albeit in parts cannibalism is practised. Cameron on one occasion was entertained by a song setting forth the delights of cannibalism, in which the flesh of men was said to be good, but that of women was bad, and only to be eaten in time of scarcity; nevertheless, it was not to be despised when man-meat was unattainable.' In this country there is a good deal of iron ore near the surface, and foundries of an exceedingly simple plan are numerous. At Urua copper is melted and cast into pieces like a St. Andrew's cross, weighing from two to three pounds, which practically represent certain standards of value; and evidently, from the sketches given of arms and ornaments, the artizans of Manyuema are not to be lightly esteemed as workers in metal. Other manufactures cannot be said to exist here or elsewhere in Central Africa, for beyond a very coarse sort of grass-cloth, the natives are entirely dependent on outside production for the very scant amount of clothing with which they cumber their persons. In that latitude, however, fashion wisely conforms itself to the exigencies of the situation on the one hand, and avails itself of the advantages of a genial climate on the other. Bodies absolutely nude our traveller did not come across, though he heard on one occasion that at a point a little further west, the people are perfectly nude, but that they managed, by constant manipulation when the children were very young, to cause the fatty covering of the lower part of their bellies to hang down like an apron almost to the middle of the thigh; and this is allowed to answer the purpose of dress. The average amount of garment seems to have been a very minute apron, sometimes of grass, or cloth, or leather, hung round the waist by a leather string. The front one was about the size of a half sheet of ordinary note paper, and that behind only a trifle larger. Notwithstanding their small dimensions, these aprons were often elaborately stitched and ornamented with beads and cowries; and when the women went working in the fields or fishing in the streams, they took off these gay clothes for fear of spoiling them, and replaced them with a small bunch of leaves.' On another occasion he says a piece of red tape would have made clothing for all the women in the village. But, lest it should be imagined

that woman in the wilds is careless of her personal appearance, let us quote the description of the dress of a wife of a chief called Pakwanywa in Manyuema. She is a very dressy body, double row of cowries round her head, besides copper, iron, and ivory ornaments stuck in her hair, and just above and in front of each ear, a little tassel of red and white beads. A large necklace of shells round her neck, and round her wrist a string of opal-coloured singo-mazzi, and a roll made of strings of a dull redcoloured bead. Her front apron was a leopard skin, and the rear one of a coloured grass-cloth, with its fringe strung with beads and cowries strung on it in a pattern; bright iron rings round her ankles, and copper and iron bracelets on her arms. Her hair was shaved a little back from her forehead, and three lines, each about a quarter of an inch wide, painted below it. The one nearest the hair is red, the next black, and the next white, and, to crown all, she was freshly anointed with mpafu oil, and looked sleek and shiny.' But, if garments were scanty, an immense amount of time and labour was bestowed on hair-dressing, which was considered in many districts the most important part of the toilet. 'It was arranged most elaborately, and, when finished, was plastered with grease and clay, and made smooth and shiny. Some formed it into a number of small lumps like berries, others into twisted loops, or into a mass of stout strings, projecting an inch or two beyond the poll, the ends being made into a kind of raised pattern. Women often plaited in small bark fibres with their natural hair [a practice not altogether alien to some with which we are ourselves acquainted]; and some, on Lake Tanganyika, draw it over pads, making the ends into four plaits, with the assistance of false hair when necessary. The plaits are plastered and smoothed with red earth and oil, and altho' the effect is striking, the fashion is dirty.' In another place, the women's hair was worked into the shape of an oldfashioned bonnet, deeply shading the face, while ringlets flowed down the back.' At another it was 'plaited into a kind of pattern, and plastered with mud and oil, and looked almost as if carved out of wood.' Evidently there are depths in the art of hair-dressing which our modern fashionleaders have not sounded, and which we

may also hope they never will sound. Cameron's sketches and descriptions, however, give ample confirmation of the truth of the old representations of Assyrian and Egyptian head-dresses, which often have struck us as being erections impossible of execution.

