "t'other bottle."

Fahrenheit showed 90deg. in the shade, as we bade adieu to the little land-bay, and made for the high rugged wall to the north- north-east separating the river valley from the inner country. On the summit we halted to enjoy the delicious sea-breeze with its ascending curve, and the delightful prospect far below. Some 1,300 feet beneath us appeared the Nzadi, narrowed to a torrent, and rushing violently down its highly inclined bed, a straight reach running east and west, in length from four and a half to five miles. As we fronted north, the Morro (cliff) Kala fell bluff towards its blue bight, the Mayumba Bay of the chart, on our left; to the right a black gate formed by twin cliffs shut out the upper stream from view. The panorama of hill-fold and projection, each bounded by deep green lines, which argued torrents during the rains; the graceful slopes sinking towards the river and indenting the bed and the little tree-clad isle, Zun gachya Idi (Tuckey's "Zunga Tooly Calavangoo") hugging the northern side, where the Lufu torrent adds its tribute to the waters, convinced me that the charms of Congo scenery had not been exaggerated. Yet the prospect had its element of sadness; the old ruffian, Gidi Mavunga, recounted how he had burned this place and broken that, where palm-clumps, grass-clearings, and plantations lying waste denoted the curse of Ham upon the land.

Our course now wound north-eastwards along hill-shoulders, rich in flowery plants and scented mimosa. After two hours' walking, we came suddenly upon the Morro or cliff of the river-trough, now about 1,000 feet deep. Here the prospect again shifted; the black gate opened, showing the lowest of the long line of rapids called Borongwa ya Vivi, with the natives and their canoes, like flies upon bits of straw.

On the southern bank was a small perennial influent, lined with bright green above, and with chocolate brown below, within some twenty yards of its mouth. It arises, they say, near S. Salvador, and is not navigable, although in places it bears canoes. The people call it Npozo, possibly it represents the S. Salvador River of old travellers. The distance was three direct or five indirect miles north of the stony cone, Zululu ke Sombe.

The descent was a malevoie, over slabs and boulders, loose stones and clayey ground, slippery as ice after rain. The moleques descended like chamois within twenty minutes: Selim and I, with booted feet, took double the time, but on return we ascended it in forty-five minutes. Viewed from below, the base rests upon cliffs of gneiss, with debris and quartz in masses, bands and pebbles, pure and impure, white and rusty. Upon it rises a stratum of ferruginous clay, with large hard-heads of granite, gneiss, and schist, blocks of conglomerate, and nodules of ironstone. Higher still is the bank of yellow clay, capped with shallow humus. The waving profile is backed by steep hills, with rocky sides and long ridges of ground, the site of the palm- hidden Banzas.

Reaching the base, a heap of tumbled boulders, we crossed in a canoe the mouth of the Npozo to a sandy cove in the southern bank, the terminus of river navigation. The people called it Unyenge Assiku: I cannot but suspect that this is the place where Tuckey left his boats, and which he terms "Nomaza Cove." The name is quite unknown, and suggests that the interpreters tried to explain by "No majia" (water) that here the voyage must end.

Off this baylet are three rocky islets, disposed in a triangle, slabs collected by a broken reef, and collectively known as Zunga Nuapozo; the clear-way is between them and the southern bank, which is partly provided with a backwater; the northern three quarters of the bed show something like a scour and a rapid. Zunga chya Ingololo, the northernmost and smallest, bears a single tree, and projects a bar far into the stream: the central and westernmost is a rock with a canoe passage between it and the southern and largest, Zunga chya Tuvi. The latter has three tree- clumps; and a patch of clean white sand on its western side measures the daily rise of the water, eight inches to a foot, and shows the highest level of the flood, here twelve to thirteen feet. The fishermen use it as a drying-ground for their game. They also crowd every day to two sandy covelets on the southern bank, separated by a tongue of rough boulders. Here naked urchins look on whilst their fathers work, or aid in drying the nets, or lie prone upon the sand, exposing their backs to the broiling sun. The other denizens of the place are fish-eagles, who sit en faction upon the topmost branches of withered trees. I saw only two kinds of fish, one small as a minnow, and the other approaching the size of a herring. Up stream they are said to be much larger. They are not salted, but smoked or sun-dried when the weather serves: stuffed with chillies and fried with oil, they are good eating as the Kinnam of the Gold Coast.

