in the Congo River. 
3 2 9 
of reproof he would fly into passions and disdains ; 
he was reconciled only after obliging 400 couples 
that lived in concubinage to lawful wedlock, and 
thus a number of “ strayed souls was reduced to 
matrimony.” 
We can hardly wonder that, under such disci¬ 
pline, a large ecclesiastical body was necessary to 
“ maintain the country in its due obedience to the 
Christian faith,’ 7 and that, despite their charity in 
alms and their learning, no permanent footing was 
possible for the strangers. Nor can we be aston¬ 
ished that the good fathers so frequently complain 
of being poisoned. On one occasion a batch of 
six was thus treated near Bamba. In this matter 
perhaps they were somewhat fanciful, as the white 
man in India is disposed to be. One of them, for 
instance cured himself with a “ fruit called a 
lemon ” and an elk-hoof, from what he took to be 
poison, but what was possibly the effect of too 
much pease and pullet broth. In “ O Muata 
Cazembe ” (pp. 65-66), we find that the Asiatic Por¬ 
tuguese attach great value to the hoof of the 
Nhumbo (A. gnu), they call it “ unha de gra- 
besta,” and use it even in the gotta-coral (epi¬ 
lepsy). 
And yet many of these ecclesiastics, whom Lopez 
de Lima justly terms “ fabulistas,” were industrious 
and sensible men, where religion was not con¬ 
cerned. They carefully studied the country, its 
