Almost all of the women wear massive gold earrings, and in every village there are dozens of small bronze cannon lying about on the ground, although they have cost on the average perhaps L10 a piece.

The chief men of each village came to visit me, clothed in robes of silk and flowered satin, though their houses and their daily fare are no better than those of the ether inhabitants.

What a contrast between these people and such savages as the best tribes of bill.

Dyaks in Borneo, or the Indians of the Uaupes in South America, living on the banks of clear streams, clean in their persons and their houses, with abundance of wholesome food, and exhibiting its effect in healthy shins and beauty of form and feature! There is in fact almost as much difference: between the various races of savage as of civilized peoples, and we may safely affirm that the better specimens of the former are much superior to the lower examples of the latter class.
One of the few luxuries of Matabello is the palm wine; which is the fermented sap from the flower stains of the cocoa-net.

It is really a very mice drink, more like cyder than beer, though quite as intoxicating as the latter.