Chapter III: Struggles with the Language

“Trade” and “Bangala” languages—Making a vocabulary—Housekeeper and
master of works—Natives tell us words—Elements of difficulty—Glib
translations—Natives deceive us—Head-men offer us wines—We are a
conundrum to our neighbours—Confidence gained at last—Collect nearly
seven thousand root words—A mode of making derivations—Native
figures of speech.

On the main river there was a mixed language, commonly called among us the “trade language”; by means of this _lingua franca_ we were able to make ourselves understood at the various places at which we touched on our search for a new site, and it stood us in good stead during our early days among the Monsembe people. There was a large element of Bobangi in it, some Kiswahili words, and a few Lower Congo words and phrases. This “trade language” has now been supplanted by what is called the “Bangala language,” which is a mixture of the languages already mentioned, with a smattering of Bangala words thrown in.

For a considerable time Diboko (Nouvelles Anvers), or as it is most frequently called by white men generally when speaking to natives, Bangala, was the largest State station above Stanley Pool. A large number of natives were imported there from all the tribes on the Upper Congo, and this heterogeneous mass of humanity, often numbering over two thousand soldiers, workmen, and women, held communication with each other by means of the “trade language.” The smartest of the natives in the towns adjacent to Diboko quickly learned this jargon, and used it more or less fluently when communicating with the State soldiers and workmen; and the white men hearing the natives of the neighbourhood talking this lingo jumped to the conclusion that it was their own tongue in which they were conversing, and thus called it the Bangala language, and by that name it is now generally known on the Upper Congo.

As it was with the “trade language” so it is with the “Bangala”; it varies considerably with the tribe using it. A Bobangi man when in difficulty for a word or phrase while speaking “Bangala” will fill up the hiatus with a word from his mother-tongue; the Bangalas, Bopoto, and Bosoko peoples will fill up the gaps, each from their own language, so that the “Bangala” spoken differs according to the district in which the traveller may be sojourning. A crew running a steamer, or a gang of men working on a station, though they may come from half a dozen different tribes, will quickly arrange a lingo of their own, and the white man running the steamer, or in charge of the station, will easily acquire the resulting patter, and up to a certain point make himself fairly well understood in all matters relating to the ordinary affairs of steamer or station life. In the near future there will be, no doubt, a language formed by a gradual selection of words and phrases from all the great languages on the river from Stanley Pool to Stanley Falls. Such a means of intercommunication will be a great boon to all concerned—black and white alike—a better understanding will result, and, as a consequence, a greater respect for each other.

Directly we settled at Monsembe we began to learn the language of the people amongst whom we were living. The “trade language” was all that was necessary to a passer-by; it answered the purpose of bartering for food and dealing with the trivialities of life; but was absolutely inadequate for conveying our message as missionaries, or for dealing with the finer and deeper affairs of the minds, hearts, and souls of our parishioners. We _had_ therefore to learn the language, and we had no desire to shirk the drudgery, nor avoid the arduous, persistent effort such a study demanded, for we regarded it as a part of our work, and not the least interesting part either.

My colleague, Mr. Stapleton, and I arranged that one should take charge of the house, buy the food brought for sale, and prepare the meals; while the other should look after the workmen, clear the grass away, mark out the ground, collect materials for building, and start the erection of a larger and more comfortable house than our poor hut. We were to alternate these duties—one was to be housekeeper one week, and head of the works department the next week.

As I had been in the country nine years the heavier end of the stick fell naturally to my lot. I had brought two men and a lad with me from the Lower Congo, one Cameroons man capable of doing rough carpentry had joined us at Bolobo, and we had hired two men at Lukolele, so we had some help; but more was necessary, and we were able to engage a few natives—as many as we required—at twenty rods per month as pay, five rods per week rations, and one fathom of cloth per month to wear, which came in all to about two shillings, invoice price. This seems very small, but we were in the heart of Africa where brass rods and cloth were worth, at that period, many times their invoice value, for their buying power was very great, and food was so plentiful and cheap that 12 lbs. of native bread could be bought for a single brass rod, and a large-size fish for another rod. The men often requested that we would reduce their ration rods and proportionately increase their monthly pay, which we did.

