58 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
years with this people, knew only three cases of canni- 
balism ; and the Rev. Mr. Walker agreed with other 
excellent authorities, that it is a rare incident even in 
the wildest parts — perhaps opportunity only is wanted. 
As will appear from the Fan’s bill of fare, anthropophagy 
can hardly be caused by necessity, and the way in which 
it is conducted shows that it is a quasi-religious rite 
practised upon foes slain in battle, evidently an equiva- 
lent of human sacrifice. If the whole body cannot be 
carried off, a limb or two is removed for the purpose of 
a roast. The corpse is carried to a hut built expressly 
on the outskirts of the settlement ; it is eaten secretly 
by the warriors, women and children not being allowed 
to be present, or even to look upon man’s flesh ; and 
the cooking-pots used for the banquet must all be 
broken. A joint of “ black brother ” is never seen in 
the villages : “ smoked human flesh ” does not hang 
from the rafters, and the leather knife-sheaths are of 
wild cow ; tanned man’s skin suggests only the tan- 
nerie cle Meudon, an advanced “institution.” Yet Dr. 
Schweinfurth’s valuable travels on the Western Nile 
prove that public anthropophagy can co-exist with a 
considerable amount of comfort and, so to speak, civili- 
zation — witness the Nyanr-Nyanr and Mombattu (Mim- 
buttoo). The sick and the dead are uneaten by the 
Fan, and the people shouted with laughter when I asked 
a certain question. 
The “ unnatural ” practice, which, by the bye, has at 
different ages extended over the whole world, now con- 
tinues to be most prevalent in places where, as in New 
Zealand, animal food is wanting ; and everywhere pork 
readily takes the place of “long pig.” The damp and 
depressing atmosphere of equatorial Africa renders the 
stimulus of flesh diet necessary. The Isangii, or Ing- 
wanba, the craving felt after a short abstinence from 
animal food, does not spare the white traveller more 
than it does his dark guides ; and, though the moral 
courage of the former may resist the “ gastronomic 
practice ” of breaking fast upon a fat young slave, one 
does not expect so much from the untutored appetite of 
