MANYANGA TO LEOPOLDVILLE (STANLEY POOL. 118 
end of the sticks protruding from the thatch of the roof. 
Inside the hut was a circular mound of worked clay, 
on which many different patterns and designs had been 
traced by means of various coloured pebbles, white stones 
and even beads. On each side of this mound stood two 
statues about four feet high, representing separately, in 
the frankest manner possible, the male and female prin- 
ciple. The sex of either figure was so much en évidence, 
that according to our views they would be decidedly 
obscene, though there was nothing intentionally indecent 
about them, and they merely represented to the native’s 
mind in a crude manner the, to him, mysterious power of 
generation or creation. The great resemblance these 
figures bore to native men and women, and the clever 
manner in which they were carved and painted, testified 
to the wonderful artistic faculties of this so-called savage 
people. At the feet of these statues were mugs, plates, 
and specimens of native erockery. All these articles were 
slightly broken, either to disable them for future use, and 
thus prevent temptation to rob the sanctuary, or, as seems 
more probable, with an idea that a broken plate or vessel 
“dies,’ and so goes appropriately to the land of the 
Spirits. * | 
About noon on the third day of our journeying we 
came to the banks of the Inkisi, and had to cross that 
swift, rolling, turbid stream in native canoes. ‘The natives 
always land much lower down the river than where they 
embark, for the current is so swift that it is impossible 
to entirely withstand its influence. It is here about as 
broad as the Thames at Windsor, and probably rises in 
the mountains eastward of Sao Salvador. For navigation 
it is quite useless, owing to its furious current and many 
falls; on the further side of the Inkisi, the woods are 
beautiful, and the path winds through enchanting scenery, 
over little brooks where green mossy rocks stem the im- 
patient, foaming little streams, and under the grandly 
over-arching trees, festooned with mazy creepers and 
* See chap. xvi. 
