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The Congoese are passably brave amongst themselves; crafty and confined in their views, they carry "knowledge of life" as far as it is required, and their ceremonious intercourse is remarkable and complicated.
They have no tattoo, but they pierce the nose septum and extract the two central and upper incisors; the Muxi- Congoes or Lower Congoese chip or file out a chevron in the near sides of the same teeth an ornament possibly suggested by the weight of the native pipe.
I could not find out if the Congoese still practise the vivi- sepulture so common on the Western Coast the "infernal sacrifices of man's flesh to the memory of relatives and ancestors," as the old missioners energetically expressed themselves.
It is not a little peculiar that the last of the classics, Claudius Claudianus, an Alexandrian Christian withal, describes the Gir, or Girrhaeus, with peculiarly Congoese features. In "De laud. Stilicho." "Gir, notissimus amnis AEthiopum, simili mentitus gurgite Nilum."
We had previously encountered several canoes small craft carrying from two to half-a-dozen natives and the occupants of these, who seemed to be engaged for the most part in fishing, had invariably greeted us with vociferous ejaculations, which, from the hearty laughter immediately following them, were doubtless choice examples of Congoese wit.
The titles of Portugal were adopted by the Congoese, according to Father Cavazzi, after A.D. 1571, when the king constituted himself a vassal of the Portuguese crown. Here was the Pinda whose port and fort played an important part in local history. "Built by the Sonhese army at the mouth of the River Zaire," it commanded both the stream and sea: it was plundered in 1600 by four French pirates.
My conviction, after nearly four years of travel upon the West African coast, is this: if Sierra Leone men be used, they must be mixed with Cabindas and with Congoese "carregadores," registered in presence of the Portuguese authorities at S. Paulo de Loanda.
The orthography of the two differs materially, and in this respect Dikele more resembles the languages of the eastern coast than its western neighbour, at the same time less than the Fiote or the Congoese. It has a larger number of declensions, and its adjectives and pronouns are more flexible and complicated.
They are the "kallistoi" and "megistoi" of the Congoese bodies, taller and darker, fiercer and braver than their neighbours, nor will they cease to be river pirates till the illicit trade dies. After taking leave of Sr.
The less wealthy sort of "gentlemen" here are placed in smaller graves near the villages; and the slaves are still "buried with the burial of an ass," cast forth into the bush. Yet, by way of showing themselves kind to the dead, the Congoese are "commonly very cruel to the living."
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