be said in favour of their views ; among other things that the
greater part of the seaboard districts of West Africa, I may say
every part from Sierra Leone to Cameroon, is structurally
incapable of being self-supporting under existing conditions.
Below Cameroon, on my beloved South-west coast, which is
infinitely richer than the Bight of Benin, rich producing
districts come down to the sea in most places until you reach
the Congo; but here again the middleman is of great use to the
interior tribes, and if they do have to pay him seventy-five
per cent, serve them right. They should hot go making wife
palaver, and blood palaver all over the place to such an extent
that the inhabitants of no village, unless they go en masse, dare
take a ten mile walk, save at the risk of their lives, in any
direction, so palaver no live.
We will now enter into the reason that induces the bush
man to collect stuff to sell among the Fans, which is the expensiveness
of the ladies in the tribe. A bush Fan is bound
to marry into his tribe, because over a great part of the
territory occupied by them there is no other tribe handy
to marry into ; and a Fan residing in villages in touch with
other tribes, has but little chance of getting a cheaper lady.
For there is, in the Congo Français and the country adjacent
to the north of it (Batanga), a regular style of aristocracy
which may be summarised firstly thus : All the other
tribes look down on the Fans, and the Fans look down
T t , thG ° ther trib6S- This aristocracy has sub-divisions,
the Mpongwe of Gaboon are the upper circle tribe- next
come the Benga of Corisco ; then the Bapoka ; then the
Banaka. This system of aristocracy is kept up by the ladies.
Thus a M’pongwe lady would not think of marrying into one
of the lower tribes, so she is restricted, with many inner restrictions,
to her own tribe. A Benga lady would marry a
Mpongwe, or a Benga, but not a Banaka, or Bapoka; and
so on with the others ; but not one of them would marry a
Fan. As for the men, well of course they would marry any
lady of any tribe, if she had a pretty face, or a -good trading
connection, if they were allowed to : that’s just man’s, way.
To the south-east the Fans are in touch with the Achille
Bakele, Dakele, practically one and the same tribe and a tribe
that has much in common with the Fan, but who differ from
them in getting on in a very friendly way with the little dwarf
people, the Matimbas, or Watwa, or Akkoa: people the Fans
cannot abide. With these Achille the Fan can intermarry,
but there is not much advantage in so doing, as the price is
equally high, but still marry he must.
A young Fan man has to fend for himself, and has a
scratchy kind of life of it, aided only by his mother until— if
he be an enterprising youth—he is able to steal a runaway
AN AKKOA DWARF OF CONGO FRANÇAIS.
wife from a neighbouring village, or if he is a quiet and steady
young man, until he has amassed sufficient money to buy a
wife. This he does by collecting ivory and rubber and selling
it to the men who have been allotted goods by the chief of
the village, from the consignment brought up by the black
trader. He supports himself meanwhile by, if the situation of
his village permits, fishing and selling the fish, and hunting
and killing game in the forest. He keeps steadily at it in his
way, reserving his roysterings until he is settled in life. A
truly careful young man does not go and buy a baby girl