52 ANIMAL FOOD RESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



leans to the belief that it is true. He says, in a letter 

 addressed to my friend, the late Mr. Andrew Murray : — , 



" All flesh— human flesh, and that of the leopard or 

 panther and the common vulture excepted — is edible in 

 Calabar ; indeed, some of the imported slaves, and above 

 all those who come from the Eboe country, do not except 

 even flesh of their human kind, and boast of the sweet- 

 ness of the human hand, and have been known to have 

 their flesh-pots extra busy and extra well filled when 

 the bodies of decapitated criminals have become acces- 

 sible to them." 



We all know how like in personal appearance the 

 paws of a bear are to the hands of a man, and the paws 

 of the bear, like the pettitoes of a pig, are esteemed the 

 greatest delicacy of that animal, both in Europe and in 

 North America. 



Human flesh, therefore, I think must be reckoned an 

 occasional article of food among the more savage tribes 

 of Western and Central Africa, when accidental circum- 

 stances give them a supply, and when they have an 

 excuse for eating it — such as tradition, custom, enmity, 

 or hunger. 



A paper in the " Journal of the Ethnographical So- 

 ciety " for 1869 testifies to the recent existence of com- 

 munities of cave-dwelling cannibals in the territory of the 

 Basutos, close to the frontiers of the Cape Colony. 



Mr. Layland, the writer, after describing a cavern 

 near to the mission station of Cana, the floor of which 

 was strewn with human bones piled together and scat- 

 tered about at random in the cavern, adds : — 



" Skulls especially were very numerous, and consisted 

 chiefly of those of children and young persons. These 

 remains told too true a tale of the purpose for which 

 they had been used, for they were hacked and cut to 

 pieces with what appeared to have been blunt axes or 

 sharpened stones. The marrow-bones were split into 

 small pieces, the rounded points alone being left un- 

 broken. Only a very few of the bones were charred, 

 showing that the prevailing taste had been for boiled 



