THE PEOPLE OF THE CONGO. vp M noe 
~ entail, or because on their migration westward from the 
north-east Bantu focus, they originally met and mixed 
with, in the low-lying coast-lands, an earlier negro 
population. This latter supposition sometimes strikes me 
as being the true one, for the reason that, in such a 
littoral tribe as the Kabinda or Loango people there are 
distinctly two types of Race. One—the Bantu—a fine, 
tall, upright man, with delicately small hands and well- 
shaped feet, a fine face, high, thin nose, beard, moustache, 
and a plentiful crop of hair; the other an ill-shaped, 
loosely-made figure, with splay feet, high calves, a 
retreating chin, blubber lips, no hair about the face, and 
the wool on his head close and crisply curled. The 
farther you go into the interior, the finer the type becomes. 
Such men as the Bayansi of Bolobo are perfect Greek 
statues in the development and poise of their forms, and 
two points about them contrast very favourably with 
most of the coast races, namely, their lighter colour— 
generally a warm chocolate-—and their freedom from that 
offensive smell which is supposed, wrongly, to characterise 
most Africans. Many other details show the com- 
paratively high status of the Upper Congo races: their 
small hands and feet, their well-shaped legs with full 
calves, and their abundant heads of hair. 
The principal tribes to be encountered in ascending the 
Congo to the equator are, commencing at the mouth, the 
Ka-kongo (Kabindas and others), Ashi-rongo, Ba-kongo, 
Ba-sundi, Ba-bwerndé, Wa-buno, Ba-teke, Wa-buma, Ba- 
nunu,and Ba-yansi.* Ofthese the Kabindas or Ka-kongo 
people have been already touched on; and I might 
mention further that they are the Krumen of the south, 
hiring themselves out in all directions as servants, sailors, 
labourers, and affecting more particularly the Portuguese 
colonies, which they overrun as far as Mossamedes, in- 
variably returning home after a time to spend their 
* The tribe which I always knew under the name of “ Ba-yansi”’ is 
probably more correctly called “ Ba-bangi.” Dr. Sims, of the Congo 
Free State, has published most. interesting Ki-bangi, or Ki-yansi, and 
Ki-teke vocabularies.—H. H. J. 
