When the palaver ended and the tide served, a fierce tornado
broke upon us, and the sky looked grisly in the critical
direction, north-east. Having no wish to recross the Gaboon River
during a storm blowing a head wind, I resolved to delay my
departure till the morrow, and amused myself with drawing from
the nude a picture of the village and village-life in Pongo-land.

The Mpongwe settlements on the Gaboon River are neatly built, but
without any attempt at fortification; for the most part each
contains one family, or rather a chief and his dependants. In the
larger plantation "towns," the abodes form a single street,
ranging from 100 to 1,000 yards in length; sometimes, but rarely,
there are cross streets; the direction is made to front the sea-
breeze, and, if possible, to present a corner to storm-bearing
Eurus. An invariable feature, like the arcaded loggie of old
Venetian towns, is the Nampolo, or palaver-house, which may be
described as the club-room of the village. An open hangar, like
the Ikongolo or "cask-house" of the trading places, it is known
by a fire always kept burning. The houses are cubes, or oblong
squares, varying from 10 to 100 feet in length, according to the
wealth and dignity of the owner; all are one-storied, and a few
are raised on switch foundations. Most of them have a verandah
facing the street, and a "compound" or cleared space in the rear
for cooking and other domestic purposes. The walls are built by
planting double and parallel rows of posts, the material being
either bamboo or the mid-rib of a wine-giving palm (Raphia
vinifera); to these uprights horizontal slats of cane are neatly
lashed by means of the never-failing "tie-tie," bast-slips,
runners, or llianas. For the more solid buildings thin "Mpavo,"
or bark slabs, are fitted in between the double posts; when