and the Mpongwe . 81 
African mind, a preference for descent and in¬ 
heritance through the mother, “the surer side,”— 
an unmistakable sign, by the by, of barbarism. 
The so-called royal races in the eight great des¬ 
potisms of Pagan Africa—Ashanti, Dahome, and 
Benin; Karagwah, Uganda, and Unyoro; the 
Mwata ya Nvo, and the Mwata Cazembe—allow 
the greatest liberty even to the king’s sisters; 
they are expected only to choose handsome lovers, 
that the race may maintain its physical superiority; 
and hence, doubtless, the stalwart forms and the 
good looks remarked by every traveller. As a 
rule, the husband cannot sell his wife’s children 
whilst her brother may dispose of them as he 
pleases—the vox populi exclaims, “ What! is the 
man to go hungry when he can trade off his sister’s 
brats ?” 
The strong-minded of London and New York 
have not yet succeeded in thoroughly organizing 
and popularizing their clubs; the belles sauvages 
of the Gaboon have. There is a secret order, 
called “ Njembe,” a Rights of Woman Associa¬ 
tion, intended mainly to counterbalance the Nda 
of the lords of creation, which will presently be 
described. Dropped a few years ago by the men, 
it was taken up by their wives, and it now num¬ 
bers a host of initiated, limited only by heavy 
entrance fees. This form of freemasonry deals 
largely in processions, whose preliminaries and 
i. G 
