320 ASHANGO-LAND. Chap. XVI. 



The colour of these people was a dirty yellow, much 

 lighter than the Ashangos who surround them, and 

 their eyes had an untameable wildness about them 

 that struck me as very remarkable. In their whole 

 appearance, physique, and colour, and in their habita- 

 tions, they are totally unlike the Ashangos, amongst 

 whom they live. The Ashangos, indeed, are very 

 anxious to disown kinship with them. They do not 

 intermarry with them ; but declare that the Obongos 

 intermarry among themselves, sisters with brothers, 

 doing this to keep the families together as much as 

 they can. The smallness of their communities, and 

 the isolation in which the wretched creatures live, 

 must necessitate close interbreeding ; and I think it 

 very possible that this circumstance may be the cause 

 of the physical deterioration of their race. Their 

 foreheads are exceedingly low and narrow, and they 

 have prominent cheek bones ; but I did not notice 

 any peculiarity in their hands or feet, or in the posi- 

 tion of the toes, or in the relative length of their 

 arms to the rest of their bodies ; but their legs ap- 

 peared to be rather short in proportion to their 

 trunks ; the palms of their hands seemed quite white. 

 The liair of their heads grows in very short curly 

 tufts ; this is the more remarkable, as the Ashangos 

 and neighbouring tribes have rather long bushy 

 hair on their heads, which enables them to dress it 

 in various ways ; with the Obongos the dressing 

 of the hair in masses or plaits, as is done by the 

 other tribes, is impossible. The young man had an 

 unusual quantity of hair also on his legs and breast, 

 growing in short curly tufts similar to the hair of the 

 head, and all the accounts of the Ashangos which I 



