Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/392

 seen, is very common in the lands draining to the Benue; but, according to Rohlfs, there appear to be no large and very few small snakes, while all travellers remark on the almost total absence of spiders.

In the Yakoba highlands the chief Negro people are the Bolos, who give their name to the province of Bolo-Bolo, better known by the designation of Bautehi. They are amongst the least favoured races in Sudan, short and thickset, with broad

depressed nose and tumid lips, but generally of less dark complexion than their Fulah neighbours. North of the Muri Mountains dwell the pagan Wurukus and Tangalas, the latter the most dreaded of the Nyem-Nyem (Yem-Yem) tribes, who, like the Niam-Niams of the Welle basin, are confirmed cannibals, devouring their captives, but not their own sick and dead, as has been reported. In the popular belief the souls of all the departed are absorbed in one collective and highly venerated deity, called Dodo, to whom temples are erected in the shade of the baobabs.

The Fali and Belé tribes in the Gongola basin, near Bornu, speak dialects akin