THE AFRICAN PYGMIES. 665 



Okanda (a tributary of the Ogowe*) in 1874. He found that they 

 were called " Babongo," and also " Vambuta " (Wambatti ?), 

 though their real name appeared to be Bari or Bali. As he did 

 not penetrate farther than 12° east, he did not reach their actual 

 dwelling-places, which were said to be a fortnight's journey be- 

 yond that point, though he saw and measured a considerable num- 

 ber of individuals. His measurements range between 1*32 and 

 1*42 metre, and he particularly notices the contrast between their 

 round huts and the rectangular style of architecture prevailing in 

 the district.* 



Somewhere to the north of these, perhaps, may be placed the 

 Kenkob and Betsan, of whom Dr. Koelle, the learned author of 

 the Polyglotta Africana (1854), heard at Sierra Leone. He ob- 

 tained his information from two liberated slaves, one of whom, a 

 man named Yon, was a native of a country called Bayon, supposed 

 to lie about 5° north, and between 12° and 13° east. This man de- 

 clared that four days' journey eastward from his home there was 

 a great lake called Liba, on whose banks lived the Luf um tribe, 

 " tall, strong, and warlike ; clad in black monkey-skins, and fight- 

 ing with spears and arrows. Near Luf um," the account continues, 

 " and also on the shores of the Liba, is another people, called Ken- 

 kob, only three or four feet high, but very stout, and the most ex- 

 cellent marksmen. They are peaceful, live on the produce of the 

 chase, and are so liberal that if, e. g., one has killed an elephant, he 

 would give the whole of it away." 



Another man, whose home was to the northwestward of Bayon, 

 gave Dr. Koelle a very similar account of a tribe called " Betsan," 

 living " on the river Riba,f which comes from Bansa and goes to 

 Bambongo." These, too, are successful hunters, and are also said 

 to make bark cloth for themselves, whereas Du Chaillu's Obongo 

 wore nothing but the cast-off grass cloths of the Ashangos. The 

 Betsan sometimes exchange their venison for millet, etc., in the 

 Rufum country. " They do not cultivate the ground, but are con- 

 stantly on the move, changing their abode every six or twelve 

 months. Their houses can be easily built, taken down, and even 

 carried along with them, consisting as they do of the bark of a 

 large tree. The Betsan hunt monkeys, baboons, wild hogs, deer, 

 elephants, etc." \ 



I can suggest no affinity for the names here given to the Pyg- 

 mies, unless Kenkob contains a possible reminiscence of " Khoi- 

 Khoi," or * Koi-Koib," the tribal name used by the Hottentots 

 among themselves. It is utterly unlike a Bantu word, and may be 

 a relic of the language originally common to all the Pygmy tribes, 



* See Petermann's Mittheilungen for 187T (p. 108) ; also Dr. Lenz's paper in the Trans- 

 actions of the Berlin Geographical Society. 



f Evidently the same as Liba ; as Rufum-Lufum. \ Polyglotta Africana, p. 12. 



