without risk of ague or rheumatism. The "ben" always displays a
pile of chests and boxes, which, though possibly empty, testify
to the "respectability" of the household. In Hotaloya's I
remarked a leather hat-case; he owned to me that he had already
invested in a silk tile, the sign of chieftainship, but that
being a "boy" he must grow older before he could wear it. The
inner room can be closed with a strong door and a padlock; as
even the window-hole is not admitted, the burglar would at once
be detected. Except where goods are concerned, the Mpongwe have
little respect for privacy; the women, in the presence of their
husbands, never failed to preside at my simple toilette, and the
girls of the villages would sit upon the bedside where lay an
Utangani in almost the last stage of deshabille.

The furniture of course varies; a rich man near the river will
have tables and chairs, sofas, looking-glasses, and as many
clocks, especially "Sam Slicks," as love or money can procure.
Even the poorest affect a standing bedstead in the "ben," plank
benches acting as couches in the "but," a sufficiency of mats,
and pots for water and cooking. A free man never condescends to
sit upon the ground; the low stool, cut out of a single block,
and fancifully carved, is exactly that of the old Egyptians
preserved by the modern East Africans; it dates from ages
immemorial. The look of comparative civilization about these
domiciles, doubtless the effect of the Portuguese and the slave
trade, distinguishes them from the barbarous circular huts of the
Kru-men, the rude clay walls of the Gold Coast, and the tattered,
comfortless sheds of the Fernandian "Bube." They have not,
however, that bandbox-like neatness which surprises the African
traveller on the Camerones River.