manner of love and amity.  “Hence may be learned what a propensity the women have to chastity in these parts, many of whom meet together on the first day of Lent, and oblige themselves, under pain of severe penance, to a strict continence till Easter.”  In case of adultery the husband could divorce the wife; he was generally satisfied by her begging his pardon, and by taking a slave from the lover.  Widowed “countesses,” proved guilty of “immorality,” suffered death by fire or sword.  On the other hand, the “princess” had a right to choose her husband; but, as in Persia, the day of his splendid wedding was the last of his liberty.  He became a prisoner and a slave; he was surrounded by spies; he was preceded by guards out of doors, and at the least “ecart” his head was chopped off and his paramour was sold.  These ladies amply revenged the servitude of their sex--

          “Asperius nihil est humili cum surgit in altum.”

Rich women were allowed to support quasihusbands until they became mothers; and the slaves of course lived together without marriage.  Since the days of the Expedition a change for the better has come over the gentil sesso.  The traveller is no longer in the “dilemma of Frere Jean,” and, except at the river-mouth and at the adjacent villages, there is none of that officious complaisance which characterizes every hamlet in the Gaboon country.  The men appear peculiarly jealous, and the women fearful of the white face.  Whenever we approached a feminine group, it would start up and run away; if cooking ground-nuts, the boldest would place a little heap upon the bottom of an upturned basket, push it towards us and wave us off.  The lowest orders will submit to a kind of marriage for four fathoms of cloth; exactly double the tariff paid in Tuckey’s time (pp. 171-181); and this ratio will apply to all other articles of living.  Amongst themselves nubile girls are not remarkably strict; but as matrons they are rigid.  The adulterer is now punished by a heavy fine, and, if he cannot pay, his death, as on many parts of the Southern Coast, is lawful to the husband.

The life is regular, and society is simple and patriarchal, as amongst the Iroquois and Mohawks, or in the Shetlands two centuries ago.  The only excitement, a fight or a slave hunt, is now become very rare.  Yet I can hardly lay down the “curriculum vitae” as longer than fifty-five years, and there are few signs of great age.  Merolla declares the women to be longer-lived than the men.  Gidi Mavunga, who told me that the Congo Expedition visited their Banza when his mother was a child, can hardly be forty-five, as his eldest son shows, and yet he looks sixty.  The people rise at dawn and, stirring up the fire, light the cachimbos or large clay pipes which are rarely out of their mouths.  Tobacco (nsunza) grows everywhere and, when rudely cured, it is sold in ringlets or twisted leaves; it is never snuffed, and the only chaw is the Makazo or Kola nut which grows