While we were digging the holes for the posts of our larger house, the natives who were curiously watching us, said: “Oh, to do that sort of thing,” imitating a scooping action with the words, “is _tima_.” So we wrote down _tima_ = to dig; when we had finished the hole, they said it was, “_lifoko_,” hence we put down _lifoko_ = hole; when we procured a post, they told us its name was _mwete_, and that we recorded as _mwete_ = a post; on standing the post in the hole they informed us that that was _suma mwete_, and we wrote that down as _suma mwete_ = to stand a post in a hole. When we placed the wall-plate on they gave us a word for that; when we brought hammer and nails out of our tool-house they acquainted us with the names for those things; when we hammered a nail to hold the wall-plate in position they gave us an expression for nailing; and if by any accident we hit our finger instead of the nail, they found a suitable expletive for that action also. Night by night my colleague and I added the words together we had procured during the day and counted them as eagerly as any miser might his gold, for we recognized in them a means by which we should eventually be able to deliver our message.

It was very difficult to acquire words for abstract ideas, as courage, faith, love, recklessness, etc.; and it was not easy to procure words for tangible objects—things that we could point to and touch. I remember on one occasion wanting the word for table. There were five or six boys standing around, and tapping the table with my forefinger I asked: “What is this?” One boy said it was _dodela_, another that it was _etanda_, a third stated it was _bokali_, a fourth that it was _elamba_, and the fifth said it was _meza_. These various words we wrote in our notebook, and congratulated ourselves that we were working among a people who possessed so rich a language that they had five words for one article.

By and by we wanted a table brought to us, and selecting a word at random from our list of five words, each one of which we supposed meant table, we said: “_Benga bokali_” = fetch the table. The boys looked at us with considerable astonishment, and, noticing their embarrassment, we checked the list of words and found that one lad had thought we wanted the word for tapping, so he told us _dodela_ = to tap; another understood we were seeking the word for the material of which the table was made, and he gave us _etanda_ = plank; another had an idea that we required the word for hardness, that which caused the noise as we tapped with our finger, and he told us _bokali_, and that is what we had told them to bring: _benga bokali_ = fetch the hardness, a feat they could not possibly accomplish; another thought we wished for a name for that which covered the table, and his contribution was _elamba_ = cloth; and the last lad, not being able, perhaps, to think of anything else, gave us the word _meza_ = table—the very word we were seeking. We had to scratch out the first four words, leave the word _meza_, and pass on, having learned a good lesson on the evil results of jumping too quickly to conclusions. If the reader knows no German, and should ever happen to be in the company of some five or six Germans who do not understand a single word of English, let him ask: “What is this?” in indifferent German, and write down their several answers.

In learning and reducing to writing an unwritten language there are always several elements that increase and complicate the difficulties. There is what is in your own mind as the object for which you are seeking a word, and there is what the native thinks is the object for which you are wanting the word, which two things may be very different; again, when you are searching for a word to embody an abstract quality there is, on the one hand, the meaning you attach to the words you use as illustrative of the idea for which you want the word; and there is, on the other hand, the meaning which your native lad attaches to the words you employ, and the two sets of meanings may widely vary. You may unknowingly employ a wrong phrase in your description of the quality you are wanting a word to express, and your teacher is either puzzled or thrown entirely off the scent, and the result leads to a disastrous mistake and, unless corrected later, to a false, misleading translation. Suppose you want a word for healthiness; you say that a man walks well every day, paddles for long distances without fatigue, eats his food heartily, has no pains in his body, and never needs to go to a medicine-man. “What do you call that?” Your helper will consider for a moment, and then reply: “_Abe na bonganga._”

By and by you go over the description with another person, and he says of such a man: “_Abe na nkonjo._” A few days later, in order to check the former teachers, you try another young man, and he tells you: “_Abe na nkasu._”

In due time, however, you discover that _abe na bonganga_ means: he has a powerful charm; that _abe na nkonjo_ = he has good luck; and _abe na nkasu_ = he is very strong; and that _nkuli_ is the proper word for healthiness.

