November 12, 1886.1 



SCIEJS'CE, 



441 



colonies in the home market, partly because dress their hair. It is noted that those tribes who 



of the local demand for their woods, and partly 

 because the cost of carriage would be too 

 great. 



Professor Macoum (Canada) said that the reason 

 the English merchant knew so few of the Cana- 

 dian timbers was the natural indisposition existing 

 in both countries to take a new departure from old 

 habits. The Douglas fir of Canada was fully equal 

 to the white-pine now employed, and when the 

 supplies of the latter were exhausted, the former 

 would of necessity take its place. The Douglas 

 fir grew in vast quantities, attained a great height, 

 and tapered very gradually. In their black-ash, 

 too, the Canadians possessed a species of timber 

 which would some day be very widely employed, 

 for it had all the qualities of the now favorite 

 white-ash, and its supply was unlimited. The 

 Douglas fir could be supplied in England at £5 a 

 load, and the black -ash at the sauie price as elm or 

 white-pine. 



Mr. E. A. Cooper (the Cape) said that the um- 

 zumbit of that colony was, from its remarkable 

 hardness and durability, a very desirable wood, 

 offering more resistance to wear and tear than 

 lignum vitae itself, and being impervious to the 

 attacks of the teredos. The Cape yellow-wood 

 could be supplied as cheaply as any, the price be- 

 ing about £6 10s. a load. The stink-wood, how- 

 ever, which was very useful for furniture, could 

 not find a market here, owing to the high prices it 

 commanded in the colony ; namely, 3s. to 4s. a 

 cube. 



Mr. Alfred Dent (British North Borneo) said that 

 the Billian of that country offered great attrac- 

 tions to the English merchant. It grew in enor- 

 mous quantities, was very easy of access, and ex- 

 ceedingly hard and durable. Companies were 

 wanted to undertake the supply of the wood in 

 large quantities, at present an impossibility. As 

 to the cost of the wood, he remarked that one firm 

 already was prepared to supply it alongsideship at 

 £3 10s. per ton, a price which freightage, etc., 

 would probably increase by about fifty per cent. 

 But competition would, no doubt, reduce these 

 charges considerably. 



THE PEOPLE ON THE KONGO. 



Walcke, on his return from five years on 

 the Kongo, has given some interesting details 

 in regard to the people of its banks. Those 

 of the lower river have been brutalized by the 

 importation of liquor, and form a strong con- 

 trast with the people of the interior, vvho have 

 so far escaped such demoralization. On the up- 

 per river the Bassunde are the first people who 



neglect their hair are deficient in physical and 

 moral qualities. With the Bassunde it takes several 

 hours to perform the toilet. They are polygamous, 

 the wives living in pairs in little huts grouped 

 around the principal house, where the head of the 

 family resides. Mai'riage is simply a matter of 

 bargain and sale. The number of wives in some 

 sort gauges the importance of the -husband. They 

 have no ceremony in connection with marriage or 

 birth, but a funeral is the occasion of much dis- 

 play. It is fortunate for the traders that these 

 l^eople, who wear hardly any thing but a breech- 

 clout in life, when dead consume immense quan- 

 tities of cloth. A man who has not worn twenty 

 yards of cloth in his whole life will be rolled in 

 four hundred yards to be buried. 



When a death occurs, the body is energetically 

 washed, half the village joining in the work with 

 loud cries and howls, and distribution of rum. 

 The body is put in a sitting posture, and painted 

 red. The chief depressions are then stuffed out 

 with dead leaves, and the whole is rolled with 

 cloth into a cylindrical bale. The process goes on 

 sometimes for three months, as the body is not 

 put under ground until all the dead man's estate 

 is exhausted in the purchase of material. Mean- 

 while it is placed in a specially constructed hut. 

 The bigger the bale, the greater the dead man's 

 credit ; so that, in case of a chief, the people of 

 the village will sometimes contribute to enlarge 

 his wrappings. Finally the bale is wrapped in a 

 particularly fine piece reserved for the purpose, 

 and is carried in triumph about the village, and 

 then buried with salvos of musketry, which, if 

 the powder holds out, are repeated nightly over 

 the grave for some time. As usual among the 

 negroes, the death is always ascribed to sorcery, 

 any one suspected being obliged to undergo the 

 ordeal of drinking a certain preparation. If with- 

 in a certain time the suspect is overcome by the 

 effects of the draught, he is put to death as a 

 murderer. The cult of the people is pure fe- 

 tichism : they have a fetich for each sort of dan- 

 ger to which they may be by chance exposed, — 

 one for serpents, one for crocodiles, etc. A native, 

 being told that he must be happy at being safe 

 from crocodiles, replied, ' Not at all : the fetich 

 loses its power when brought near water.' They 

 appear to serve merely as a sort of reminder what 

 dangers are to be avoided. 



;^ They have certain medicaments which are of 

 real efficacy, as against fevers, but will not reveal 

 their nature : for the rest, diseases are treated 

 by conjuration. Circumcision and excision of the 

 clitoris are practised, and admit the patient to the 

 privileges of maturity, as one of the tribe. They 



