This little box is sacred

a cord which held a box against his breast. and contains spirits. A number of strips of leopard and other skins crossed his breast, and were exposed about his person; and all these were charmed and had charms attached to them. From each shoulder down to his hands was a white stripe; and one hand was painted quite white. To complete this horrible array, he wore a string of little bells round his body.' (P. 241.)

With the horrors of the system which is upheld by these loathsome fanatics and execrable knaves, it is difficult to imagine that anything like merriment could be found anywhere. But the working of their superstitions is not always horrible. In a little village called Npopo, M. Du Chaillu found everything 'open and exposed to thieves: chickens and goats were walking about, and I wondered to see such carelessness in the village; but in the centre, looking down on everything, stood the mbuiti, or God of Npopo, a copper-eyed divinity, who, I was informed, safely guarded everything. It seemed absurd, but I was assured that no one dared steal, and no one did steal, with the eyes of this mbuiti upon him.

This uncommonly useful divinity was a rudely-shaped piece of ebony, about two feet high, with a man's face, the nose and eyes of copper, and the body covered with grass.' (P. 279.)

To the advantages arising from extended political connexions these tribes are keenly alive: but their diplomacy sometimes assumes strange forms.

'For instance, two tribes are anxious for a fight; but one needs more force. This weakling sends one of its men secretly to kill a man or woman of some village living near, but having no share in the quarrel. The consequence is, not, as would seem most reasonable, that this last village takes its revenge on the murderer, but, strangely enough, that the murderer's people give them to understand that this is done because another tribe has insulted them; whereupon, according to African custom, the two villages join and together march upon the enemy. In effect, to gain a village to a certain side in a quarrel, that side murders one of its men or women with the purpose of retaliation on somebody else.' (P. 51.)

But, whatever may be the wonders of other regions, they are all surpassed by the marvels of the Fan country and people. These men are cannibals, eating prisoners taken in war together "with those who are condemned to death for crimes, and thus far only like the Feejeans and others who exalt cannibalism into a regulated system, yet, unlike them, in the readiness with which they will feast on bodies of persons who have died from any disease, or even on corpses which they disinter from the reeking burying ground of an African barracoon. A diet so strange cannot diminish our wonder that these Fans are taller

and hardier, more gracefully formed, and more gifted with. mental power and moral force, with less of cruelty and treachery, than any other negro tribe. In M. Du Chaillu's eyes they appear to be the most promising people in Western Africa; and, as a climax to their physical differences from most other negroes, they exhibit the peculiarity of beard and of hair long enough to be plaited into queues which hang as low down as their waist.

Thus then, without taking into account his achievements as a hunter with gorillas and leopards, with venomous snakes sometimes thirteen feet long, with alligators and buffaloes, there is enough in the subjects to which we have already referred, to excite the deepest interest and amazement. The value of his book must depend on its general truthfulness; and this unfortunately has been called in question. It may be a hard recompense for years of arduous toil and determined resistance to difficulties and dangers almost overwhelming, that discoveries of the greatest moment in geographical and physical science should be received coldly or with suspicion by those who have never faced the same perils or undergone the same labours. Such a return, in spite of much general favour, it has been M. Du Chaillu's misfortune to experience. He has called forth severe, but not unjust, criticisms from some of the first naturalists in this country, whose motives are above suspicion; his new species have been rejected, or identified with others previously known; his engravings of animals have been pronounced unfaithful or deceptive; and his account of their habits disputed as untrue. From these alleged defects or inconsistencies a general inference has been drawn, which shakes the credibility of his whole narrative, and questions his personal acquaintance with the countries which he professes to describe.

On the purely scientific question involved in this charge we need say but little. M. Du Chaillu has brought to this country certain stuffed specimens, which he asserts that he shot or procured in the course of his several journeys. The question of the novelty of species is therefore simply one of fact, which naturalists must determine from the evidence before them. It would be very difficult to prove from the mere condition of the specimens, whether they were shot by M. Du Chaillu in the interior or obtained by him on the coast. A skin stuffed with the same appliances a hundred miles inland can scarcely differ much from a skin stuffed on the sea-shore; but the question of transport in the case of large animals, stuffed out to their full size, presents a very grave difficulty in a land of crags, and torrents, and impenetrable forests.

Professor Owen has expressed his belief, that the species which M. Du Chaillu claims to have discovered are either new in themselves or new illustrations of the most important and singular species, while Sir R. Murchison to a similar avowal adds his acceptance of M. Du Chaillu's geographical discoveries. The question of new species and of the value of specimens is one which for its decision requires no reference necessarily to M. Du Chaillu's work; and the absence of new species, if proved, can at the utmost detract only from a scientific reputation to which he makes no special claim.

But every other charge brought against his book falls under a single head, which calls his general trustworthiness very seriously into question; and these are charges which must be established or refuted almost wholly from internal evidence. The publication of contradictory or inconsistent narratives cannot be excused or palliated by eulogies on the open countenance and bright eyes of a writer; but, while we are as reluctant as Sir R. Murchison can be, to throw aside as valueless M. Du Chaillu's geographical discoveries, a mere regard for truth requires that what may be said on the other side should also be plainly set forth. The matter falls simply under the general laws of evidence; and the proof of the charge, even if it leaves (as we trust that it may) his general credit unimpaired, may serve as a warning to himself and to others, to be at least scrupulously careful and accurate in the arrangement of their narratives.

