The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1867-05-24
EQUATORIAL AFRICA.

EQUATORIAL AFRICA. !
Interesting aaasAmusihg Remarks by
snn Ch1illu. ~
From thsTN New York Times, sth.l
6select al lence % ladies and gentle
| ND assembley by inSitatien, atlthe TRAY
elerss Club, ia Fifth Avenue. fast evening,
to listen to lecture from Mons. P B. Du
Chdilln, the celebrated African explorer
| The speaker was Introduced with some
| highly complimentary remarks by Edward
E. Dunbar, President Of the Club, and
promised his lecture by saving that he had
just come from Putnam County, where he
had been to gain rest and quiet for the pre-.
paration of a series of public lectures
which he proposed to give upon bis Afrl
can experiences. He had accepted an IN
yitation To come therenhis evening to have
| a little talk with his friends, but with, no
/ idea that any ladies were to be present, and
with NO preparation for a formal lecture.1-
| He had stndied the natural lsistoty, geog-
raphy, and the people of Equatorial Africa
| for the last ten years, and had colIetted
/ vast amount of material which he. found
it difficult to eondense satisfactorily to the
limits of ant,evening lecture. During his
travels in Africa he had made large col
1 Election, chimpanzees, gorillas, birds, &c,
4 and among the rest $50 skulls;efl negroes.
4 Those last were collected not as a matter OF
pleasure Haughtef1 hut for scientific pur
poses. Pie natives looked upen him az a
funny sort of fellow; wandering around
the woods. and collecting the skulls OF their
forefathers. and hardly knew what to make
Of him. He was often asked by them
what he'intended to do with these things,
| l..L IL 40 c.ct
him in Inakink the collection, The region
ing but vast jungle, with very thinly
scattered population. In questioning the
negroes where they came from, the answer
elways was from the East, ~ verifying the
E theory that emigration always took ives
teriv direction. ~
Some of the tribes inhabiting these jun
giles he found quite war-lke. They were also
great workers of iron. large quantities OF
which was found in the mountains. which
they used in the manufacture Of their war
like implements Some of the tribes were
addicted to cannibalism, and often stole
corpses, which they devoured with apparent
relish. On one occasion he attempted to
demonstrate with the negroes against the
habit of eating human flesh, but they could
not see the force of his objections. Next
to human flesh, they esteemed that of the
gorilla the most palatable The traveller
through the vast jungle would sometimes
journey Cor days without finding settle
ment He had suffered during his explor
ations more from hunger than from any
, thing else. He generally took a monkey
atong with him, and w6uld first let the
monkey taste the berries he found by the
wayside, and if he would eat them he con-
| IL, e. 'h,1c
he had lived for days and weeks, and look
, ing at his monkey companion, would ex-
claim Gam not / man and brother ~
I Laughter. Sometimes the monkeys taste
in berries differed from his own laughter
, but he was obliged to put up with what he
could get, and eat what the monkey set be
fore him. He had also not unfrequenty
been compelled to eat the monkey himself
and found him equal to the finest venison.
Laughter The luggage of the traveller
in Africa was always carried by women, the
men seldom bothering themselves with any,
thing weightier than sword ors spear. The
. principal food of the country was the plan
tain.
4 The natives were all believers in fatalism,
and in good and evil sririts-especialy the
evil (laughter.) When man is sick they
try to drive the devil out of him by hide
ols noises. They were also firm believers
in witchcraft, which might be said to be the
curse of the country Nobody. according to
their idea, dies natural death, but all are
killed by witches They have perfect
horror of the intermarriage of relatives,
however distant; even people of the same
clan are not allowed to intermarry, but
must seek their mates from some other
tribe. Mothers appear to be fond of their
Lnl. ,,%1~ H,,k Il,
bies come to be children, they will sell
them of without conjunction. Men mar
ry at all ages and have any number of
wives. Even at the age of 100 years they
take wives, and the older they are the
younger they appear to want their wives
to be. Laughter. We could not blame
them for this, for even he, 1.-THE speaker
bachelor as he was, could not say but
what he liked young ladies as we'll as ever
he did Laughterr] Husbands and
beaus sometimes make their wives love
them 10y beating them. If they found
their wives getting lukewarm, they would
apply the bastinado until the spouse
promised to love. them to morrow, or at
some other time. s-es, f-.
i The great ambition of the African negro
was to eat he would eat all day if he
could, and the men estimated the affection
OF their wives according to the quantity OF
food they brought them. The largest
number of wives he had known any one
native to have was three hundred, although
a prince once told him he had six hun
dred The only domesticated animals
I were fowls and goats; and as the women
never eat meat the men have it all to
themselves. There are four kinds of drink
used by the natives-wine of plantain, hon.
| ey and water, juice Of the. sugar cane, and
water. Water they do not consider fit to
drink if theycan get anything else. Notwith-
1 standing air their barbarism and pecpliari-
ties, they were a very kind hearted people.
They sometimes robbed the traveller, but
they were always polite. enough to leave
one-haI the booty untouched. There
were plenty Of insects snakes and serpents
in the land but scarcity of quadrupeds.
He never found the climate over 90 in
the shade. Rain falls to the extent of two
hundred and twenty i've inches in year
near the sea shore For eight out of the ten
4 -oars Of his eynlorat ians of tho intarif r If