THE CONGO IN 1863. 
107 
the Asiatic. Both were Portuguese colonies founded 
about the same time, and under very similar circum- 
stances ; both were catechized and Christianized in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; both had 
governors and palaces, bishops and cathedrals, edu- 
cational establishments and a large staff of missioners. 
But Asia was not so inimical, mentally or bodily, to 
the European frame as Africa ; the Goanese throve 
after a fashion, the mixed breed became the staple 
population, and thus it continues till this day. On 
the other hand the Hamitic element so completely 
asserted its superiority over insititious Japheth, that 
almost every trace has dis- 
appeared in a couple of 
centuries. There lingers, it 
is true, amongst the Congoese 
of the coast-regions a some- 
thing derived from the olden 
age, still distinguishing them 
from the wild people of the 
interior, and at times they 
break out naturally in the 
tongue of their conquerors. 
But it requires a practised 
eye to mark these minutiae. 
The Congoese are pass- A BY-YANZI. 
ably brave amongst them- 
selves ; crafty and confined in their views, they carry 
“knowledge of life” as far as it is required, and their 
ceremonious intercourse is remarkable and complicated. 
They have relapsed into the analphabetic state of their 
ancestors ; they are great at eloquence ; and, though 
without our poetical forms, they have a variety of 
songs upon all subjects, and they improvise panegyrics 
in honour of chiefs and guests. Their dances have 
been copied in Europe. Without ever inventing, the 
modes of the Greeks, which are still preserved by the 
Hindoos, they have an original music, dealing in 
harmony rather than in tune, and there are motives, 
of course all in the minor key, which might be utilized 
