Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/442

 on his return to Corisco he prophesied that before another ten years were past they would have the Fan to deal with on the sea-coast districts. Natives and Europeans both laughed at him; but before the ten years were past the Fans were over the border line of the M'pongwe and Igalwa, but the prophet was not alive to see the realisation of his prophecy. At this present time, the Fans are, in a few places, down by the sea-shore itself, busy learning how to manage a canoe on the open and deep sea-not yet so proficient in the art as the M'pongwe or Benga, who are great masters, but getting on well with their studies, for they are an indefatigable race, and plucky, which is the main element in any race's success. It is very evident to an observer that the Fans on the Ogowé are comparatively recent, and that when they came they brought with them no experience in dealing with a great rapid river; but they tackle it in a game way, and are getting on. In addition to the causes of decay that the presence of the Fan among the Coast tribes brings into play, there are many others helping the extinction of the latter. It always seems to me a wonder we have so many traces of early man as we have, when one sees here in Africa how one tribe sweeps out another tribe that goes like the foam of a broken wave into the Ewigkeit before it, leaving nothing, after the lapse of a century, to show it ever existed.

Here the Dualla and the M'pongwe, both tribes now becoming on their own account extinct, have their traditions of having come down to the sea-board from nearly the same region from whence the Fan are now swarming. The inhabitants of Fernando Po, the so-called Bubi, probably the oldest race now on the sea-board, remember the coming of the M'pongwe too, for they say these M'pongwe drove them out of the districts round Gaboon. How long ago this happened it is impossible to say, owing to the absence of monuments, and the weak-mindedness of the African regarding time; but I am sure, from many conversations, that you may place a limit of 500 years as the extreme one for the very oldest Negro or Bantu historical tradition. Indeed I doubt much whether any Bantu tradition would run to that; I say historical, because the religious tradition may be of intense