Having made this digression upon the dress of the natives of equatorial Africa, let us consider what can be said about their morals and religion. The testimony which Cameron bears on these points is not very full, his references being rather incidental than direct. In several districts idols were noticed, generally having more or less resemblance to human beings. In Warua country, the religion is a mixture of fetichism and idolatry. All villages have devilhuts and idols before which offerings of pombé, grain, and meat are placed, and nearly every man wears a small figure round his neck or arm. But the great centre of their religion is an idol named Kungwhè è. Banza, which is supposed to represent the founder of Kasongo's family, and to be allpowerful for good and evil. This idol is kept in a hut situated in the midst of a dense jungle, and always has the sister of the reigning chief as its wife. In most districts, medicine men' were the recognized interpreters of the will of the Supreme Being, and a good trade they seem drive by the sale of charms and by telling fortunes; their tricks, as well as their medicines being of the most ludicrous, and obviously simple kind, sufficient, however, to impose upon the credulity of a simple people. That the belief in a real devil or evil spirit is entertained, may be argued from the employment in some districts of sham devils,' fetich-men dressed up in quaint costume, who claim to have the power to expel the real devils from their haunts, and are accordingly paid for their trouble. It does not appear that, with a few exceptions, the influence of the Portuguese in the country adjacent to the Atlantic coast, has been at all beneficial in its effects either on religion or morals. The latter must, throughout the continent, be set down decidedly as lax. But yet wherever the slavetraders have not penetrated-and there are unfortunately few such districts—there would seem to exist feelings of kindness, trust, and honour which, under favourable influences and conditions, might be de

to

veloped into true nobility of character. But how terrible is the curse of the slave trade! The more we know of it, the more heartily must it be condemned. In former times little came before the public but the horrors of the middle passage and the cruelty of American slave owners. Now, however, we are able to go further behind the scenes. We have some idea of the extent of the inland slavery, where the victims never come to the sea-coast, cannot be reached by any national interference, and have not the remotest chance of being brought by their misery nearer to civilization or to Christianity. "The greater part of those captured [to the west of Manyuema] are not taken to the coast but to Kaffir countries, where they are exchanged for ivory. I should not be at all surprised to hear that much of the " labour " taken to the diamond fields by the Kaffirs is obtained from this source." We know to the full the terribly debasing influence which slave hunting has upon all who follow it as a profession; and we have ample evidence of the effect upon the agricultural, commercial, and moral prosperity of Central Africa, which the ravages of those desolating marauders and men-stealers inevitably produce.

Readers of Dr. Livingstone's journals do not require more information on this subject; but as there are some who regard Livingstone as an enthusiast, and even a monomaniac on the subject of slavery, let us give Cameron's own evidence on this point. The frank English sailor is singularly free from sentiment, and there is not a word of maudlin goodiness in his pages; so his testimony is quite unimpeachable. Passing through the ruins of so many deserted villages, once the homes of happy and contented people, was indescribably saddening. Where now were those who built them, and who cultivated the surrounding fields? Where? Driven off as slaves, massacred by villains engaged in a war in which those poor wretches had no interest, or dead of starvation and disease in the jungle. Africa is bleeding out her life-blood at every pore. A rich country, requiring only labour to render it one of the greatest producers of the world, is having its population-already far too scanty for its needs-daily depleted by the slavetrade and internecine war. Should the

present state of affairs be allowed to continue, the country will gradually relapse into wilds and jungles, and will become more and more impenetrable to the merchant and traveller. That this should be a possibility is a blot on the boasted civilization of the 19th century; and should England, with her mills working half-time, and with distress in the manufacturing districts, neglect the opportunity of opening a market which would give employment to thousands of the working class, it will ever remain an inexplicable enigma. Let us hope that the Anglo-Saxon race will allow no other nation to outstrip it in the efforts to rescue thousands-nay, millions of fellow creatures from the misery and degradation that must otherwise inevitably fall to their lot.'

Our author is not writing a book on slavery, but such passages as the foregoing and the following seem necessarily to form part of his narrative.

