70 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
Chastity is still known amongst the Fan. The mar- 
riage tie has some significance, the women will not go 
astray except with the husbancTs leave, which is not 
often granted. The men wax wroth if their mothers 
be abused. It is an insult to call one of them a liar or 
a coward ; the coast-tribes would merely smile at the 
soft impeachment, and assure you that none but fools — 
yourself included by implication — are anything else. 
Their bravery is the bravery of the savage, whose first 
object in battle is to preserve his only good, his life : to 
the civilized man, therefore, they appear but moderately 
courageous. They are fond of intoxication, but are not 
yet broken to ardent spirits : I have seen a single glass 
of trade rum cause a man to roll upon the ground and 
convulsively bite the yellow clay like one in the agonies 
of the death-thirst. They would do wisely to decline 
intercourse with Europeans ; but this, of course, is im- 
possible — there is a manifest destiny for them as for 
their predecessors. The vile practice of the white or 
West Coast is to supply savages with alcohol, arms, and 
ammunition ; to live upon the lives of those they serve. 
The more honourable Moslems of the eastern shores do 
not disgrace themselves by such greed of gain. 
The Fan are cunning workers in iron, which is their 
wealth. Their money is composed of Ikfa, dwarf bars 
shaped like horse-fleams, a coinage familiar to old 
travellers in West Africa, and of this Spartan currency 
a bundle of ten represents sixpence. “ White man’s 
Ikfa” would be silver, for which the more advanced 
Mpongwe have corrupted the English to “ solove.” An 
idea exists on the Lower River that our hardware is 
broken up for the purpose of being made into spear- 
heads and other weapons. Such is not generally the 
case. The Wamasai, the Somal, and the Cape Kafirs— 
indeed, all the metal-working African barbarians — call 
our best Sheffield blades “rotten iron.” They despise a 
material that chips and snaps, and they prefer with 
ample cause their native produce, charcoal-smelted, and 
tempered by many successive heatings and hammerings, 
without quenching in water. Nor will they readily 
