276 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
themselves, they are far from displaying anything but 
satisfaction when a European is induced to accept the 
loan of a wife, either as an act of hospitality or in con- 
sideration of some small payment. Unmarried girls they 
are more chary of offering, as their value in the market is 
greater; but it may be truly said that among these people 
womanly chastity is unknown, and a woman's honour is 
measured by the price she costs. 
On the Lower Congo as far as Stanley Pool, over a 
region extending slishtly beyond the domain of the 
Ba-kongo proper, “phallic worship in various forms prevails. 
Tt is not associated with any rites that might be called 
particularly obscene; and on the coast, where manners 
and morals are particularly corrupt, the phallus cult is no 
longer met with. In the forests between Manyanga and 
Stanley Pool it is not rare to come upon a little rustic 
temple, made of palm-fronds and poles, within which 
male and female figures, nearly or quite life-size, may be 
seen with disproportionate genital organs, the figures 
being intended to represent the male and female principle. 
Around these carved and parted statues, as described in 
Chapter VI., are many offerings of plates, knives, and 
cloth, and frequently also the phallic symbol may be seen 
dangling from the rafters. There is not the slightest 
suspicion of obscenity in all this, and any one qualifying 
this worship of the Generative power as obscene does so 
hastily and ignorantly. It is a solemn mystery to the 
Congo native, a force but dimly understood; and, like all 
mysterious natural manifestations—like the great rushing 
river that upsets his fishing canoes and has the power 
to drown him—like the blazing lightning, the roaring 
thunder and the shrieking wind, it is a power that must . 
be propitiated and persuaded to his good. if. 
Connected, no doubt, with this phallic worship are the 
Nkimba ceremonies which are met with on the Lower 
Congo between Isangila and the coast, and which in 
varying forms may be traced among the “manhood- 
initiation” rites found among most Bantu peoples. 
The Nkimba are in all probability males undergoing 
