( 47 ) 
FESTIVITIES. 
CHAPTER IV. 
A Specimen Day with the Fan Cannibals. 
At 5 a.m. on the next day, after a night with the gnats 
and rats, I sallied forth in the thick “ smokes,” and cast 
a nearer look upon my cannibal hosts. And first of the 
tribal name. The Mpongwe call their wild neighbours 
Mpangwe ; the Europeans affect such corruptions as 
Fanwe, Pan we, the F and P being very similar, Phaouin 
and Paouen (Pawen). They call themselves Faw, mean- 
ing “ man ; ” in the plural, Baffin. The n is highly 
nasalized : the missionaries proposed to express it by 
“ nh,” which, however, wrongly conveys the idea of 
aspiration; and “Fan,” pronounced after the English 
fashion, would be unintelligible to them. 
The village contains some 400 souls, and throughout 
the country the maximum would be about 500 spears, 
or 4,000 of both sexes, whilst the minimum is a coujfie 
of dozen. It is pleasantly situated on the left bank of 
the Mbokwe River, a streamlet here some 50 feet broad, 
whose water rises 6 feet 10 inches under the tidal in- 
fluence. The single street, about half a mile long, is 
formed by two parallel rows of huts, looking upon a 
