74 
The Minor Tribes 
the river costs from thirty to thirty-five dollars ; the 
same may be bought in the Apinji country for 
four dollars’ worth of assorted goods, the “ bundle- 
trade” as it is called; but there is the imminent 
risk of the chattel’s running away. A man’s only 
attendants being now his wives and serviles, it is 
evident that plurality and domestic servitude will 
extend— 
“ Far into summers which we shall not see 
in fact, till some violent revolution of society shall 
have introduced a servant class. 
The three grades of M pong we may be con¬ 
sidered as rude beginnings of caste. The first are 
the “ Sons of the Soil,” the “ Ongwa ntye ” (con¬ 
tracted from Onwana wi ntye), Mpongwes of 
pure blood; the second are the “ Mbamba,” chil¬ 
dren of free-men by serviles ; and lastly, “ Nshaka,” 
in Bakele “ Nshaka,” represents the slaves. M. du 
Chaillu’s distribution (chap, iii.) into five orders, 
namely, pure, mixed with other tribes, half free, 
children of serviles, and chattels, is somewhat 
over-artificial; at any rate, now it is not generally 
recognized. Like the high-caste Hindu, the nobler 
race will marry women of lower classes ; for in¬ 
stance, King Njogoni’s mother was a Benga; but 
the inverse proceeding is a disgrace to the woman, 
apparently an instinctive feeling on the part of the 
reproducer, still lingering in the most advanced 
