The dietary of these barbarians would astonish the half-starved sons of civilization. When shall we realize the fact, that the great thing needful to the prosperity or England is, not alm-houses, and hospitals, and private charities, but the establishment, advocated by Mr. Carlyle, of a regular and efficient emigration! The crassest ignorance only prevents the listless pauper, the frozen out mechanic, and the wretched agricultural labourer from quitting a scene of misery, and from finding scattered over Earth's surface spots where the memory of privations endured in the hole which he calls his home would make his exile a paradise. We expect from a national system of emigration, our present great want, not the pilgrimage of a few solitary hands who-Nostalgia is a more common disease than men suppose are ever pining for the past, but the exodus of little villages, which, like those of the Hebrides in the last century, bore with them to the New World' their lares and penates, their wives, families, and friends. Few of the Fans lack, once a day, fish, fowl, or flesh of dogs or goats, mutton, or game; many eat it twice, and they have a name for the craving felt after a short abstinence from animal food. Cattle is as yet unknown; the woods, however, supply the wild buffalo in numbers. The banana, planted with a careless hand, affords the staff of life, besides thatch, fuel, and fibre for nets and lines. The palm tree gives building materials, oil, and wine; milk is unknown; butter, however, is produced by the "Nje," a towering butyraceous tree, differing from that which bears the Shea-nut; and when bread is wanted, maize rises almost spontaneously. The bush is cut at the end, and burned before the beginning of the rains, leaving the land. ready for agriculture almost without using the hoe. In the "middle dries," from June to September, the villagers sally forth to hunt the elephants, whose spoils bring various luxuries from the coast. They are even gourmands. Lately, before my arrival, all the people had turned out for the Ndíká season, during which they will not do anything else but gather. The "Ndíká" is the fruit of a wild mango tree (M. gabonensis), and forms the "one sauce" of the Fans. The kernels extracted from the stones are roasted like coffee, pounded and poured into a mould of basket work lined with plantain leaves. This cheese is scraped and added to boiling meat and vegetables; it forms a pleasant relish for the tasteless plantain. It sells for half a dollar at the factories, and the French export it to adulterate chocolate, which in appearance it somewhat resembles. I am ready to supply you with a specimen whenever you indent upon me. After the daily siesta, which lasted till three p.m., Mr. Tippet begged me to put in an appearance, as a solemn dance, in which the king's eldest daughter joined, was being performed in honour of the white visitor. A chair was placed for me in the verandah, and I proceeded to the exterior study of Fan womanhood. Whilst the men are thin and élancés, their partners are usually short and stunt. "Her stature tall, I hate a dumpy woman," is a point upon which most of us agree with his lordship. This peculiar breadth of face and person probably result from hard work and good fare. I could not bring myself to admire Gondebiza, the princess, although she was in the height of Fan fashion. What is grotesque in one appears ugly in the other sex. The king's daughter was married, fat, and thirty; her charms were on the wane; and the system of circles composing her personnel had a tremulous and a gravitating tendency. She danced with all her might, and her countenance preserved a great seriousness. Her dress consisted of leaves covering the hairhorns, a pigtail lashed with brass wire, various necklaces of large red and white, and pink and blue beads; a leaf confined to the upper arm by a string, and heavy brass and copper wristlets and anklets; the parure of the great in these lands. The rest of the toilet was a dwarf swallow tail, and an apron of greasy and reddened tree-bark, kept in position by five lines of cowries acting as cestus. The body was also modestly invested in a thin pattern of tattoo, and a gauzework of grease and canewood. The other performers were, of course, less brilliantly equipped. All, however, had rings on their fingers and toes, the arms, legs, and ankles. A common decoration was a bunch of seven or eight long ringlets, not unlike the queue de rat, still affected by the old-fashioned English women, but prolonged to the bosom by stringings of alternate white and red beads; others limited this ornament to two tails depending from the temples, at the parts where horns should grow. Amongst them all I saw but one well formed bosom. Many had faces sufficiently piquant. The figure, however, though full, wanted firmness. The men wore red feathers, but carried no arms. Each had his Ndese garters and armlets, like the Arab's "hibá's," of plaited palm-fibre, tightened by little brass cross-bars. The form of dance was a circular procession round the princess, who agitated herself in the centre; it reminded me much of Mr. Catlin. To the sound of o-o-o-oh, all clapped hands, stamped, and shuffled forwards, moving the body from the hips downwards, whilst she alone was stationary, and smileless as a French demoiselle, in her favourite enjoyment. At times, when the king condescended to "show his agility," the uproar became deafening. The orchestra consisted of two men sitting opposite each other; one performed on a caisson, a log of hollowed wood, with an upper slit; and the other used the national Hànjas, the prototype of the harmonium. It is made of seven or eight hard sticks, pinned with bamboo splints to transverse stems of plantain, reposing upon the ground. Like the former instrument, it is thumped upon by things like tent-pegs. The grande-caisse, or large drum, four feet tall, skin-covered and fancifully carved, stood at some distance. Highly