Your helpers have not purposely led you astray, for they have simply stated from their point of view how they would regard such a fortunate man who can walk, paddle, eat well, has no pains in his body, and never needs medicine—he must possess a powerful charm, or have wonderful luck, or be exceedingly strong. When you know the natives better you find they rarely talk about their health, hence _abe na nkuli_ = he has healthiness, would not come readily to their minds.

The difference between our point of view and that of our teachers accounts for many of the difficulties we experience in learning a native language; and I am afraid that a real appreciation of those difficulties has rendered me somewhat suspicious of those travellers who, after a very short acquaintance with the native language, translate glibly their interviews with the people. Just recently I have been reading a book on the Congo in which the following occurs: “_Bikei yonsono, malami be na Mputu. Sola è koye._” This the author, who frequently takes credit to himself for his knowledge of the native language, translates as follows: “All I say is true, you say I lie. It is finished. I have seen those things; you have not.” Whereas it should be: All things are very good in Mputu (white man’s country). Truly friend! And the sentence in Bangala should have been written: _Bike binso bilamu be na Mputu. Solo koye!_ No Congo native would have been guilty of the grammatical blunders perpetrated in the sentence as written by the author. I have frequently noticed that the less a person knows about a native language the more fluently and beautifully he will translate it, as he is bound only by the limitations of his own imagination.

When we had been living at Monsembe a few months we were much vexed and disgusted to find that the people had been deceiving us considerably over their language. One day, while working with the men, I heard a native workman shout out a request to another native labourer. From the nature of the work being done I could easily guess what the phrase really meant; but the wording of the sentence was entirely different from that which they had given us to express the same idea. Going into the house, I brought out my notebook and said: “Just now you called out so and so,” repeating the short sentence that was still fresh in my memory. “How is it we have another set of words in our book?”

A broad smile gradually spread over the native’s face as he replied: “White man, when you came first to live amongst us we could not understand the purpose of your coming. We brought you rubber and ivory; but you said, ‘We do not trade in such things.’ We then brought you male and female slaves, and asked you to buy them, and you replied, ‘We do not trade in slaves.’ We then brought you a large jar of sugar-cane wine, but you said that you did not drink wine, and we answered that we would drink it for you, and even then you would not buy it. After that we came to the conclusion that there was some wicked reason for your presence in our town, some bad purpose we could not understand, and we therefore arranged among ourselves not to teach you our language, but to tell you as many words and phrases as we could belonging to other languages.”

We found they had kept their agreement far too well, and as a result we discovered that a large percentage of the words that we counted as good coin of the realm were nothing but base metal, and had to be thrown out of our notebook as utterly useless. Undoubtedly our presence was a great mystery to the natives. They could easily understand the reasons why traders and State officers were living in the country; but why men who neither traded nor governed should live in their midst was a problem discussed repeatedly around their evening fires. They had asked us more than once: “Were you bad men in your country that you had to leave it to come and live here in this land?” Or: “Is there no food in your country that you come here and buy only fowls and vegetables of us?” Fowls were plentiful and very cheap, costing us often less than twopence each, and as it was the only fresh meat we could procure regularly, scarcely a day passed without our having a fowl for dinner, hence the point and purpose of their question. These inquiries we answered as fully as we could; but, notwithstanding our replies, we remained a puzzle to our neighbours and the subjects of many a long and heated talk.

One day some of the head-men came to us, and after solemnly taking their seats on the stools their wives had brought for the purpose, they said: “White men, we have come to talk a palaver with you.”

Our minds quickly ran over our actions during the last few days, for we wondered what offence we had committed to cause such a visit from so many serious-looking head-men. We could not recall any action or any words that were likely to have given umbrage to the natives, so we waited to hear from their lips of some breach of etiquette of which, all unknowingly, we had been guilty.

Old Mata Bombo, a tall, straight man of over sixty years, was spokesman for the deputation. “We have noticed,” he said, “that you have no wives, and we think it would be well for you two white men to marry two of our women; and we have brought some from which you can make your selection.” And as he finished speaking he pointed to a row of giggling girls and women, who while he was talking had lined up a few yards away.

