CHAPTER IX. 
A SPECIMEN DAY WITPI THE FAN CANNIBALS. 
T 5 a.m. on the next day, after a night 
with the gnats and rats, I sallied forth 
in the thick “ smokes,” and cast a 
nearer look upon my cannibal hosts. 
And first of the tribal name. The Mpongwe call 
their wild neighbours Mpangwe ; the Europeans 
affect such corruptions as Fan we, Panwe, the F 
and P being very similar, Phaouin and Paouen 
(Pawen). They call themselves Fan, meaning 
“ manin the plural, Bafan. The n is highly 
nasalized : the missionaries proposed to express 
it by “ nk” which, however, wrongly conveys the 
idea of aspiration; and “Fan,” pronounced after the 
English fashion, would be unintelligible to them. 
The village contains some 400 souls, and 
throughout the country the maximum would be 
about 500 spears, or 4,000 of both sexes, whilst 
the minimum is a couple of dozen. It is pleasantly 
situated on the left bank of the Mbokwe River, 
