236 Tlie Buhls or Edeeyah of Fernando Po. 



of many of them by the quantity of this ornament. Among 

 the chiefs, the head and horns of a goat, or of the golden 

 rood-boeke, is secured to the hat. Nearly all have little grass 

 bracelets and armlets, in which they secure the knife, a most 

 useful article, and almost the only European one they care for. 



The first impression conveyed to the observer on seeing an 

 Adeeyah in his native woods, is certainly anything but fa- 

 vourable. The face cut and disfigured by transverse stripes ; 

 the hair done up with red knobs ; the body painted, or rather 

 bedaubed, into red and yellow clay ; a bunch of grass to 

 cover those portions of the person which even savages are 

 averse to display ; a little flat grass hat, fastened to the head 

 by a skevver ; the long wooden spear raised on high as if to 

 be brought into immediate use, seldom fail to pi'oduce the 

 conclusion that here is the very acme of barbarous and savage 

 life. A little inquiry, however, into the native character and 

 the laws by which they are regulated removes the prejudice, 

 and we feel deeply interested in a race pi'esenting such an 

 anomalous combination of the wisest and most civilised laws, 

 with the rudest and most untutored state of nature. On the 

 testimony of George Ireland, a liberated African, and a very 

 intelligent person, who lived among the Edeeyah for eleven 

 years, and had visited most parts of the island, they are de- 

 scribed as being most hospitable and genei'ous to strangers, 

 humane, and kindly-disposed towards each other in their se- 

 veral communities, both in health and sickness, willing to 

 assist each other in difficulties, bravo, yet forbearing, and re- 

 luctant to spill the blood even of their enemies ; and these 

 good traits we can vouch for, not only on general authority, 

 but from our own observations among them. 



Their battles are not attended with cruelties ; their reli- 

 gious rites untainted by human blood, — in this affording a 

 notable difference between them and most Africans, who 

 make their fellow-creatures the gi'and victims for conciliat- 

 ing the Jujus, or fetishes. Murder is unknown among 

 them ; so much so, that a chief near Clarence received the 

 cognomen of Cut-throat, for an attempt made on the life of 

 one of his subjects, whom he discovered in the act of steal- 

 ing from a vessel of war's boat, during Captain Owen's visit 

 in 1825. They are remai'kably honest. We have seen them 



