52 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION 
visit the factories on the estuary, and wander as far as 
the Ogobe. In course of time, they will infallibly “ eat 
up ” the Bakele, as the latter are eating up the Mpongwe 
and Shekyani. They have their own names for neigh- 
bouring tribes : the Mpongwe, according to Bowdich, 
called the Shekyani, and the inner tribes “ Boolas, a 
synonym of Dunko in Ashantee hence, probably, the 
“ Bulous ” of Mr. Hutchinson (p. 253), “ a tribe on the 
Guergay Creek, who speak a different language from 
the Mpongwes.” The Fan call the Mpongwes, Bay ok ; 
the Bakele, Ngon ; the Shekyani, Besek ; and the Gaboon 
River, Aboka. The sub-tribes of cannibals, living near 
my line of march, were named to me as follows : — 
1. The Lala (Oshebas?), whose chief settlement, Sankwi, 
is up the Mbokwe River ; 2. their neighbours, the 
Esanvnna ; 3. the Sanikiya, a bush tribe ; 4. the Sakula, 
near Mayyan ; 5. the Esoba, about Fakanjok ; 6. the 
Esonzel of the Ute, or Auta village ; 7. the Okola, whose 
chief settlement is Esamasi ; and 8. the Ashemvon, with 
Asya for a capital. 
From M. du Chaillu’s illustrations (pp. 74, 77) I fully 
expected to see a large-limbed, black-skinned, and fero- 
cious-looking race, with huge mustachios and plaited 
beards. A finely made, light-coloured people, of regular 
features and decidedly mild aspect, met my sight. 
The complexion is, as a rule, chocolate, the distinctive 
colour of the African mountaineer and of the inner 
tribes ; there are dark men, as there would be in Eng- 
land, but the very black are of servile origin. Few had 
any signs of skin-disease ; I saw only one hand spotted 
with white, like the incipient Morplietico (leper) of the 
Brazil. Many, if bleached, might pass for Europeans, 
so “ Caucasian ” are their features ; few are negro in 
type as the Mpongwe, and none are purely “ nigger ” 
like the blacks of maritime Guinea and the lower Con- 
goese. And they bear the aspect of a people fresh from 
the bush, the backwoods ; their teeth are pointed, and 
there is generally a look of grotesqueness and surprise. 
When I drank tea, they asked what was the good of 
putting sugar in tobacco water. The hair is not kinky, 