Between January 1856 and February 1859, M. Du Chaillu, in six successive journeys, explored the country lying between the parallels of the Muni and Rembo rivers. Up to that time he states, that in this region, the power and knowledge of the white man extend but a very few miles from the coast, and the interior 'was still a terra incognita' (p. 1.); while he adds, that a previous residence of several years on the coast had not only acclimatised him but had given him a knowledge of the languages and habits of the coast tribes (p. 2.). Having reached Africa in December, 1855, he remained for a time at the American Missionary Station, at Baraka, on the Gaboon (p. 3.). But as the banks of this river presented only old and beaten ground (p. 24.), he determined to proceed first on an exploration of the River Muni,' and sailed for this purpose to the Island of Corisco, in a little bay of the same name, into which the Muni pours itself. Here he made preparations for a long journey (p. 28.), and describes the funeral of a negro, which took place a few days before he left the island (p. 26.) on the 27th of July, 1856 (p. 28.). In this journey he passed from the Muni into

the Ntambounai, and from this into the Noonday River (p. 42.). Thence, passing through the land of the Mbondemo, he had to fight his way across the wild overgrowth of an African forest to the head waters of the Ntambounai, which hurry downwards amongst huge granite boulders, from a height of 5000 feet above the level of the sea (p. 57.). After some hunts in which he shot his first gorilla, he reached the country beyond the third and highest range of the Sierra del Crystal, inhabited by the cannibal tribe of Fans. With this strange people he remained till September, engaged in hunting elephants, gorillas, and other animals; and then returned to Corisco (p. 115.). But before going back to the Gaboon he determined to make a trip up the Moondah; and after the tedious process of preparation, which required him to rent a canoe, buy his masts, make his sails, purchase his paddles, and engage his men, he at last got off on the 30th of October (p. 116.). From this 'dis'agreeable and unhealthy river,' he passed to the Ikoi Creek, where he shot a bird of a new species, since named Barbatula du Chaillui, and then returned to the Gaboon, where (p. 127.) he says that his stay was only long enough to enable him to secure his specimens and send them on, as well as to prepare for a trip to Cape Lopez. He entered the Nbata Creek at 4 P.M. (p. 127.)*; and thence, passing through Sangatanga, reached Cape Lopez, and on the 30th (sic) set out on his return (p. 164.). On the next day, June 1st, he stalked a leopard, and after many other hunts and labours reached King Bango's on the 23rd (p. 176.), whence, having visited Fetiche Point, he returned to the Gaboon, and remained there several months 'exploring the course of that river, and the country about its 'borders, and finally set off on his longest and most adventurous journey' (p. 185.). During this stay, he says, that he prepared himself thoroughly for this important tour (p. 186.), and having loaded a schooner of forty-five tons with provisions and ammunition, as well as with the means of making his way up among the unknown tribes of the interior, he set sail on the 5th of February for the Camma country (p. 188.).† At Biagano he built a house wherein to store his specimens and property; and on the 14th of April (p. 198) he set out on an excursion up the Fernand Vas, by which name the Rembo is

* Neither day, month, or year are specified and indeed through the whole of this journey the name of the year never occurs, nor do we meet with the name of a month for forty pages from the commencement of this part of his story.

No year date is given before p. 247.

known from the point where, having nearly reached the coast, it is suddenly arrested in its course, and flows in a line parallel to the sea-shore for more than forty miles, until, joining the waters of the Npoulounai, it falls into the Atlantic Ocean. In May he visited the Anengue Lake, from which a small river of the same name runs about fifteen miles to the west and falls into the Ogobai (p. 128.). The remainder of the year was spent in the same region, and was chiefly occupied with hunting, with one interruption from a severe attack of fever in August and September.

Thus far then we have a narrative which it would be impossible for any reader, without other evidence than that which is furnished by the book itself, to compress into less than three years. After stating distinctly that on the 27th of July, 1856, he left Corisco Bay for a journey into the Fan country, and that on his return in September he went on a second trip up the Moondah, he speaks of a short day at Gaboon to prepare for a third expedition to Cape Lopez. The date, June 1st, which occurs in the narrative of this journey, must, if we judge from the book only, be referred to the year 1857, the remainder of which was therefore taken up with the long stay at Gaboon (which he mentions at pp. 184, 185.), in preparation for that journey into the Camma country, the first year of which must, on this supposition be 1858. But when at p. 247, he comes to speak of his journey to Goombi in the following year, we meet with the first definite date of January, 1858; and thus between January 1856, and February 1859 (within which period he asserts positively that all the expeditions narrated in this volume were comprised), the month of July occurs four times.

So strange a contradiction cannot but seriously impair the credit of a writer whose discoveries belong to an unknown land, and who, travelling with negro attendants only, can bring no corroborative testimony for the incidents of his journeys. In a recent impression of his work, M. Du Chaillu, in order to remove this difficulty, has adopted the apology (which had been previously urged by an anonymous supporter), that the trip to

For personal adventures and exploits a traveller in such circumstances can bring no collateral proof. Letters and specimens forwarded to other countries at the time will, of course, prove the fact of their transmission: and if any of the specimens sent should belong to new species, the date of their discovery would be approximately determined but with regard to the writer they could prove nothing more than that at a given time he professed to be engaged in a given

way.