Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/253

 North-east of the Timni the cone-shaped huts of the Limbas occupy the crests of all the hills about the middle course of the Little Scarcie. The Limbas are a powerful tribe, who often close the trade route through their territory. They show great respect for their dead, burying them in an upright position, as if about to resume the journey through life in the after-world.

The communications between Sierra-Leone and the Upper Niger are also occasionally endangered by the Saffrokos and Konos, who dwell more to the south in the hilly regions, about the sources of the coast streams. Still more warlike

are the Gallinas of the Gallina and Manna rivers on the Liberian frontier, who till recently barred all European access to the interior. Even since the suppression of the slave-trade they have continued their hereditary feuds with their Kossu neighbours on the north and the Vei people on the south-east, and have even waged war against the "American" Negroes of Liberia. Lately, the queen of one of their most powerful tribes became the ally of the English, who through her interposition are now the supreme masters of the whole country. These Gallinas are in some respects well qualified to cultivate the arts of peace as well as of war.