As seriously as we could, we expressed our thanks for their concern on our behalf, and also for their generosity in giving us such a fine array from which to choose our wives; but continuing, I said: “I have a wife in Mputu (white man’s country); and my friend, Mr. Stapleton, has a lady there waiting to become his wife as soon as he returns home. We cannot therefore accept your offer.”

“That is no difficulty,” they all answered in chorus. “You can marry two of these now, and when your white wives come you can send these back to their families, and there will be no palaver.”

We, however, persisted in declining with thanks, and at last it dawned upon them that we were quite serious in our refusal. The head-men went off in a huff, as they expected to make some profit out of the alliance; and the women moved away chagrined that their charms had had so little effect on us, and, possibly, they were also vexed by the knowledge that they would be, for many a day to come, the butts of much ridicule and chaff from the other women of the town and district.

Doubtless this incident added much to the problem concerning us that was exercising the native mind. Here are two strong, healthy white men, rich like other white men (the poorest white man is a millionaire in the eyes of the natives), building houses in our town, working hard from sunrise to sunset, refusing our ivory, and rubber, our slaves, our women, and our drink. What are they? They say they have “come to tell us about God.” But would white men leave home, wives, family, and work in the sun as they do just to tell us about God? They say they have “come to help us, to teach us many things and to do us good”; and they offer us medicine when we are sick. How can they help us? What can they teach us? How will they do us good? And as for their medicine, who would be foolish enough to drink it? It might bewitch us. Such were the questions surging through their minds (as we learned later); and there was no one sufficiently in their confidence to help to the proper solution of this difficult conundrum. Is it any wonder that they came to the conclusion that we were bad men living in their district for some ulterior motive; and the best way to treat us was to humour us in building, keep their eyes alert to thwart any wicked designs, avoid teaching us their language, which we seemed particularly eager to learn, and in the meantime make as much money out of us as they could, either by fair or dishonest means, it did not matter which?

Many of these thoughts we surmised from their actions, but their whole course of reasoning we did not fully learn until very many months had passed away, in fact, not until we had gained their entire confidence. In the meantime we tried, in our poor way, to live the life of our Master, Jesus Christ, among our barbarous neighbours, and their suspicions about us gradually melted away. They would come and chat freely with us, and by and by it was no uncommon thing to have three or four lads sitting with us teaching us their language and helping us to a right understanding of the rules that govern it; and men passing by would stop, and, listening to the lads for a time, aid in elucidating some knotty point. Patience, love, and straight dealing won their confidence, their disinterested assistance, and at last their love.

Eventually, by the help of the people—old and young, for all became interested in the work—we were able to collect close upon seven thousand root words which, with their derivatives, give us a vocabulary of nearly forty thousand words.

These derivatives are produced by very regular rules, which when once understood, the learner possesses the key to a large treasury of words, e.g.:

Verb. _Tula._ To do smithing.

Der. Noun. _Motuli._ A smith.

Der. Noun. _Motuliji._ One who causes the
smithing to be

done, a master.

Der. Noun. _Motuleliji._ One who causes smithing
to be done for
another, a foreman.

Der. Noun. _Ntula._ The smithing peculiar to
one smith, as distinct
from that of another
smith—his mode of
smithing.

Der. Noun. _Lituli._ The kind of smithing
needed by one article
as distinct from that
required by another.

Der. Noun. _Botula._ Skill or ability in
smithing.

Der. Noun. _Etuli._ The article worked upon.

Der. Noun. _Etulela._ Habit of smithing.

Der. Noun. _Etuleli._ Instrument with which to
do smithing.

Der. Noun. _Motula._ A smithing, e.g. _Atuli
motula_, literally, he
smiths a smithing, i.e.
he works at smithing.

Der. Noun. _Litulele._ A place for smithing = a
workshop, smithy.

Der. Noun. _Motuleli._ One who does smithing for
another, an employee at
smithing.

Another set of derivatives is made from the reversive form of the word, as _kanga_ = to tie, _mokangi_ = a tier, _kangola_ = to untie, _mokangoli_ = an untier; and this reversive form can give us derivatives built on its idea, as from _kangolela_ = to untie for another, comes _mokangoleli_ = one who unties for another; and from the causative _kangolija_ = to cause to untie, comes _mokangoliji_ = one who causes to untie; and, again, from the causative of its prepositional form _kangolelija_ = to cause to untie something for someone, comes _mokangoleliji_ = one who causes a person to untie something for or on behalf of another.