We prepared to bivouac under a fine shady Saffu, or wild fig, a low, thick trunk whose dark foliage, fleshy as the lime-leaf, so often hangs its tresses over the river, and whose red berries may feed man as well as monkey. The yellow flowers of hypericum, blooming around us, made me gratefully savour our escape from mangrove and pandamus. About sunset a gentle shower, the first of the season, caused the fisher-boys to dance with joy; it lasted two good hours, and then it was dispersed by a strong westerly breeze. Canoes and lights flashed before our eyes during half the night; and wild beasts, answering one another from rock to rock, hundreds of feet above us, added a savage, African feature to the goodly mise-en-scene.

Arising early next morning, I was assured that it is necessary to cross the stream in order to reach the Cataracts. Tuckey did so, but further inquiry convinced me that it is a mistake to march along the northern bank. Of course, in skirting the southern side, we should not have approached so near the stream, where bluffs and debris rendered travelling hopeless. The amiable ichthyophagi agreed for two fathoms of fancy cloth to ferry us across the river, which is here half a mile broad. The six-knot current compels canoes to run up the left shore by means of its backwater, and, when crossing, to make allowance for the drift downwards. The aneroid now showed 860 feet of absolute altitude, and about sixty-five feet above the landing-place of Banza Nokki; the distance along the stream is fourteen miles, and thus the fall will be about five feet per mile below the Borongwa ya Vivi. We could see from a level the "smaller rapids of Vivi" bursting through their black gate with angry foam, flashing white from side to side. No canoe could shoot this "Cachoeira," but I do not think that a Nile Dahabiyah or a Brazilian Ajojo would find great difficulty. Between us and the rapids, the concavity of the southern bank forms a bight or bay. The vortices, in which Tuckey's sloop was whirled round despite oars and sails, and in whose hollow the punt entirely disappeared, "so that the depression must have been three or four feet deep," were nowhere seen at this fuller season. The aspect of the surface is that of every large deep stream with broken bottom; the water boils up in ever widening domes, as though a system of fountains sprang from below. Each centre is apparently higher than its circle; it spreads as if a rock had been thrown into it, and the outer rim throws off little eddies and whirls no larger than a thimble. The mirrory surface of the lower river thus becomes mottled with light and shade, and the reflected image of the trough-cliff is broken into the most fantastic shapes.

Fifteen minutes of hard paddling landed us at Selele, a stony point between two sandy baylets: amongst the mass of angular boulders a tree again showed the highest flood-mark to be 13 feet. Here for the first time I remarked the black glaze concerning which so much has been written.[FN#28] The colour is a sunburnt black, tinted ferruginous red like meteoric stones, and it is generally friable, crumbling under the nails. It tastes strongly of iron, which flavours almost every spring in the country, yet the most likely places do not show this incrustation. Sometimes it looks like a matrix in which pudding- stone has been imbedded; it may be two or three lines in thickness and it does not colour the inside. At other times it hardly measures the thickness of paper, coating the gneiss slabs like plumbago. Humboldt tells us ("Personal Narrative," ii. 243, Bohn), that the "Indians" of the Atures declare the rocks to be burnt (carbonized) by the sun's rays, and I have often found the same black glaze upon the marly sandstones that alternate with calcareous formations where no stream ever reached them—for instance, on the highlands of Judea, between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea; in inner Istria, and in most countries upon the borders of the Mediterranean.

