RESPECTING CENTRAL AFRICA. 383 



transition state has emerged, and which I believe 

 to be gradually progressing to the re-attainment 

 of the previous excellence of the primeval social 

 institutions. 



One strange report respecting the inhabitants of 

 intra-tropical Africa, I think I shall be able to 

 show the origin and foundation of, and which is the 

 existence, in a situation to the south of Kuffah, of 

 a nation of dwarfs, called Doko. From the infor- 

 mation I have received myself, and from an exami- 

 nation of unpublished Portuguese documents 

 relative to the geography of the eastern coast of 

 Africa, and of the people inland; in the very situa- 

 tion presumed to be the native country of the 

 Doko, I learn that a very different family of man 

 is only to be found — the tall, muscular, and power- 

 ful Shankalli negro; and, more than this, the 

 French traveller, M. d'Abbadie, from information 

 received in Abyssinia, has reported that to the 

 south of Enerea and Kuffah, a nation of Shankalli 

 reside, to whom the name Doko was given. It 

 cannot, therefore, I think, be doubted that a people 

 so designated do occupy the country to the south 

 of Abyssinia, and that from among them are taken 

 the greater number of slaves, that arrive at the 

 markets of Enerea and Zingero, where the dealers 

 dispose of them to the slave Kafilahs that are 

 proceeding to Zanzibar, or to northern Abyssinia. 

 Doko perhaps designates the slave country, or, per- 

 haps, signifies as much as our terra incognita, for 



