Chap. XSI. ]\IiaEATION TOWARDS THE WEST. 431 



legends seem to imply tliat there had heen great 

 wars ; old men of tlie Commi tribe even remember 

 when their clans were continually at war with each 

 other. 



The migration of the tribes, as I have already 

 observed, seems to have followed the same laws as 

 migrations among ourselves ; I did not meet with a 

 single tribe or clan who said they came from the 

 west ; the}' all pointed towards the east as the place 

 they came from. 



The migration of the Fans (people of which I have 

 given an account in ' Equatorial Africa') has suddenly 

 burst westward, and I believe that there has never 

 been a migration with which we are acquainted in 

 Western Africa, which has made so quick a descent 

 on the sea-board. Fifteen or twenty years ago the 

 Fans were only heard of by the sea-shore tribes, a 

 few villages were said to be found in the mountains 

 at the head water of the Gaboon; now the people 

 have come down from their mountains and have 

 settled everywhere on the banks of the Graboon ; 

 their villages are numerous between the Moouda and 

 the Gaboon, and are distant only a few miles from 

 the sea ; indeed, the Fans are now seen often among 

 the settlements of the traders. I give a represent- 

 ation of a Fan woman, from a French photograph, 

 which will give the reader a fair idea of a cannibal 

 belle. I have also given a sketch of a group of Fan 

 warriors, taken from a French photograph. 



These warlike people have swept everything before 

 them. The Bakalai and Shekiani villages have not 

 been able to withstand their onset; and now Bakalai 



