70 AFRICAN CANNIBALISM IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 



These people are armed with small bows bound tightly round 

 with snake skins, and strung with a reed or rush. Their arrows, 

 short and slender, but made of hard wood, are shot with great ra- 

 pidity. They have iron axes, the handles of which are bound with 

 snake skins, and swords with scabbards of the same material ; for 

 defensive armour they employ elephant hides. They cut their skins 

 when young, so as to produce scars. " Their butchers' shops are 

 filled with human flesh instead of that of oxen or sheep. For they 

 eat the enemies whom they take in battle. They fatten, slay, and 

 devour their slaves also, unless they think they shall get a good 

 price for them ; and, moreover, sometimes for weariness of life or 

 desire for glory (for they think it a great thing and the sign of a 

 generous soul to despise life), or for love of their rulers, offer them- 

 selves up for food." 



" There are indeed many cannibals, as in the Eastern Indies and 

 in Brazil and elsewhere, but none such as these, since the others only 

 eat their enemies, but these their own blood relations." 



The careful illustrators of Pigafetta have done their best to enable 

 the reader to realize this account of the 4 Anziques,' and the unexam- 

 pled butcher's shop represented in fig. 12, is a facsimile of part of 

 their Plate XII. 



M. Du Chaillu's account of the Fans accords most singularly with 

 what Lopez here narrates of the Anziques. He speaks of their small 

 crossbows and little arrows, of their axes and knives, " ingeniously 

 sheathed in snake skins." " They tattoo themselves more than any 

 other tribes I have met with north of the equator." And all the 

 world knows what M. Du Chaillu says of their cannibalism—" Pres- 

 ently we passed a woman who solved all doubt. She bore with her 

 a piece of the thigh of a human body, just as we should go to mar- 

 ket and carry thence a roast or steak." M. Du Chaillu's artist can- 

 not generally be accused of any want of courage in embodying the 

 statements of his author, and it is to be regretted that, with so good 

 an excuse, he has not furnished us with a fitting companion to the 

 sketch of the brothers De Bry. 



