extends farther than the coast, and the interior of this tract of country has been little explored. On the north bank of the great Quanza begin the A-bunda peoples, which extend northward to the eighth parallel, and westward to the Quango. They are a remarkably smart and intelligent race, and take very kindly to Portuguese rule. At Dondo, a populous town on the Quanza, just below the falls there are great opportunities for studying types of Bantu people. You have here arrivals from Kassanji and the Quango basin; amongst them specimens of the turbulent Ba-ngala, who wear strange monkey-skin caps, made from the skin of a Colobus monkey, with long black and white hair. It is a curious coincidence that the same monkey-skin caps are worn by the natives on the Upper Congo, and also that there is a well-known race on that river called Ba-ngala. Dondo, besides the Ba-ngala there are occasional specimens of Ba-lunda, of the natives of the Muata Ya-noo's kingdom, and of races more remotely placed in the interior of Africa, together with representatives of all the principal tribes of northern Angola.

At

About 7° 40′ S. lat. on the coast, and about 7° in the interior, the intermingling of the Congo races begins, so that before we enter upon this fresh field of study I will just briefly pass in review certain points of interest in the South-West African races.

As regards the domestic animals and cultivated plants, it will be observed that as we proceed from south to north, the cattle, which are kept in vast herds by the Ova-herrero and the Ovampo, become less and less the principal wealth of the people, until, arriving on the confines of the Congo races, we notice that the ox, to all intents and purposes, dies out as a domestic animal, those few on the lower Congo, or belonging to the King of São Salvador, having been introduced by the Portuguese. The cause of this is, apparently, that on entering the moister regions of Western Africa, certain poisonous herbs appear, which kill the cattle. Certainly for some reason, in most places on the Congo, or in the Loango country, oxen dwindle and die, and we do not meet with them again amongst the natives of Western Africa till we arrive at the Niger region. There appear to be two races of oxen mingling on the Kunéné. There is the Damárá ox, similar to the South African breeds in general aspect, a large beast often parti-coloured, with extremely long horns, and a straight back; then a second type resembling certain Asiatic and East African-and, for the matter of that, ancient Egyptian-cattle, a smaller ox, of uniform colour, either fawn, dun, or black, or even white, with shortish horns, a large hump, and a broad dewlap, the whole creature closely resembling, and being undoubtedly akin to, the Indian zebu. The first

described variety of ox, long-horned and straight-backed, is the prevailing type throughout Angola, and it is from this breed that the famous riding oxen, or boi-cavallos, of the Portuguese are obtained. The humped kind of cattle keeps much more to Central Africa, appears on the Kunéné and on the Upper Quanza, and, oddly enough, occasionally appears on the Lower Congo, brought from the interior, either as a curiosity or as a present to trading chiefs.

The sheep of the Kunéné are also of two separate and entirely distinct breeds, the Central African and the South African: the latter being the great Cape sheep with a dewlap, tall in the legs, and with drooping ears; the former a more beautiful kind, hairy, like all African domestic sheep, but possessing an abundant mane of silky hair, stretching from the chin to the belly. Both sheep may be hornless, or may produce individuals with large horns. The Cape sheep is generally brown and fawn colour; the Central African pure white or pied black and white, or occasionally quite black.

The goats are of a good-sized breed, offering great peculiarities. They are not so abundant, or so generally kept in South-West Africa as on the Congo. The domestic fowl is of course universally kept, even by certain tribes of Bushmans who keep little else. It is small and mongrel. The Muscovy duck has penetrated from the coast, but is still considered a curiosity by the chiefs of the interior. Pigeons are unknown by the uncivilised nations as domestic pets; while, to sum up the list that the pig ought to have headed, I may mention that this useful scavenger is everywhere kept by the natives.

In

Among cultivated plants, maize is widely cultivated. many localities its native name betrays a similarity with the word "maize," though the latter is of Spanish and not Portuguese origin. That the Zulus received the Indian corn from the Portuguese seems probable, as the Zulu name "mealy" resembles the Portuguese word milko, applied to maize. The sugarcane is only met with in Northern Angola, where it has been originally introduced by the Portuguese. Rice is cultivated in Bihé and on the Quango, whither it has slowly journeyed across Africa from the East Coast. Manioc, tobacco, the sweet potato, the ground-nut, and certain cucurbitaceæ are widely known and reared in constant crops. Palm wine is unknown south of the Quanza, although a Hyphone palm grows abundantly in the basin of the Kunéné. The only intoxicating drink seems to be a kind of sour beer, made from the maize and called "Makan." Aguardente is also made from the sugarcane in the more settled districts.

One reason for the easy spread of Portuguese power is the

absence of any great chiefdom or despotism amongst the natives. The Soba of Humbi is perhaps the most important chief south of the Quanza, and west of the Oku-vangu. He rules over about 80,000 subjects despotically, but permits a Portuguese chief and a garrison of four Portuguese soldiers in his midst.