Leaving Selele, we ascended a steep hill with many glissades, the effect of last night's rain. These hammock-journeys are mostly equivalent to walking and paying for carriage; it would be cruelty to animals were one to ride except when entering the villages. After threading for half an hour lanes of grass, we were received in a little village of the Banza Vivi district by Nessala, linguistere to King Luvungungwete. The guest room was furnished with every luxury; hides of a fine antelope described as the Kudu; cruets, basins, bottles, and other vases; "lustre mugs," John Andersons and Toby Philpots. A good calabash, full of

"Freshening wine More bounteous far than all the frantic juice Which Bacchus pours,"

was produced, although the drought and scarcity of June rain had dried the palms. Before I outstretched myself, the fairer half of the population sent a message to say that they had never seen a white man: what less could be done than to distribute a few beads and pat the children, who screamed like sucking pigs and "squirmed" like young monkeys?

The Chrononhotonthologus of a king came in the afternoon with a tail of a hundred vertebrae: he was a milder specimen than usual; he had neither Mambrino's helmet nor beadle's cloak, and perhaps his bashfulness in the presence of strangers arose from a consciousness that his head-gear and robes were not in keeping with his station. But he did not fail to grumble at his "dash;" indeed, he must be more than African who shall say, "Hold! enough." He vouchsafed a small return in fowls and "beneficent manioc," and sent with us three slaves, to serve, not as guides, but as a basis for a separate charge.

After sunset all was made ready for the Batuque. The ball-room was the village square; the decorations were the dense trees; the orchestra consisted of two drums, a grande caisse eight feet and a half long, placed horizontally, and a smaller specimen standing on a foot like that of an old-fashioned champagne-glass; the broader ends were covered with deer skins, upon which both hands perform; and the illuminations were flaming heaps of straw, which, when exhausted, were replaced by ground-nuts spitted upon a bamboo splint. This contrivance is far simpler than a dip- candle, the arachis is broken off as it chars, and, when the lamp dims, turning it upside down causes a fresh flow of oil. The ruder sex occupied one half of the ring, and the rest was appropriated to dame and damsel. The Batuque is said to be the original Cachucha; Barbot calls it a danse des filoux, and it has the merit of perfectly expressing, as Captain Cook's companions remarked of the performances in the South Sea Islands, what it means.

The hero of the night was Chico Mpamba; he must have caused a jealous pang to shoot through many a masculine bosom. With bending waist, arms gracefully extended forwards, and fingers snapping louder than castanets; with the upper half of the body fixed as to a stake, and with the lower convulsive as a scotched snake, he advanced and retired by a complicated shuffle, keeping time with the tom-tom and jingling his brass anklets, which weighed at least three pounds, and which, by the by, lamed him for several days. But he was heroic as the singer who broke his collar-bone by the ut di petto. A peculiar accompaniment was a dulcet whistle with lips protruded; hence probably the fable of Pliny's Astomoi, and the Africans of Eudoxus, whose joined lips compelled them to eat a single grain at a time, and to drink through a cane before sherry-cobblers were known. Others joined him, dancing either vis-a-vis or by his side; and more than one girl, who could no longer endure being a wall-flower, glided into the ring and was received with a roar of applause. In the feminine performance the eyes are timidly bent upon the ground; the steps are shorter and daintier, and the ritrosa appears at once to shun and to entice her cavalier, who, thus repulsed and attracted, redoubles the exciting measure till the delight of the spectators knows no bounds. Old Gidi Mavunga flings off his upper garment, and with the fire of a youth of twenty enters the circle, where his performance is looked upon with respect, if not with admiration. Wilder and wilder waxeth the "Devil's delight," till even the bystanders, especially the women, though they keep their places in the outer circle, cannot restrain that wonderful movement of haunch and flank. I laughed till midnight, and left the dancers dancing still.