One could mention the stative and the passive forms of the verb with their respective prepositional and causative suffixes, each supplying their own series of derivatives; but I fear the reader would weary of them, and the student of African languages has now at his disposal many grammars of Bantu tongues that will fully satisfy his love for comparative language study. My only desire in these few paragraphs is to show that the natives of the Congo do not talk a gibberish like a lot of monkeys, but have at their disposal a magnificent language that excites the admiration of every student. And it will be seen that such complex languages are not to be mastered in a few weeks or months by any globe-trotter who has a fancy for African travel, for they demand time and constant study to appreciate their finesse, and special linguistic ability to master their details and accurately define the words collected, and the various derivatives discovered.

It must not be thought that for every verb all the various derivatives can be found, as for obvious reasons some derivatives are not required from some verbs, and other derivatives are not required from other verbs, e.g. the reversive verb _tulola_ = to undo smithing, can be built on _tula_ = to do smithing; but as such an idea as to undo smithing is ridiculous, hence no derivatives founded on the reversive form _tulola_ are to be met with in the language. Smithing can be spoilt, and for that they have a word, but when once a knife is forged it cannot be unforged, i.e. it cannot be returned to iron ore like a knot that can be untied and the string resume its original form.

Neither do the natives add to _every_ verb all the prefixes and suffixes that can grammatically be affixed to them. It is very apparent that some verbs are complicated with causative, prepositional, tense, and other forms, and it is necessary to know for what the polysyllabic word stands as a phrase, as there is no time to dissect it while a speech is in progress. This is what I think the native does. He has no words for the parts of speech as we have in grammar, he does not know that _bakamokangelela ntaba nxinga_ is made up of the nominative pronominal prefix _ba_ = they, the present tense progressive _ka_ = ing, the objective pronominal prefix _mo_ = him, the verb _kanga_ = tie, the two prepositional suffixes _ela_ = for, and _ela_ = with (the “a” elides before “e”), and two objective nouns _ntaba_ = goat, and _nxinga_ = string; but he knows that _bakamokangelela ntaba nxinga_ means “they are tying the goat for him with string.” And if you, as a white man, while speaking and translating, try to make new polysyllabic words by a new combination of prefixes and suffixes, then you confuse your hearers (or readers) to such an extent that they do not readily follow you. You will have to educate them to a proper understanding of your new phrases, as English folk had to learn Carlyle’s picture-phrases a generation ago before they could appreciate their force and beauty.

It seems that in the course of time the various dialects have become more or less stereotyped in the use of certain verbal suffixes, and if a speaker now creates new combinations the hearers do not at once follow him; or it may be that at some period in the past when a dialect was in the making the minds of the people were very active, and the combinations they formed are fixed and remembered, and no new ones are being made, as the minds of the present generation are less gymnastic; or, again, it may be that a man with some pretensions to intellectual power created new combinations of verbal suffixes, and impressed them on his generation, and thus superseded other word-phrases as Chaucer’s English has been succeeded by a later form, and that by a still later, and the forms of speech used by his characters have given place to later forms that would have been scarcely understood in his day. However, in the Bantu languages there are such possibilities of infinite combinations that as the natives are now being educated it is impossible to foretell what subtleties of thought they will be able to express accurately with so plastic and beautiful a language.

The Boloki dialect, like all the Bantu languages, is alliterative in construction, i.e. the prefix of the nominative of the sentence becomes the prefix of all the words dependent on it, e.g.:

_ma_toko _ma_na _ma_bale _ma_nene _mama_nsombela we _ma_laba,

(literally)

spoons those two large (which me/bought for) you they are lost

= those two large spoons which you bought for me, they are lost. The plural prefix _ma_ of the first word which is the nominative is prefixed to all the other words because they are dependent on it. If it had been in the singular it would have been _li_toko _li_na, etc. This alliterative concord, as it is called, is very helpful to clearness of meaning.

