some of his own countrymen go into ecstasies at
a very small amount of wit indeed.

Although they are such incorrigible cheats
and thieves that it is considered rather a
distinction for a man to have robbed his mother,
they don't seem to have quite as much genius
in West Africa for highway robbery as we have.
Neither do they organise a raid or sheep-stealing
party on such sound principles. They are
easily deterred, too, by threats, such as curing a
lurking taste of this kind with a revolver, and
many of them are very affectionate despite their
fallen state.

Any short-comings in this way they make up
for by their powers of drinking, and they ought
to be proficients, considering that they begin
when children. From the king on his throne to
the slave he sells, they are all drunkards. One
monarch who visited Mr. du Chaillu, brought
several of his queens with him; they were all
in a state of rum. At a ball a king does not
disdain to get as drunk as any of his subjects,
and jump about as insanely as they do. Happy
equality! Charming picture of savage life! And
think not, reader, this is the white man's doing.
When these gentry can't get rum, they manage
to get exceedingly drunk upon mimbo and palm
wine. They prefer the foreign article, however;
their land of promise is the land of the white-
bosomed stranger, where the rum flows in rivers.
Yet with all this debauchery there seems to be
little blindness, deformity, or disease.

As for dirt, it is hard to say whether the
ladies or gentlemen of some tribes are the worst.
Perhaps of the two, the ladies are a trifle filthier,
and smell a little stronger. Once they have got
grease upon them in any shape, they hate getting
it off again. Washing, especially of their clothes,
they clearly look upon as a sin. They have a
strong taste for paint. By way of welcoming
the moon, one king painted himself red, white,
and black, with an irregular design of spots
about the size of a peach, to relieve the monotony
of these colours. On another occasion,
when public opinion was dissatisfied with the
appearance of the moon, every man covered
his body with red and white chalk-marks,
and went to bed. Even the chief medical
man of the Cammas, when he officiated as
witch-finder—upon which occasion he looked
like a devil, having a pile of black
feathers in his hat, like those hideous things we
see on hearses—considered it necessary to have
his eyelids painted red, and a red stripe running
up his forehead dividing it into two, with a second
red stripe round his head; face painted white,
with two red spots on each side; a large white
stripe on each arm from hand to shoulder, and
hands painted white. It seems they are
susceptible of improvement in some respects. One
king, who was reproved for cracking fleas upon
his nail, not only gave up the habit, but insisted
that others should do the same. The traveller
will doubtless not be so unreasonable as to expect
that they keep their huts clean, and here he will
seldom be disappointed. Now and then a place
is found in an unexpected state of neatness, and
some of the villages are well built. In fact, the
people who can make the Ashira grass-cloth and
the Fan weapons ought to be capable of some
thing better.

Their religion is a hopeless, joyless creed. They
know of nothing and believe in nothing beyond the
tomb, except it be a dread of horrors to come
in the shadowy realms of death, vague and awful
as the formless shades which Fingal beheld
issuing from the halls of Cruth-Loda. After
death, all is over, they say. Custom compels
the neighbours of the gorilla to howl over a
corpse, much as instinct teaches the savage ape
to howl over the corpse of its mate. The
Camma women, when a death occurs among
their lords, throw ashes on their heads and dust
on their bodies, shave off their hair, and rend
their clothes. When the day of mourning is
past, they give themselves up to rum and reckless
debauchery.

They hate death with the instinct of the
beast; but, less happy than the beast, the dread
of it is ever before their minds. Every death,
the cause of which is not palpable to their dark
intellects, is set down to witchcraft, and the
bare thought of this brings on such a paroxysm
of fear and rage, that they will not hesitate to
sacrifice the nearest relative. Two deaths
happening together will generally ensure a few
murders in cold blood. Women and children
are hacked to pieces, and, when the paroxysm is
over, the poor terror-haunted survivors mourn
over the decay of their tribe. They deserve
to decay, if, as it is said, they ruthlessly turn out
the old, sick, and feeble to die of hunger. They
have no good spirits. Their spirits are only
potent for ill; the solitude of the grave and
the sweet stillness of the gloaming fill their minds
with horror. The Camma people, in addition to
an ordinary devil, have invented one who soon
cures any one of a taste for lonely musing
amidst such scenes, by kicking and beating him
to death, which is said to be his principal
occupation.

Their worship is little more than a mortal
dread of hideous idols. Of the duties of
religion they have no idea. One king quietly
talked about putting off the Sunday. The idols
are much what one might expect. One, a
goddess, purchased by Du Chaillu, has on a wide-
awake; her face is perfectly flat; her bosom
looks rather like a case for a seraphina, and is
studded with knobs; around her waist, which
is a small square piece of wood, are bound a few
scraps of grass, and her lower limbs are carved
out of one solid piece; she is slightly bow-
legged. This lady belongs to the slaves. Their
king, who would not sell his own idol, which
was several degrees uglier, had no objection
to dispose of theirs for a consideration.
Abango's idol had copper eyes, one cheek red
and the other yellow; charms which had doubtless
induced the deity to confer upon her the
power of speech, as she was said to be
endowed with this gift.

The women of equatorial Africa, it appears,
are sometimes afflicted with inspiration in the