APPENDIX.

A.

THE FAUNA OF EQUATORIAL AFRICA.

FOR the use of naturalists, I give here a list of the animals collected by me during the explorations described in the body of the book. New species I have, for convenience of reference, put by themselves. For detailed description of the new animals the scientific reader is referred to the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History for 1860.

Thrasops flavigularis or Bu-Dipsas or Toxicodryas Blan- Dactylethra Mülleri.

Chlorophis heterodermus.

Kinixys erosa.

Python bivittatus.

cephalus capensis.

Brachycranion corpulentum Euprepes striata.

Peristera chalcospilos (Co-Hylia prasina (Styphrornis Leptotilos crumenifera.

Ibis religiosa.

Numenius phaophus.
Actitis hypoleucus.
Parra Africana.

major (Telopho-Rallus oculeus.

Stiphornis erythrothorax.

Sylvietta microura.

Cisticola cursitans.

Trachyphonus purpuratus. Rhynchops orientalis.

Dendropicus Gabonensis. Plotus Levaillantii.

nigriguttatus. Sula Capensis.

Carbo Africanus. brachyrhynchus. Nycticorax Europæus. nivosus.

THE LANGUAGES OF EQUATORIAL AFRICA.

As we gain greater knowledge of the languages and dialects of the nations and tribes of Central Africa, the conviction gains ground among philologists that the people of this great continent belong to two distinct families. The line of separation I believe to be found one or two degrees north of the equator. To the south of this line, all the people now known speak in dialects which, though sufficiently distinct, belong evidently to one common family, having a common origin. This is true of all, so far as known, from the northern line I have denoted down to the Cape of Good Hope, except the Hottentots, the Namaquas, and a few other insignificant tribes near the last-mentioned place, who are not supposed to belong to either branch of the African family.

This class of languages and dialects may be distinguished by the title alliterative. The changes which the words undergo in their declensions and conjugations always affect both the initial and final syllables, and whole sentences occur having a complete alliteration throughout.

The tribes of the northern half of the continent, so far as their languages are known to me by study or by personal observation (the latter confined to the western coast, through Gambia and Senegambia to the borders of the Desert), use dialects less regular in their structure, less melodious in sound, and by far more difficult for the tongue and ear of the white man.

Within the region which I explored, the language of the Mpongwe is the most widely spread. It is used, with slight variations and modifications, by no less than seven of the most considerable tribes, the Mpongwe, Commi (Camma), Oroungou, Ogobay, Rembo, Ngaloi, Ayomba, and Anenga. Some other dialects, also, are evidently derived from this, while another large class has marks of decided kinship to the Bakalai language. This last is spoken, either purely, or in dialects varying but slightly, by the Bakalai, Mbenga, Kombe, Bapoukou, Balengue, Mbousha, Mbondemo, Mbisho, Mbiki, Shekiani, Apingi, Evili, and probably many more tribes of the interior.

The language of the cannibal tribe, the Fans, stands alone, being evidently not related to any of the others. It is rude and very guttural, and bears some likeness to that spoken in the interior of Cape Palmas and on the Croo coast.

The Mpongwe and Bakalai, and their kindred dialects, are to a remarkable degree regular and systematic in their structure. I found it very extraordinary that languages used only by savages, and having no written standard, should retain their precision and system, as these have done. Scarce any languages known are so systematic as these. They are rich in words expressive of the ideas of these barbarous people, and they are capable of very great expansion for new wants. From radicals already in use new words can be regularly derived when needed, and are at once understood.

The Bakalai and its branches have no letter r. The Mpongwe and the Ashira, on the contrary, abound in this letter, which is rolled or accented very strongly. The Mpongwe strikes me as one of the finest of all the known languages of Africa. It is remarkable that all the tribes which use it are much less warlike than those which use the Bakalai, many of which are fierce and troublesome.

The tribes inhabiting the west coast south of Cape St. Catherine speak dialects

some of which show more affinity with the language of the Mpongwe, others with that of the Bakalai; but all show, in the formation of many of their words, a third element, proving that some of these words have been derived from another language with which the two former have not been acquainted.

The Mpongwe language is to a very great extent polysyllabic. There are scarce a score of monosyllabic nouns in the whole language, and not more than three or four monosyllabic verbs. It abounds in contractions and compounded words, in which, however, the parts are preserved sufficiently well to be very easily distinguished. There are but few words difficult of utterance to Americans or Europeans, and the pronunciation is very distinct, each syllable being fully sounded, making it easy of acquisition to strangers. Almost all the words terminate in a vowel, which is fully sounded, and a great part of the nouns and verbs also begin with a vowel. The genders of nouns are not distinguished otherwise than by prefixing the term man or woman. For instance, wanna means child; wanto-wanna is girl; and olomewanna is boy. There are several ways of forming the plural. Nouns which begin with a consonant are made plural by prefixing i to the singular forms; thus, nago, house; inago, houses. Nouns beginning with o form their plurals by changing o into i; thus, omemba, snake; imemba, snakes. Nouns beginning with e form their plurals by dropping the e; thus, egara, chest; gara, chests. Nouns beginning with i form their plurals by changing i to a; thus, idambè, a sheep; adambè, sheep. All the changes in the Mpongwe nouns, except such as result from contractions, are on the first syllable. The noun of agency is in nearly all cases formed by prefixing the letter o to the verb; thus, noka is to lie, and onoka is a liar.

Personal pronouns abound in the Mpongwe, and also in the Bakalai and other dialects of this region. Thus, in Mpongwe, mie is I and me; you, awè; yé, he; ayé, she or it; Pers, we; azwé, us; anuwe, ye; nuwe, you; wao, they; wa, them.

The adjectives have many changes besides their degrees of comparison. They do not, however, possess any inflections to indicate gender or case. In the following examples we find no less than seven forms of the adjective mpolo, which means large:

Nyaré mpolo, a large cow.

Inyaré impolo, large cows.

Egara evolu, a large chest.

Gara volu, large chests.

Idambe ivolu, a large sheep.
Adambe ampolo, large sheep.
Omemba ompolo, a large snake.
Imemba impolo, large snakes.

These and like changes are used with the utmost precision, arbitrary as they are, and though they have of course no grammatical rules nor any written standard.

We come now to speak of the verb, which has, in all the languages of the southern half of Africa, the most peculiar forms. The Mpongwe verb has four moods, the indicative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive. The indicative mood is formed with the aid of auxiliary particles. The imperative is derived from the present of the indicative by the change of its initial consonant into its reciprocal consonant; thus, tonda, to love, ronda, love thou; denda, to do, lenda, do thou.

The conditional mood has a form of its own, but the conjunctive particles are used as auxiliaries at the same time, and different conjunctive particles are used with different tenses. The subjunctive has only one form, and is used as the second verb in a sentence where there are two verbs.

The tenses in the Mpongwe are the present, past, perfect past, and future. The perfect past tense, which represents the completeness of an action, is formed from the present tense by prefixing a and by changing the final into i; thus, tónda, to love, atondi, loved or did love.