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Du Chaillu, speaking of the superstitions of the inhabitants of Equatorial Africa, says: “The greatest curse of the whole country is the belief in sorcery or witchcraft. If the African is once possessed with the belief that he is bewitched his whole nature seems to change. He becomes suspicious of his dearest friends. He fancies himself sick, and really often becomes sick through his fears.
Ford, also of the Gaboon Mission, with a "Paper on the Gorilla," published in the "Transactions of the Philadelphian Academy of Sciences." M. du Chaillu first had the honour of slaying the gorilla in its native wilds. Unfortunately the specimens were mutilated and imperfect. Mr. R. B. N. Walker, agent of Messrs.
Captain Speke and I were fortunate in being the first whites who seriously attempted the Lake Region; our only obstacles were the European merchants at Zanzibar; the murder of M. Maizan, although a bad example to the people, had been so punished as to render an immediate repetition of the outrage improbable. But M. du Chaillu had a very different task, and as far as he went he did it well.
If subtraction be made of what was known before, the sum and substance of what M. Du Chaillu has affirmed as a matter of his own observation respecting the Gorilla, is, that, in advancing to the attack, the great brute beats his chest with his fists. I confess I see nothing very improbable, or very much worth disputing about, in this statement.
Surely M. du Chaillu must have been deceived by some vagary of nature. The gorilla-hunter's sketch had always reminded me of the Rev. Mr. Moffat's account of the Hylobian Bakones, the aborigines of the Matabele country. Mr. Thus I come to the conclusion that the Nchigo Mpolo is a vulgar nest-building ape. On the other hand, Mr. And he thus confirms what was told to Dr. Geography of the Gaboon.
Du Chaillu asserts that the Ashangos, those of Otamo, the Apossos, the Fans, and many other tribes of equatorial Africa, consider it a mark of beauty to file their front teeth in a sharp point. He presents the Fans as confirmed cannibals. We are told, and the bas-reliefs on Chaacmol’s mausoleum prove it, that the Mayas devoured the hearts of their fallen enemies.
Du Chaillu well describes the scene: "The brilliancy of the splendid orb varies in intensity, like that of sunset and sunrise, according to the state of moisture of the atmosphere. One day it will be of a deep red colour, tingeing everything with a roseate hue, and producing a drowsy effect.
Hatton and Cookson have factories up at Samba, for it is an outlet for the trade of Achango land in rubber and ivory, a trade worked by the Akele tribe, a powerful, savage and difficult lot to deal with, and just in the same condition, as far as I can learn, as they were when Du Chaillu made his wonderful journeys among them.
"Their fetiches," says Du Chaillu, speaking of some of the African races, "consisted of fingers and tails of monkeys; of human hair, skin, teeth, bones; of clay, old nails, copper chains; shells, feathers, claws, and skulls of birds; pieces of iron, copper, or wood; seeds of plants, ashes of various substances, and I cannot tell what more." Equatorial Africa, p. 93.
Du Chaillu asserts having seen one of these Ngoma, formed of a hollow log, nine feet long, at Apono; and describes a Fan drum which corresponds to the Zacatan of the Mayas as follows: “The cylinder was about four feet long and ten inches in diameter at one end, but only seven at the other. The wood was hollowed out quite thin, and the skin stretched over tightly.
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