A FEW WORDS ON CANNIBALISM. 51 



and their odour is very foul and revolting. I was enter- 

 tained with a song setting forth the delights of canni- 

 balism, in which the flesh of men was said to be good, 

 but that of women was bad, and only to be eaten in time 

 of scarcity ; nevertheless, it was not to be despised when 

 man meat was unobtainable." 



Du Chaillu asserts the following with a precision of 

 detail derived only from personal observation and in- 

 quiry :— 



" The next morning we moved off for the Fan village, 

 and now I had the opportunity to satisfy myself on a 

 matter on which I had cherished some doubt before, viz., 

 the cannibal practices of these people. I was satisfied 

 but too soon. As we entered the town I perceived some 

 bloody remains which looked to me to be human, but I 

 passed on still incredulous. Presently we passed a 

 woman who solved all doubt. She bore with her a 

 piece of the thigh of a human body, just as we should go 

 to market and carry thence a roast or steak. . . I 

 was told by one of them afterwards that they had been 

 busy dividing the body of a dead man, and that there 

 was not enough for all. The head, I am told, is a royalty, 

 being saved for the king." 



Again : " Eating the bodies of persons who have died 

 of sickness is a form of cannibalism of which I had never 

 heard among my people, so that I determined to inquire 

 if it were indeed a general custom among the Fans, or 

 merely an exceptional freak. They spoke without em- 

 barrassment about the whole matter, and I was informed 

 that they constantly buy the dead of the Osheba tribe, 

 who in return buy theirs. They also buy the dead of 

 other families in their own tribes, and besides this, get 

 the bodies of a great many slaves from the Mbichos 

 and Mboudemos, for which they readily give ivory at 

 the rate of a small tusk for a body." 



Other recent travellers confirm the statement, and 

 Mr. W. C. Thomson, formerly, and for many years one 

 of the United Presbyterian missionaries at Old Calabar, 

 now settled and practising as a physician in Liverpool, 



E 2 



