AMONG THE CANNIBALS 117 



We conveyed our friendlies back to their part of 

 the island, and though we did not trust them suffi- 

 ciently to land and visit their village as they wished 

 us to do still, they endeavoured to do the honours 

 of their country and brought off a large roll of some- 

 thing done up in fresh banana-leaves. This, on being 

 opened, turned out to be a roasted black man's thigii, 

 and they were quite as much astonished as hurt when 

 we declined to accept the gift." 



Mr. Albert B. Lloyd during his travels through 

 Central Africa made the acquaintance of the Bangwa 

 tribe of cannibals. He gives a very interesting descrip- 

 tion of the habits and customs of these people in his 

 account of the journey I : " After leaving Avabuki we 

 passed through the wildest cannibal country to be found 

 anywhere, and every day we saw dozens of villages 

 inhabited by the Bangwa. They are a splendid race 

 of people. I was very much taken with them. I 

 have seldom seen such physical development and such 

 symmetry of figure; they are upright as a dart, with 

 heads erect and bright, intelligent faces. These men 

 came up to me with the greatest confidence not as 

 the cringing savages who will grovel at your feet 

 before your face and put a spear into you when your 

 back is turned. The cannibal was straightforward and 

 brave, and his character could be read in his actions 

 and bearing, and one could see at once that here were 

 the materials for the making of a fine race of people. 

 And yet they were the most advanced cannibals, who 

 lived on human flesh. The men all wore a bark cloth 

 about their loins, not wound round the body, but 

 fastened back and front with a hide strap, or a cord 

 1 See Bibliography, 3. 



