114 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



Ibea chiefly from the east and south-east. Best known are the 

 Dwalas of the Camerun estuary, physically typical Bantus with 

 almost European features, and well-developed calves, a character 

 which would alone suffice to separate them from the true Negro. 

 Nor are these traits due to contact with the white settlers on the 

 coast, because the Dwalas keep quite aloof, and are so proud of 

 their "blue blood," that till lately all half-breeds were "weeded out," 

 being regarded as monsters who reflected discredit on the tribe. 

 Socially the Camerun natives stand at nearly the same low 

 level of culture as the neighbouring full-blood 

 Sudanese Negroes of the Calabar and Niger delta. Indeed 



Borderland. ... .... 



the transition in customs and institutions, as well 

 as in physical appearance, is scarcely perceptible between the 

 peoples dwelling north and south of the Rio del Rey, here the 

 dividing line between the Negro and Bantu lands. The Bakish 

 of the Meme river, almost last of the Bantus, differ little except in 

 speech from the Negro Efiks of Old Calabar, while witchcraft and 

 other gross superstitions were till lately as rife amongst the Bak- 

 wiri and Bakundu tribes of the western Camerun as anywhere in 

 negroland. It is not long since one of the Bakwiri, found guilty 

 of having eaten a chicken at a missionary's table, was himself 

 eaten by his fellow clansmen. The law of blood for blood was 

 pitilessly enforced, and charges of witchcraft were so frequent 

 that whole villages were depopulated, or abandoned by their 

 terror-stricken inhabitants.. The island of Ambas in the inlet of 

 like name remained thus for a time absolutely deserted, " most of 

 the inhabitants having poisoned each other off with their ever- 

 lasting ordeals, and the few survivors ending by dreading the very 

 air they breathed 1 ." 



Having thus completed our survey of the Bantu populations 



from the central dividing line about the Congo- 

 Early Bantu Chad water-parting round by the east, south, and 



Migrations 



a clue to west coastlands, and so back to the Sudanese zone, 



their Direc- , -.,... 



we may pause to ask, what routes were followed by 



the Bantus themselves during the long ages required 

 to spread themselves over an area estimated at nearly six million 

 square miles? I have established, apparently on solid ground?, 



1 Reclus, English ed. xn. p. 376. 



