water, but the agents dare not complain, for the reason which prevents them offering “spliced grog” to the prepotent negro.  Europeans enjoy the taste, but dislike the smell of palm-wine; those in whom it causes flatulence should avoid it, but where it agrees it is a pleasant stimulant, pectoral, refreshing, and clearing the primae vice.  Mixed with wine or spirits, it becomes highly intoxicating.  The rude beers, called by Merolla Guallo and by Tuckey (p. 120) Baamboo, the Oualo of Douville, and the Pombeof East Africa, mentioned by almost every traveller, are not now found on the lower river.

About noon the slaves return from handling their trowel-shaped iron hoes, and the “gentleman” takes a siesta proportioned to his drink.  The poorer classes sit at home weaving, spinning, or threading beads, whilst the wives attend to household work, prepare the meals, buy and sell, dig and delve.  Europeans often pity the sex thus “doomed to perform the most laborious drudgery;” but it is a waste of sentiment.  The women are more accustomed to labour in all senses of the word, and the result is that they equal their mates in strength and stature; they enjoy robust health, and their children, born without difficulty, are sturdy and vigorous.  The same was the case amongst the primitive tribes of Europe; Zamacola (Anthrop.  Mem. ii. 38), assures us that the Basque women were physically powerful as the men, with whom they engaged in prize-fights.

The master awakes about 3 P.M. and smokes, visits, plays with his children, and dawdles away his time till the cool sunset, when a second edition of the first meal is served up.  If there be neither dance nor festival, all then retire to their bens, light the fire, and sit smoking tobacco or bhang, with frequent interruptions of palm wine or rum, till joined by their partners.  Douville (ii. 113), says that the Pangue or chanvre, “croit naturellement dans lepays” I believe the questions to be still sub judice, whether the intoxicating cannabis be or be not indigenous to Africa as well as to Asia; and whether smoking was not known in the Old World, as it certainly was in the New, before tobacco was introduced.  The cannabis Indica was the original anaesthetic known to the Arabs and to civilized Orientals many centuries before the West invented ether and chloroform.

Our landlord has two wives, but one is a mother and will not rejoin him till her child can carry a calabash of water unaided.  To avoid exciting jealousy he lives in a hut apart, surrounded by seven or eight slaves, almost all of them young girls.  This regular life is varied by a little extra exertion at seed-time and harvest, by attending the various quitandas or markets of the country side, and by an occasional trip to “town” (Boma).  When the bush is burning, all sally out with guns, clubs, and dogs, to bring home “beef.”  And thus they dwell in the presence of their brethren, thinking little of to-day, and literally following the precept, “Take no thought for the morrow.”  As the old missioners testify, they have happy memories, their tempers are mild, and quarrels rarely lead to blows; they are covetous, but not miserly; they share what they have, and they apply the term “close-fist” to the European who gives “nuffin for nuffin.”