190 REPORT — 1861. 



On the People of Western Equatorial Africa. By P. B. Dv CHArLLtr. 



His travels extended from two degrees north to two degrees south of the equator. 

 He doubted whether there is another district of the same size as that which he 

 exploited in Western Equatorial Africa, holding so many vaiieties of tribes, 

 all thinking theniselTes separate nations and possessing different names, though 

 many speak the same language or dialect. One of the great peculiarities of most, 

 of these tribes is that their villages are intermingled with each other. There are 

 no landmai'ks assigned to each tiibe ; every village squats and settles where the 

 people choose, and every now and then the traveller will be astonished to see a 

 village belonging to a certain tribe far removed fi-oni it. This habit of selecting 

 land wherever the people of a village like is owing to the vast extent of unoccupied 

 territory. He found that the cannibals are the tallest and handsomest of these 

 tribes ; many were of athletic forms — ^in fact, magnificent savages ; but he had 

 foimd Fans near the equator, at the head-waters of the Gaboon River, who had not 

 the fine appearance of these mountaineers. They even eat the dead. With the 

 exception of these cannibals, the other tribes seem to be intermediate in stature, 

 between the tall and slim. Yolof and other tiibes of North Africa, and the small- 

 sized men of the Congo and of the more southern tribes of that continent, accord- 

 ing to the specimens he had seen, are small and ugly, but the Kafiirs are tall and 

 handsome negroes. These equatorial people are well-proportioned, not stout, but 

 built as if capable of endming great fatigue. They may, as a whole, be called 

 middle-sized men. Among the cannibals the females appeared in many instances 

 smaller in proportion to the males. According to the commonly received norion, 

 the negroes dwelling under the line, or near to it, ought to be darker than those 

 removed fi'om the line. This is a mistake. The coimtries he had visited do not 

 possess what we should call black uegi-oes, with the exception of the Ashira tribe, 

 who are in conti*ast with the tribes surrounding them. He had come to the con- 

 clusion, from his observations, that the negi'oes who inhabit a damp and moist 

 countiy, and especially mountainous countries, are less black, though they possess 

 all the negro features, than those belonging to an open countn,-, where a dry 

 atmosphere is prevalent. In fact, the equatonal negroes are far from being as dark 

 as the negi'oes he had seen living near the gi'eat desert in the Senegal coimtry. 

 Among the cannibals, but more especially among the Apingi, he had foimd pei-sons 

 looking almost like mtilattoes. Albinos are rather common in the tribes he had 

 visited. In this pai-t of equatorial Africa the negi'oes inhabiring the sea-shore are 

 a shade darker than those of the interior. The negroes of this part of equatorial 

 Africa do not belong to the lowest tA^pe of the Western coast ; they are superior to 

 those of the Congo or more Southern-African tiibes. The cannibals may be con- 

 sidered as among the best blacksmiths in .Vfrica. They work iron in a most 

 beautifrd manner. They make knives, spears, axes, and hammers, many of which 

 are good and beautifriUy shaped. The cannibal tribes are the only ones he had 

 seen using the poisoned aiTows. The tribes he visited south of the equator possess 

 a loom, and weave the fibres of a species of palm into cloth of considerable fineness 

 and tenacity. Among the people of the same tribe intelligence varies considerably. 

 These negi'oes possess an imagmarive mind, are astute speakers, sharp tradei-s, great 

 liars, possessing gTeat power of dissimulation, and are far from being in many re- 

 spects the stupid people they ai-e believed to be. In making bargains they are as 

 shrewd as any Em'opean. In even-thing that does not require mental labour and 

 forethought they seemed to leam as fast as any among the intellectual races, 

 to a certain point. When he had to rely on them for anything that required 

 the exercise of memorj' or forethought, anything on which the power of reflection 

 was required, then they failed ; partly, perhaps, through laziness. Though often 

 treacherous, they have noble qualities, are given to hospitality : food is never 

 bought; the rich and the poor have food enough to satisfy their hunger. The 

 women show great tenderness of heart, especially when one takes into account how 

 harshly they are treated. Many times he had been mider great obligations to them 

 when sick for their kind care. They built houses either with the bark of trees or a 

 species of wild bamboo : the houses are small, and there is no other opening than a 

 door ; sometimes, however, they possess two doors. With reference to the law of 

 intermarriage, the author read a long extract from his published work on that sub- 



