(chap xix.) “there is no property in land,” but this is a mistake often made in Africa.  Labourers are hired at the rate of two to three dollars per mensem, and gangs would easily be collected if one of the chiefs were placed in command.  No sum of money will buy a free-born Mpongwe, and the sale is forbidden by the laws of the land.  A half-caste would fetch one hundred dollars; a wild “nigger” near the river costs from thirty to thirty-five dollars; the same may be bought in the Apinji country for four dollars’ worth of assorted goods, the “bundle-trade” as it is called; but there is the imminent risk of the chattel’s running away.  A man’s only attendants being now his wives and serviles, it is evident that plurality and domestic servitude will extend—­

  “Far into summers which we shall not see;”

in fact, till some violent revolution of society shall have introduced a servant class.

The three grades of Mpongwe may be considered as rude beginnings of caste.  The first are the “Sons of the Soil,” the “Ongwa ntye” (contracted from Onwana wi ntye), Mpongwes of pure blood; the second are the “Mbamba,” children of free-men by serviles; and lastly, “Nshaka,” in Bakele “Nshaka,” represents the slaves.  M. du Chaillu’s distribution (chap, iii.) into five orders, namely, pure, mixed with other tribes, half free, children of serviles, and chattels, is somewhat over-artificial; at any rate, now it is not generally recognized.  Like the high-caste Hindu, the nobler race will marry women of lower classes; for instance, King Njogoni’s mother was a Benga; but the inverse proceeding is a disgrace to the woman, apparently an instinctive feeling on the part of the reproducer, still lingering in the most advanced societies.  Old travellers record a belief that, unlike all other Guinea races, the Mpongwe marries his mother, sister, or daughter; and they compare the practice with that of the polished Persians and the Peruvian Incas, who thus kept pure the solar and lunar blood.  If this “breeding-in” ever existed, no trace of it now remains; on the contrary, every care is taken to avoid marriages of consanguinity.  Bowdich, indeed, assures us that a man may not look at nor converse with his mother-in-law, on pain of a heavy, perhaps a ruinous fine; “this singular law is founded on the tradition of an incest.”

Marriage amongst the Mpongwe is a purely civil contract, as in Africa generally, and so perhaps it will some day be in Europe, Asia, and America.  Coelebs pays a certain sum for the bride, who, where “marriage by capture” is unknown, has no voice in the matter.  Many promises of future “dash” are made to the girl’s parents; and drinking, drumming, and dancing form the ceremony.  The following is, or rather I should say was, a fair list of articles paid for a virgin bride.  One fine silk hat, one cap, one coat; five to twenty pieces of various cottons, plain and ornamental; two to twenty silk kerchiefs; three to thirty jars of rum; twenty