884 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



quite stout and healthy ; she had curly hair and negro 

 features. 



The only medicines used by them, and those but spar- 

 ingly, are infusions and decoctions of native plants ; and 

 among others the root of a species of dioscorea, of a very 

 strong bitter taste, is very much chewed by them as a pre- 

 ventive of fluxes ; but the Gangam Kissey and various 

 fetiches are mosily resorted to for the cure of diseases ; and 

 when the Gangam, who acts in the threefold capacity of 

 priest, public accuser, and physician, sees the case to be 

 desperate, he gives the patient over to Zamba M'Poonga. 



It is not easy to conceive for what purpose the shoals of 

 missionaries were sent among the Congo negroes, nor in 

 what manner they passed their time in the country. Their 

 accounts are filled with the multitudes they baptized, and 

 they baptized all who offered themselves ; but it is a very 

 extraordinary fact that they should not have instructed 

 some of them to read and write. No trace of any such in- 

 struction appeared along the banks of tiie Zaire, except in 

 the instance before mentioned ; nor did it appear that they 

 had any mode of registering time or events, except by 

 the moon, and in this way only for a very few years. 



Language The language of the Congo and the neigh- 

 bouring states, differs very materially from all the known 

 languages of the negroes oC northern Africa ; but from the 

 copious vocabiilaries obtained by Captain Tuckey, there 

 would seem to be a radical afhnily between all the lan- 

 guages on the western coast of Southern Africa, and that 