'These poor crea

tures [on the shores of Tanganyika] were doomed to a miserable existence, owing to the few strong villages hunting down their weaker neighbours, to exchange them with traders from Ujiji for food which they are too lazy to produce for themselves.' The inhabitants constantly come into camp with slaves and ivory for sale. Slaves were usually gagged by having a piece of wood, like a snaffle, tied into their mouths. Heavy slave irons were placed on their necks, and their hands were fastened behind their backs. They were then tied to their vendor's waist.' 'Graves and numerous skeletons testified to the numbers whose lives had been sacrificed on this trying march, while slave-clogs and forks, still attached to some bleached bones or lying by their sides, gave only too convincing proof that the demon of the slave-trade still exerted his influence in this part of Africa.' And it must be confessed and recorded that the Portuguese throw all their influence on the side of the slave-dealers. The first persons whom Cameron met with who had visited the Atlantic coast were the agents of Portuguese subjects, all engaged in slavery. True, the first white man, Senhor Goncalves, was a good type of a European, and Cameron firmly believes that, if more men such as Senhor Goncalves were to take advantage of the Portuguese dominions on the coast, and settle in

the healthy uplands of Bihé, much might be done towards opening up and civilizing Africa.' But of his host the next day, one Joao Baptista Ferreira, he is 'constrained to declare that he is anything but the right kind of man to create a good impression in Africa. He was openly engaged in the slave-trade, notwithstanding his holding a commission from the Portuguese Government as a district judge, and slaves in chains were seen in his settlement.' 'The Portuguese hold the keys of the land route from Loanda and Benguela and keep out foreign capital and enterprise and are morally accomplices of slave-traders and kidnappers. A blind system of protection, carried on by underpaid officials, stifles trade, and renders these places hot-beds of corruption.'

Let us now briefly consider what, geographically considered, Cameron went to do, and what he did accomplish. His object in pushing on to Nyangwe was to descend the mighty and mysterious Lualaba. from that point to the sea. The Lualaba, it will be remembered, has its S. E. source in the vast marshes of Lake Bangweolo, in investigating which poor Livingstone, died. Its S. W. source is still unknown. At Nyangwe it is a grand stream about a mile wide. Livingstone at one time had a suspicion that the Lualaba, into which he was certain that the outflow of Tanganyika made its way, swept round to the north of that lake, and, entering the Albert Nyanza, delivered its water into the Nile; and it was on the supposition that this might be the real southern source of that river, that he turned his steps southwards to complete the investigation of the extreme limits of the imagined Nile basin and in the investigation lost his life. We know now by elevations taken carefully on Tanganyika and at Nyangwe, that both are below the level of the Albert Nyanza and consequently cannot possibly belong to the Nile system. Besides, 'the volume of water passing Nyangwe is 123,000 cubic feet per second in the dry season, or more than five times greater than that of the Nile at Gondokoro, which is 21,500 feet per second. great stream must be one of the head waters of the Kongo, for where else could that giant among rivers, second only to the Amazon in its volume, obtain the two million cubic feet of water which it unceasingly pours each second into the Atlantic ?'

For the present we must be content with this inference, for the difficulties which foiled Livingstone, foiled Cameron also, and both had the mortification of having to turn away from the Lualaba without practically solving the problem of its destiny. Waiting at Nyangwe, Cameron obtained much information as to the countries through which some of the traders had travelled, hearing, for instance, from some of a district to the north-east to which came travellers wearing long white clothes and using beasts of burden, no doubt Egyptian traders from the Soudan, and of a large lake to the N. W. into which the Lualaba fell, and to which came people selling cloth and cowries in ships capable of holding two hundred persons, statements very tantalizing to a traveller who was prevented from proving their accuracy.

west coast. Some of the plains are flooded in the rainy season to the depth of two or three feet, when the water extends completely across the watershed between the Zambesi and Congo.' It is by utilizing these magnificent rivers and by constructing a cheap railway between Tanganyika and the coast that southern equatorial Africa is to be opened up to civilization.

