This part of the negotiations ended with presenting some “satin stripe” and rum to the Nchinu and Manbuku Prata, and with shaking hands—­a dangerous operation.  The people are cleanly; they wash when rising, and before as well as after every meal; they are always bathing, yet from prince to pauper, from baby to grey beard, they are affected with a psora known by its Portuguese name, “sarnas.”  The Congo “fiddle” appears first between the articulations of the fingers, and bleaches the hands and wrists as if it were leprosy.  Yet I did not see a single case of true lepra Arabum, or its modifications, the huge Barbadoes leg (elephantiasis), and the sarcoma scrotale and sarcocele of Zanzibar and East Africa.  From the extremities the gale extends over the body, especially the shins, and the people, who appear in the perpetual practice of scalpturigo, attribute it to the immoderate use of palm wine.  I observed, however, that Europeans, in the river, who avoid the liquor, are hardly ever free from this foul blood-poison, and a jar of sulphur mixture is a common article upon the table.  Hydrocele is not unfrequent, but hardly so general as in the Eastern Island; one manner of white man, a half caste from Macao, was suffering with serpigo, and boasted of it.

All predicted to me a similar fate from the “botch of Congo,” but happily I escaped.  Indeed, throughout the West African Coast, travellers risk “craw-craw,” a foul form of the disease, seen on board the African steamers.  Kru-men touching the rails of the companion ladders, have communicated it to passengers, and these to their wives and families.

The town was neat and clean as the people.  The houses were built upon raised platforms, and in the little fenced fields the Cajanus Indicus vetch was conspicuous.  In Hindostani it is called Thur, or Doll-plant, by the Eastern Arab Turiyan, in Kisawahili Mbarazi, in Angola voando (Merolla’s Ouuanda), and in the Brazil Guandu.[FN#9] The people had lost their fear, and brought their exomphalous little children, who resembled salmon fry in the matter of umbilical vesicles, to be patted by the white man; a process which caused violent screams and in some cases nearly induced convulsions—­ the mothers seemed to enjoy the horror displayed by their hopefuls.  There is little beauty amongst the women, and settled Europeans prefer Cabinda girls.  The latter have perhaps the most wiry and wig-like hair on the whole West African coast, where all hair is more or less wiry and wig- like.  Cloth was less abundant in the village than a smear of red; the bosom even after marriage was unveiled, and the rule of fashion was shown by binding it tightly down.  The rich wore armlets and leglets of staircase rods, brass and copper, like the metal gaiters and gauntlets of the Gaboon River.  The only remarkable object was the Quesango, a wooden effigy of a man placed in the middle of the settlement:  Battel mentions it amongst the “Gagas or Guides,” and Barbot terms it “Likoku Mokisi.”  Three faint hurrahs, a feeble African echo of England like the “hoch!” of Vienna, and the discharge of a four- pounder were our parting honours.