A FEW WORDS ON CANNIBALISM. 49 



after dipping it in a sauce which had been prepared, he 

 ate it before the assembled multitude. Then the various 

 assistants cut and ate from the criminal such parts of 

 the body as they considered the most appetising. Out 

 t)£ respect to the foreigner present the death was 

 hastened by piercing the heart. Formerly their aged 

 and infirm parents were slaiightered and eaten by these 

 people. 



The population of parts of the interior of Malacca are 

 said still to be cannibals. 



Some of the more savage tribes, both on the east and 

 west coast of Africa, have from time to time acquired 

 the ill renown of cannibalism — whether with justice or 

 not is still matter of dispute ; but at least it cannot be 

 denied that the charge is of very ancient date, and has 

 often been repeated. It must have been a current belief 

 in Shakespeare's time, for he notes among the wonders 

 told by Othello to Desdemona, in running through the 

 story of his life, " the cannibals that each other eat, the 

 anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath 

 their shoulders." These must refer to Africa, as their 

 birthplace. The only place in the Old World in which 

 an African Prince could be supposed to meet with such 

 adventures was his own, his native land.* 



The old accounts of Arab navigators are full of deplor- 

 able statements of the negro men-eaters, who inhabited 

 the coasts from Babel Mandeb to Sofala. 



Sir Samuel Baker relates a scene of which he was 

 witness : — " One of the female slaves having endeavoured 

 to escape, her owner fired at her, and she fell wounded. 

 She was very fat, and from her wound there dropped a 

 quantity of yellow fat. The Makkaukas no sooner saw 

 this than they tore out handfuls of this fat, and dis- 

 puted for this horrible prey. They then despatched the 

 woman with lances, and cut up and divided the body 

 among them for eating. The other female slaves and 

 children, horrified, fled and hid themselves among the 



* " Food Journal," vol. ii., p. 232. 

 E 