Near Lake Dilolo, at an altitude of 4,700 ft., Cameron crossed the line of Dr. Livingstone's celebrated march up the Zambesi to St. Paul de Loanda; but the old chief Katende could remember no more of the great traveller, than the fact that he rode on a bullock. Thenceforward Cameron had to press on to the coast with all possibledespatch, for his supplies failed. A twomonths' tramp was still before him and he had nothing wherewith to buy food for his followers, but two viongwa, or shell ornaments, and half a dozen baskets of dried fish. And indeed the passage of the mountain range that intervenes between the valley of the Kwanza and the sea, was one, under the circumstances, of extreme difficulty and danger. The country seems to be very much of the character of the Cascade range in British Columbia, hills in extraordinary plenty and in admired confusion. So worn out did the caravan become from difficult travelling-on one occasion their camp was 5,800 ft. above the sea-and short rations, that Cameron came to the determination that, to save the lives of his followers, it was necessary to make a run for the coast, then 125 miles distant in a straight line, with the few men who were still able to march, and thus, if possible, obtain assistance for the others; and this five days march-literally a march for life -was the most extraordinary feat of the whole journey. whole journey. Nothing but the consciousness of having just accomplished his purpose, could have kept up Cameron's strength and spirits; and without his vigour to urge them on, his men would undoubtedly have succumbed. What must have been his feelings when on the afternoon of the fourth day he reached the summit of the range; and 'what was that distant line upon the sky? We all gazed at it with a strange mingling of hope and fear, scarcely daring to believe it was the sea. But looking more intently at that streak, left no room for doubt. It was the

It being absolutely impossible to obtain either canoes or guides down the Lualaba, Cameron had to follow the course of trade towards the W. coast. Hitherto his route from Bagamoyo to Nyangwe had been W. N. W., the former lying in lat. 6' 30" and the latter in about 4' 10" S., with a difference of 122° of longitude. Now, however, he had to descend again 4° due South, and then to follow a line S. W. which led him to the sea at Benguela, which lies in 12' 40" S. and 13' 20" W. longitude, or 6° S. of the mouth of the Kongo. This route, however, was exceedingly interesting, lying as it did along the watershed of several rivers, and enabling our traveller accurately to map out the several systems of the southern affluents of the Kongo, the Kwanza, and the Zambesi. It seems odd to read that in August in equatorial Africa, 'in my tent the minimum thermometer stood at 33° Fahrenheit, and on descending into the dip the ground was frozen and the pools covered with ice.' In these upland plains the line of demarcation between the waters flowing to the Atlantic in latitude 6° S. and longitude 12° W., and those reaching the far off Mozambique Channel in 18° S. and 36° W., is hardly perceptible. 'Indeed the systems of the Kongo and the Zambesi lock into each other in such a manner that, by some improvement in the existing condition of the rivers and by cutting a canal of about 20 miles through level country, they might be connected, and internal navigation be established from the east to the

sea; and Xenophon and his ten thousand could not have welcomed its view more heartily than did I and my handful of wayworn followers.' But having seen the sea, it almost seemed that none of them would reach its shore. Fortunately two of the party had strength enough to push on to the settlement with an earnest appeal for food and help. The help was sent, and by its aid the small party reached the coast. Before arriving at Katombela, a village 12 miles from Benguela, there were seen 'a couple of hammocks covered with awnings, followed by three men carrying baskets, and on meeting this party, a jolly-looking little Frenchman jumped out, seized the baskets, and instantly opened a bottle to drink "to the

honour of the first European who had ever succeeded in crossing tropical Africa, from East to West." But, having accomplished that unexampled feat, Cameron's life was well-nigh forfeited. The illness with which he had been suffering for several days proved to be a most violent attack of scurvy, and if the crisis had come two days earlier nothing could have saved him. As it was, for forty-eight hours he was in extreme danger, but a strong constitution, the kind ness of his new friends, and the skill of the Portuguese doctor, pulled him through, and preserved a life which we may feel confident will be devoted like those of so many other noble Englishmen, to the cause of Africa.