The religion of the Bantu tribes in all this district between the Quanza and the Kunéné is also negative. About the Quanza there are medicine-men, and a belief in witchcraft prevails; but not in any degree like we met with it on the Loango coast. Farther south I have failed to detect any trace of religion at all, beyond a wavering fancy that the spirits of the dead return after death. Medicine-men or rain doctors I have failed to discover among the Kunéné tribes. I do not say that they may not exist, but they never appear to be different from ordinary individuals. There is no sign of cruel rites or human sacrifices. The natives seem to dislike the shedding of blood, and impose small fines for offences against individuals or the tribe. They are fond of music, and play on long drums, on a kind of rude five-stringed lyre, or on the marimba, an instrument made of thin keys of metal, placed over a sounding-board. Personal adornment is not sought after to any great extent. Cicatrisation is practically absent. Occasionally white and other pigments are used to decorate the face or body with simple patterns generally following the contours. The general type of dwelling is a round hut, built of clay or wattled, with a peaked thatch roof. The round house or hut seems to go no further north than the southern bank of the Quanza, where it is replaced by the rectilinear, oblong building made of matting, interwoven palm-leaves, wooden posts, and dried grass.

Leaving the Portuguese possessions at Ambriz and journeying northwards we speedily notice a difference in the dialects spoken and in the appearance of the villages, in the manners and customs, and even looks of the natives. We are entering the Congo district, which, roughly speaking, extends northwards to the Ogowé, and westwards to the junction of the Great Mobindu (the Kassaï, or erroneously named Ikelemba of Stanley) with the main stream of the Congo. South of the Lower Congo is the domain of the Ba-kongo proper, who may be said to extend far beyond the kingdom of that name, now sunk to the district round São Salvador, and to almost reach as far as Stanley Pool on the north and Duque de Bragança on the south, interiorwards, and from the mouth of the Congo to Ambriz, in the extremity of Portuguese dominion on the coast. The Ba-kongo speak the language known as Kongo, or Shi-kongo. They are divided into many tribes, speaking somewhat varying dialects. On the north bank of the Congo are the Ka-kongo or Ka-binda peoples,

who extend along the river as far as Isangila, where they give place to the Ba-sundi and Ba-bwende. Arriving at Stanley Pool we find a decided change in the inhabitants. The great Ba-téké tribe first make their appearance here. They are comparatively recent immigrants into the Congo valley, and as yet do not extend beyond its southern banks. They come originally from the high plateaux which form the watershed of the Ogowé, and the north-western affluents of the Congo, and have advanced towards the Congo in a southward direction. Their headquarters may be said to be the residence and town of a great Ba-téké chief, at present Mpumo-Ntaba, the successor of De Brazza's Mákoko. Along the Congo the Ba-téké often form alternate colonies with the Ba-yansi, for the two races overlap one another.

Ascending to the Wa-buma River, we come upon the tribe of the same name which inhabits the lower waters of that great river. They are doubtless the same people as the A-brina found by De Brazza near the Alima. The Wa-buma are a gentle, inoffensive race, living on the best of terms with their more intelligent neighbours the Ba-téké and the Ba-yansi. This latter race is the most highly developed I have yet met with on the Congo. They inhabit the river from the Equator to the Wabuma, but extend their colonies even farther down. They are the great carriers of the Congo, and regularly traffic between their equatorial neighbours, the Ba-ngālā, and the people of Stanley Pool, who in their turn carry on the ivory and other products to São Salvador and the coast. Of the Ba-ngalā I know but little, but imagine them, from the accounts of Ba-yansi traders, and from information which has recently reached me from Mr. Stanley, to differ greatly in language and physique from the Ba-yansi and Lower Congo tribes, They hold but little communication with the Ba-yansi traders. These latter describe their commercial relations as very suspicious and hurried. The Ba-ngālā place the tusks of ivory for sale in one canoe and the Ba-yansi the equivalent in cloth, beads, and guns in another, An exchange is then effected in mid-river, and the Ba-yansi return homewards, being never allowed to land. The Ba-ngala are very much given to cicatrisation. The only individual of that race I have ever seen had his body covered with an intricate pattern of scars, (see woodcut, p. 470). He was a fine burly man, but desperately shy, and refused to give any words of his language. He was, I believe, a slave employed in trading amongst the Ba-yansi.

Besides the tribes catalogued there are others further in the interior, of which I can only record the names-the Ba-nunn, the Wa-buno, the Ba-kamba. The Ba-nunn are found to the south of the Ba-yansi, between the Congo and Lake Léopold II.

The Wa-buno seem to occupy the borderland to the south of Stanley Pool, between the Ba-téké and the Ba-kongo, and the Ba-kamba extend to the south of the Congo beyond the Ba-sundi.

In giving a somewhat more detailed description of the Congo tribes, I will commence with those of the lower river. Below Stanley Pool, and approaching the coast, the tribes begin to lose the distinctive physical characters that are typical of pure Bantu races, either through the degradation the coast climate seems to entail, or because they originally met and mixed with, on the low-lying coast-lands, an earlier negro population. This latter supposition sometimes strikes me as being the true one, because

in such a littoral tribe as the Ka-binda or Loango people there are distinctly two types of race. One, the Bantu, a fine, tall, upright man, with delicately small hands and well-shaped feet, a fine face, high thin nose, beard, moustache, and a plentiful crop of hair; the other an ill-shaped, loosely-made figure, with splay feet, high calves, a retreating chin, blubber lips, no hair about the face, and the wool on his head close and crisply curled. These two distinct types may be met with side by side among the Ka-bindas, who, I might further mention, are the Kru-men