Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/580

 endeavour to protect themselves by many-coloured marks daubed round the orbits and on other parts of the face. Thus white preserves them from drowning, red from wounds, yellow from fire. Unlike most other Negroes, they are indifferent to personal ornamentation, and despise the meretricious charms of the toilet in which so many native tribes spend a great part of their existence. They display no taste for art, and even the dance and tam-tamming are reserved for solemn occasions of national interest.

The Ba-Teke occupy the riverain tracts along the Upper Alima and the upland waterparting, which in many places is strewn with a white sand giving it the appearance of a saline waste. Some of the tribes encroach westwards on the

Ogoway basin, and southwards on the district watered by the Nkheni and the Lefini. They even cross to the left side of the Congo south of Kwamouth, and their domain is altogether scarcely less extensive than that of the Bu-Banghi, although the several tribes differ greatly one from the other. The Ba-Teke of the plateaux present marked contrasts to the Bu-Banghi, both in physical appearance and social usages. They are less robust, of smaller stature and less stout, most of them being so very thin that they have been compared to "walking skeletons." They are remarkably frugal, a little manioc and a few grubs or insects picked up on the way sufficing to support them even on the march. The women carry long sticks, furnished at the extremity with a little raw hemp, which serves to catch