gratified by the honour, but somewhat overpowered by the presence, and already feeling that awful scourge the sand-fly, I retired, after an hour's review, leaving the dance to endure till midnight. The rest of my day and the week following were devoted to the study of this quaint people, and these are the results. Those who have dealings with the Fans, universally prefer them for honesty and manliness to the Mpongwe, and the other coast races. They have not had time to be thoroughly corrupted; to lose all the lesser, without acquiring any of the greater virtues. Chastity is still known amongst them. The marriage tie has some significance, and they will fight about women. It is an insult to call a Fan liar or coward, and he waxes wroth if his mother be abused. Like all tribes in West Africa, they are but moderately brave. They are fond of intoxication, but not yet broken to ardent spirits. I have seen a man rolling upon the ground and licking the yellow clayey earth, like one in the convulsions of death-thirst; this was the effect of a glass of trade rum. They would willingly traffic for salt and beads. The wretched custom of the coast-the White coast-is to supply vile alcohols, arms, and ammunition. How men who read their bibles and attend their chapels regularly, can reconcile this abomination to their consciences, I cannot say. May the day come, when unanimity will enable the West African merchants to abstain from living upon the lives of those who pour wealth into their coffers!! The Fan plant their own tobacco and care little for the stuff imported. They also manufacture their pipe bowls, and are not ignorant of the use of diamba-hashistra. They will suck salt as children do lollipops, but they care little for sugar. They breakfast (kidiáshe) at six A.M., dine (domos) at noon, sup (gogáshe) at sunset, and eat if they can all day. They are good huntsmen, who fear not the elephant (nyok), the hippopotamus (nyok á mádzun), or the gorilla (njé). They are cunning workmen in iron, which is their wealth. Their money is a bundle of dwarf rods shaped like horse-fleams, a coinage familiar to old travellers in West Africa, and of this Spartan currency 10=6d. The usual trade medium is a brass rod, of which 2=1 franc, and of the copper 3-2 francs. Llaki, or witchcraft, has not much power over them. In Africa, however, as in Australia, no man, however old, dies a natural death; his friends will certainly find a supernatural cause for it. The general salutation of the Fans is Neboláne, and the reply Am. The nation is divided, as usual, into many ayons or tribes, who mostly occupy different locations. The principal names in the vicinity visited by me are : They have their own names for the neighbouring tribes and places, e. g., the Mpongwe are called Bayok, the Bakeli are Ngom, and the Skekyáni Besek, whilst the Gaboon river is called Aboká. They have no vocables corresponding with our distinctive names of week days, months, or years. "Amos" is any day, opposed to alusha, a night. Suká or sukásuá is the rainy season. Isob the little Cries; oyon, the long Dries, alias a year. The Eugon, or moon, is of course used to express a month. Mwásá is yesterday. Emm, to-day. Kirige, to-morrow. Ozán, the day after to-morrow. The only specimen of the language that I can now find time to quote, is its numeralogy. It need hardly, however, be remarked to the Ethno-Anthropological Society of London how instructive and how significant numbers are. 1, Foh (with strong guttural aspirate like the Arabic). 2, Be. 3, Láre. 4, Nne. 5, Tánu. 6, Sám. 7, Sángwá. 8, Wȧm. 9, Ebú. 10, Abom. On the 14th of April, I went, in company with Mr. Tippet and his wives, to the head waters of the Imbokwe river. After descending the stream for a short distance, we turned into the Sondo creek, one of its northern influents, and presently, after losing sight of mangrove for the first time, we arrived at the village of Takanjok. There, having obtained carriers, we marched through a dense bush cut by streamlets and a few plantations. After a six miles walk over stiff wet clay, we bivouacked for the night in a tall but thin forest. In early morning, a tornado from the north-east broke over us, a curious crash aroused me, and I found that the upper half of a tree had fallen alongside of me, grazing my hammock. When the rain subsided, we ascended the little hill Beká, where, according to the guides, Nkomo and Imbokwe, the two main forks of the Gaboon arise, and on the same evening, after thirteen miles work, of which nine were by water, we reached home at Mayyá". Our return down the river was enlivened by glimpses of far blue hill rising in lumpy and detached masses to the east. It is probably a subrange of the Sierra del Crystal, which native travellers described to me as a broken line of rocky and barren acicular mountains-tall, gravelly, waterless, and lying about three days journey beyond the wooded hills. Early on the morning of Thursday, 17th April, the Eliza was lying off Mr. Walker's factory, and I was received with the usual hospitality by Mr. Hogg, then in charge. I will conclude this brief record of "first impressions amongst the Fans," with tendering my best thanks to that gentleman for his many little friendly offices, without which travelling in these regions is rather a toil than a pleasure. P.S.-You will bear in mind that the Fans whom I visited were a comparatively civilized race, who have probably learned to conceal the customs which they have found distasteful to the civilized man. In the remoter districts they may still be determined cannibals. Before long I hope to pronounce an opinion on that point. EXTRACTS FROM A LECTURE DELIVERED AT MUNICH, 1858, In a primitive and savage state man scarcely believes that there is much difference between him and the brute, especially if they much resemble him. Travellers relate that the Negroes in Guinea, and the natives of Java and Sumatra, look upon the orang-outang and chim |