April II, 1889] 



NATURE 



561 



lakes, we find, so far as we know at present, no such 

 dense bush, though the grass is high, and rank, and thick 

 enough. Mr. Stanley attempts to account for the 

 abundance of water and the thickness of the forest by the 

 moisture carried over the continent from the wide 

 Atlantic, by the winds which blow landwards through a 

 great part of the year. But as a comparatively cold current 

 sweeps along the coast from the south, these winds may be 

 colder than the surface of the land over which they pass, 

 and so may decline to part with their moisture. But this is 

 a point for careful investigation ; and it may after all be 



found that the rain of the rainiest region of Africa comes 

 not from the Atlantic but the Indian Ocean, with its mois- 

 ture-laden monsoons ; and so we should have here a phe- 

 nomenon analogous to that which prevails in the South 

 American continent, the forests of which resemble in many 

 features those of the region through which Mr. Stanley 

 has passed. 



The forest itself is not more interesting than its human 

 denizens. Mr. Stanley mentions the names of many tribes 

 living along the river, and judging from their names they 

 seem all more or less of Bantu affinities. But we are here 



Statt/ordjii Ge/ig'- £stal>'j,andim. 



verging on the limits of the Negro peoples, so that when 

 we obtain full information it may be found that the 

 Aruwimi tribes are much mixed. But it will be of the 

 greatest interest to ascertain what has been the effect 

 upon these peoples of their sad and depressing and ever- 

 saturated surroundings ; and to compare the results 

 with what we find to be the case in more open 

 country with people of the same type. That there have 

 been changes in the population of the region is evident 

 from the great heaps of oyster-shells met with by Mr. 

 Stanley, some of them covered by several feet of earth. 



One important piece of information Mr. Stanley gives us 

 concerning these forest tribes. Nejambi Rapids, about 

 250 miles above the junction of the Aruwimi and the 

 Congo, marks the division between two different kinds 

 of architecture and language. Below, the cone huts are 

 to be found ; above the rapids we have villages, long 

 and straight, of detached square huts surrounded by tall 

 logs, which form separate courts, and add materially 

 to the strength of the village. Many precautions are 

 adopted against attacks by poisoned arrows. Mr. 

 Stanley lost several men b^ these arrows, and Lieutenant 



