Chap. XXI. COMPARISON OF CUSTOMS, 427 



all ; thus they do not become scattered, and the more 

 people an elder has, the more potent his voice be- 

 comes in the councils of the village ; besides, any free 

 man, by a singular custom, called bola handa, which 

 consists in placing the hands on the head of an elder, 

 can place himself under the protection of the patri- 

 arch who is thus chosen, and henceforward become 

 one of his people. Of course, the man under whose 

 protection another places himself belongs to a different 

 clan. South of the equator the tribes were milder 

 than those I had seen in my former journey north 

 of the equator. I found no tribes where the villages 

 were continually fighting with each other, as among 

 the Bakalai, Shekiani, Mbondemos, Mbisho, and the 

 Fans. The law of the strongest did not prevail ; 

 no raid for the sake of plunder was committed by 

 one village upon another ; one of the reasons being 

 that no village was strong enough to do so — besides, 

 the people of neighbouring villages intermarry much 

 with each other, for polygamy, with its many draw- 

 backs, had in some respects its advantages. 



Tribes and clans intermarry with each other, and 

 this brings about a friendly feeling among the people. 

 People of the same clan cannot marry with each 

 other. The least consanguinity is considered an 

 abomination ; nevertheless, the nephew has not the 

 slightest objection to take his uncle's wives, and, as 

 among the -Bakalai, the son to take his father's wives, 

 except his own mother. 



The reader will at once see the striking difference 

 there is between the tribes of East Africa and those 

 which I have visited. When we read Burton, Speke, 



