226 Life at Banza Nokki. 
Christianized in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries; both had governors and palaces, bi¬ 
shops and cathedrals, educational 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 po¬ 
pulation, and thus it continues till this day. On 
the other hand the Hamitic element so com¬ 
pletely asserted its superiority over insititious 
Japheth, that almost every trace has disap¬ 
peared in a couple of centuries. There lingers, 
it is true, amongst the Congoese of the coast- 
regions a something 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 passably brave amongst 
themselves; crafty and confined in their views, 
they carry “ knowledge of life” as far as it is re¬ 
quired, and their ceremonious intercourse is re¬ 
markable 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 
