THE CONGO IN 1863. 
95 
of cloth ; exactly double the tariff paid in Tuckey’s 
time (pp. 171-181) ; and this ratio will apply to all 
other articles of living. Amongst themselves nubile 
girls are not remarkably strict ; but as matrons they 
are rigid. The adulterer is now punished by a heavy 
fine, and, if he cannot pay, his death, as in many parts 
of the Southern Coast, is lawful to the husband. 
The life is regular, and society is simple and patri- 
archal, as amongst the Iroquois and Mohawks, or in the 
BATEKE NATIVES. 
Shetlands two centuries ago. The only excitement, a 
fight or a slave hunt, is now become very rare. Yet I 
can hardly lay down the “ curriculum vitae ” as longer 
than fifty -five years, and there are few signs of great 
age. Merolla declares the women to be longer-lived 
than the men. Gidi Mavunga, who told me that the 
Congo Expedition visited their Banza when his mother 
was a child, can hardly be forty-five, as his eldest son 
shows, and yet he looks sixty. The people rise at dawn 
and, stirring up the fire, light the cachimbos or large 
clay pipes which are rarely out of their mouths. Tobacco 
(nsunza) grows everywhere and, when rudely cured, it 