At 5 A.M. the strayed revellers found to their disgust a thick fog, or rather a thin drizzle, damping grass and path, and suggesting anything but a pleasant trudge. They declared that starvation awaited us, as the "fancy cloths" were at an end, but I stopped that objection by a reference to the reserved fund. After an hour of sulky talk we set out towards the upper part of Banza Vivi, passing a small but pretty hill plain, with manioc- fields, gum-trees, and the bombax very symmetrical. We saw no animals: here and there appeared the trail of a hyaena, the only larger carnivor that now haunts the mountains. The song of Mkuka Mpela, the wild pigeon, and Fungu, the cuckoo, were loud in the brake: the Abbe Proyart makes the male cuculus chant his coo, coo, coo; mounting one note above another with as much precision as a musician would sound his ut, re, mi: when he reached the third note, his mate takes it up and ascends to the octave. After this both recommence the same song.

The stiff ascent gave us lovely views of the lake-like river and both its banks: after three quarters of an hour we reached Vivi of Banza Simbo. The people vainly called to us, "Wiza!"— "Come thou!" and "Luiza! luiza kwenu!"— "Come, come here!" Our moleques, disliking the dangerous proximity, advanced at a walk which might be called a canter.

Presently we reached the dividing ridge, 1,394 feet high, between Banza Vivi and Nkulu, whose palm-trees, thrown out against the sky, bore 82deg. (M.) Looking to the north with easting, we had a view of no less than six distinct distances. The actual foreground, a hollow between two land-waves, could not conceal the "Crocodile's Head:" the latter, five miles off and bearing 65deg. (M.), forms the southern staple of the Yellala Gate, whose rapids were not visible, and it fronts the Quoin, which hems in the stream on the other side. The key-stone of the inverted arch between them was a yellow-flanked, tree-topped hill, rising immediately above the great rapids: beyond if waved, in far succession, three several swells of ground, each flatter and bluer than its nearer neighbour, and capping the whole stood Kongo de Lemba, a tall solitary sugarloaf, bearing 75deg. (M.), with its outlying conelets concealing like a mass of smoke the world that lay beyond.

The ridges appeared to trend north and south, and to approach the river's bending bed at different angles; their sides were steep, and in places scarped where they fell into the intervening hollows. The valleys conducted many a water to the main drain, and during the wet season they must be well-nigh impassable. At the end of the dries the only green is in the hill-folds and the basin-sinks, where the trees muster strong enough to defend themselves from the destructive annual fires. These bush-burnings have effectually disforested the land, and in some places building timber and even fuel have become scarce. In the Abrus, barely two feet high, I could hardly recognize the tall tree of Eastern Africa, except by its scarlet "carats," which here the people disdain to use as beads. The scorching of the leaves stunts the shrubs, thickens the bark, and makes the growth scrubby, so that the labourer has nothing to do but to clear away the grass: I afterwards remarked the same effects on the Brazilian Campos.

We descended the dividing ridge, which is also painfully steep, especially near the foot, and crossed the rolling hollow with its three chalybeate brooks, beyond which lay our destination. Tuckey describes the hills between Boma and Nkulu as stony and barren, which is perhaps a little too strong. The dark red clay soil, dried almost to the consistency of laterite, cannot be loosened by rain or sun, and in places it is hardened like that of Brazilian Porto Seguro, where the people complain that they cannot bury their dead. All the uplands, however, grow grass which is sometimes ten to twelve feet tall, and in places there are shrubs and trees. About Nkulu the highlands are rightly described as "steep hills of quartz, ferruginous earth, and syenite with fertile tops:" rocks and stones are rare upon the plateaux: they are rich enough to produce everything from wheat to coffee, and hardly a hundredth part is cultivated. Thin and almost transparent lines of palms denote the several Banzas on the ridges, and in the valley are rock circles like magnified and prostrated Stonehenges.

The "termes arborum" is universal, and anthills form a prominent feature. It has been remarked that these buildings are the most conspicuous architectural efforts of the country, and the Abbe Proyart observes that here more effectually than in any other land man ought to be sent to the ant school. The material is of dark and sometimes black earth as in the Gaboon, and the shape is the umbrella, rarely double or pagoda-roofed. The column may be twelve to eighteen inches high, and the diameter of the capital attains two feet: I never saw, however, a "gigantic toadstool as high as a one-storied house."[FN#28] Nor are the mushroom tops now used as chafing-dishes.