GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 373 
societies, the weaker sex should be doomed to perform the 
most laborious drudgery. In Congo, the cultivation of the 
land, and the search after food in the woods and on the 
plains, frequently the catching of fish, devolve wholly on 
the women; while the men either saunter about, or idle 
away the time in laying at full length on the ground, or in 
stringing beads, or sleeping in their huts: if employed at 
all, it is in weaving their little mats or caps, a kind of light 
work more appropriate to the other sex, or in strumming 
on some musical instrument. 
Their indolent disposition, however, does not prevent 
them from indulging an immoderate fondness for dancing, 
more especially on moon-light nights. No feats of activity 
are displayed in this species of amusement, which consists 
chiefly in various motions of the arms and gesticulations of 
the body, not altogether the most decent. The pleasure it 
affords is announced by hearty peals of laughter. They 
are also fond of singing, but it is only a monotonous drawl- 
ing of the voice, not very well calculated to delight the ears 
Of the auditors. Their musical instruments are, a sort of 
guitar or lyre of the rudest kind, horns, shells and drums ; 
and sometimes calabashes filled with small stones to make 
a rattling noise. They have songs on love, war, hunting, 
palm wine, and a variety of subjects, some of which have 
been attempted to be written down and translated by Cap- 
tain Tuckey, but in so imperfect-a manner and so much 
defaced, as not to admit of being made out. 
In all the memoranda of the gentlemen employed on the 
expedition, the natives of Congo are represented as a live- 
ly and good-humoured race of men, extremely hospitable 
