240 In the Heart of Africa 



mess-room. It is much cooler inside them than in the tents, 

 and the heat and blinding glare of the sun are never felt so keenly 

 as, when at the end of a march, one emerges from the shade of 

 the native forest and enters the clearing around the serai and 

 its village. 



At all these stations one meets " Arabises" as they are called 

 by the Congolese, or " Wangwana" (the Educated Ones), as they 

 call themselves in the Kisuaheli tongue. Ethnographically they 

 represent a quite inextricable niixtum compositum of Arabs, 

 east coast and inland negroes, Manjema from west of Tan- 

 ganjika, and natives from the eastern districts of the Congo 

 State. They are offspring and descendants of those slave and 

 ivory hunters with whom the Belgians had to wage such fierce 

 battle, remains of Tippoo Tib's hordes of the Aruwimi-Ituri 

 district, the Ngarruwas and Kilonga-Longas — the oldest of 

 whom still remember Stanley well. Of course there are others, 

 too, who have come to the Congo in later years in the train 

 of the Arabian dealers. They speak Kisuaheli, richly inter- 

 spersed with native and Arab expressions, sometimes called 

 " Kingwana " — the language of the Wangwana. In any case, 

 the designation Arabises is a fitting one. They wear long 

 Arabian garments and turbans. Many of them show the strong 

 admixture of Arabian blood very plainly, though one seldom 

 meets pure Arabs. There are, doubtless, some shady customers 

 amongst them, and it is certain that, besides their lawful business, 

 they carry on extensive smuggling in rubber and ivory over the 

 German and English boundaries — after all, a peaceful and 

 innocent occupation compared to that of the days of their youth, 

 when, before the establishment of European rule, the Congo 

 was a land full of horrors. Their of^cial activity is limited to 

 keeping the stations and the roads in order, and in providing 

 the Europeans and carriers passing through with provisions and 

 stores. Manioc and sweet potatoes are principally cultivated in 

 the clearings, also rice and maize. The Wangwana did not grow 

 bananas to any extent ; they complained that the elephants made 

 too much havoc amongst them. 



