Cold cream. . . . . . . . . . 3j. 
Glycerine . . . . . . . . . . 3j. 
Chloroform . . . . . . . . .3ij. 
Oil of bitter almonds . . gtt. x.

Chapter IV.

The Minor Tribes and the Mpongwe.

The tribes occupying the Gaboon country may roughly be divided into two according to habitat—­the maritime and those of the interior, who are quasi-mountaineers.  Upon the sea-board dwell the Banoko (Banaka), Bapuka, and Batanga; the Kombe, the Benga and Mbiko, or people about Corisco; the Shekyani, who extend far into the interior, the Urungu and Aloa, clans of Cape Lopez; the Nkommi, Commi, Camma or Cama, and the Mayumba races beyond the southern frontier.  The inner hordes are the Dibwe (M. du Chaillu’s “Ibouay"), the Mbusha; the numerous and once powerful Bakele, the Cannibal Fan (Mpongwe), the Osheba or ’Sheba, their congeners, and a variety of “bush-folk,” of whom little is known beyond the names.  Linguistically we may distribute them into three, namely, 1. the Banoko and Batanga; 2. the Mpongwe, including the minor ethnical divisions of Benga, and Shekyani; the Urungu, the Nkommi, the Dongas or Ndiva, and the Mbusha, and 3. the Mpongwe and the tribes of the interior.  Lastly, there are only three peoples of any importance, namely, the Mpongwe, the Bakele, and the Fan.

The Mpongwe, whom the French call “les Gabons,” are the aristocracy of the coast, the Benga being the second, and the Banoko and Bapuka ranking third.  They are variously estimated at 5,000 to 7,000 head, serviles included.  They inhabit both sides of the Gaboon, extending about thirty-five miles along its banks, chiefly on the right; on the left only seawards of the Shekyani.  But it is a wandering race, and many a “mercator vagus” finds his way to Corisco, Cape Lopez, Batanga, and even Fernando Po.  The two great families on the northern river bank are the Quabens and the Glass, who style themselves kings and princes; the southern side lodges King William (Roi Denis) near the mouth, and the powerful King George, about twenty-five miles higher up stream.  There are also settlements scattered at various distances from the great highway of commerce to which they naturally cling, and upon the Coniquet and Parrot Islands.

Barbot (iv. 9) describes the “Gaboon blacks” as “commonly tall, robust, and well-shaped;” they appeared to me rather below the average of West Coast size and weight.  Both sexes, even when running to polysarcia, have delicate limbs and extremities, and the features, though negroid, are not the negro of the tobacconist’s shop:  I noticed several pyramidal and brachycephalic heads, contrary to the rule for African man and simiad.  In the remarkable paper read (1861) by Professor Busk before the Ethnological Society, that eminent physiologist proved that the Asiatic apes, typified by the ourang-outang, are brachycephalic, like the Mongolians amongst whom they live, or who live amongst them; whilst the gorillas and the African