Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/577

 THE FEENCH CONGO. 475 order thus to compel the men to sue for mercy and promise payment of tribute. Their strolling minstrels, who resemble the Senegambian musicians, intermingle love ditties with warlike songs. ^ The native chiefs, although despising outward show, and distinguished from their subjects only by the leopard-skin, none the less enjoy almost absolute authority over the community. They are supreme masters, and when there has been no occasion to exercise their judicial powers over real ofPenders, they are said at times to fall on some innocent person and decapitate him, to prevent their right of life and death over their subjects from being questioned. The eldest son suc- ceeds, as in Europe, to the supreme power, the royal revenues consisting of the ivory and half the flesh of all elephants killed in their domain. The rulers have also appropriated for their own use extensive estates, which are cultivated by their women and slaves. In the western districts, visited by the slave hunters from Dar- For, the chiefs take in lieu of tribute young men and women, whom they sell to the strangers, a part of the price being returned to the families by way of indem- nity. In the southern kingdoms of Kanna, lying south of the Welle, the royal tomb is guarded by twenty-five vestals, who are bound under pain of death to keep a sacred flame burning at the shrine. In the midst of the Zandeh tribes and on the right bank of the Welle separating them from the A-Barambo people, numerous villages are occupied by the A-Madi, who speak a different language from all the surrounding tribes, although resem- bling the Niam-Niams in appearance. But they are of darker complexion, and have almost brachycephalic skulls. The French Congo. The eastern section of the French possessions politically attached to the Gaboon and Ogoway government is comprised within the Congo basin, being watered by several navigable rivers belonging to that hydrographic system. Such are the Bunga and its numerous tributaries, the Likwalla, the Alima, Nkheni, and Lefini, which open a waterway from the coast to the Middle Congo above the cataracts, and which promise one day to become important trade routes towards the Ogoway and Gaboon basins. The U-Banghi itself, whose right bank is now included within the French territory, is probably destined to form the main highway in the direction of the Upper Nile Valley, and of the central plains occupied by the depression of Lake Tsad. But this vast domain, to which the convention lately concluded with the Congo Free State adds probably an extent of some 40,000 square miles, must remain undeveloped until the primitive routes of the native traders are replaced by carriage roads connecting the main navigable highways. The U-Banghi river, ascended by Grenfell as far as the Zongo Rapids, is known only in its lower course. North of the cataracts, the steamer which forced the stream was received by a shower of arrows from the natives perched in aerial villages on platforms, supported by the branches of the bombax. It would thus seem that the customs prevalent in the Upper Shari districts are also found in this