In the Boloki language there are eight classes of alliterative concord,[7] i.e. all the nouns in the language belong to one or other of these eight classes, and directly the class of a noun is decided its pronominal prefixes, its possessive and demonstrative pronouns, etc., are at once known also by the fixed rules of usage, or, as we should say, by the grammar of the language, and its plural form is also easily ascertainable.

Footnote 7:

On the Lower Congo there are fifteen classes.

Class 1. _Motu_ = person. _Batu_ = persons, people.

Class 2. _Ndaku_ = house. _Mandaku_ = houses.

Class 3. _Loboko_ = arm. _Maboko_ = arms.

Class 4. _Linkeme_ = _Mankeme_ = guinea fowls.
guinea fowl.

Class 5. _Bopepe_ = pipe _Mapepe_ = pipe bowls.
bowl.

Class 6. _Lobeki_ = _Mbeki_ = saucepans.
saucepan.

Class 7. _Etanda_ = _Bitanda_ = planks.
plank.

Class 8. _Munke_ = eggs. _Minke_ = eggs.

Collective noun, _nke_ = a lot of eggs, and this makes its plural in _manke_ = lots, as _manke mabale_ = two lots of eggs, as a noun of Class 2.

It took us a considerable time to work out this classification, as it meant the collecting of a very large number of words and the writing down of their singular and plural forms. It was easy enough to see that all nouns beginning with “_e_” made their plurals by turning the “_e_” into “_bi_”; but it was not so easy to decide about the “_lo_,” for we found that some plurals were made by changing the “_lo_” into “_ma_,” and others by turning “_lo_” into “_m_”; and when it is remembered that there are sixteen ways of using every adjective, according as it is singular or plural and belongs to one or other of the classes, it will be recognized by the reader that an African language is something to study and not despise as being “only a nigger’s language.” Of course, it is easy to pick up a few words and phrases for ordinary daily use which, when eked out with gestures, will carry the traveller a long way if he has a factotum quick at sign and thought-reading; but for expressing the finer shades of meaning, and also for receiving the same, an intimate knowledge of the language is necessary. I have heard more than one white man blame the missionary for “making a grammar for the nigger”; whereas the missionary has simply found out the rules by which the “niggers” talk, and written them down in such grammatical terms that others might understand them.

I have inserted a short note on the verb[8] in the Appendix, and also a note on the Boloki method of counting.[9] But before closing this chapter I wish to write a few lines on the figurative mode of speaking which is peculiar to all Bantu languages, and by no means confined to the Boloki people. The phrases in italics are literal translations of the native terms for expressing their emotions, etc.

Footnote 8:

See Appendix, Note 2, p. 336.

Footnote 9:

See Appendix, Note 3, p. 339.

When a native is worried his _heart is let down_, and should he have a choice of two equally pleasant things his _heart is pulled in opposite directions_; but when the heart has recovered its normal condition after some violent outbreak it is said _to be stopped_, or after some perturbing grief they say the _heart is stuck to the ribs_, as there are no longer any flutterings.

A greedy, selfish person has a _heart of leaves_, and a person who is recklessly indifferent to all the consequences of his action has _lost his heart_, and one who is lying and treacherous in his ways has a _heart that has broken loose_, over which the owner has no proper control. Should you be kind enough to comfort a person in a great sorrow, your action will be described as _sticking the heart to the ribs_, and thus keeping it from moving about inside; or if you have soothed a person in distress you are regarded as having _pushed his heart down into its place_. When a person is irresolute in mind, and undecided as to the best course to pursue, he describes his state by saying, “_My heart is rolling from side to side_,” and the word used describes a canoe rocking in a storm.

The moon, as its light begins to appear above the horizon, is said _to be kicking out with its legs_, and when it shows itself above the sky-line it is then _unstuck from the earth_. Sunset is called either _the sun has become black_, or _the sun has entered_, or _when the fowls go to roost_; and the Pleiades are spoken of as a _crowd of young women_; and the bright star Venus as it draws near the moon is named _the wife of the moon_.

When you desire to warn a person you tell him _to throw his eyes about_, and a person who frowns is said _to tie his eyebrows_. A conceited person who wants the whole path to himself is scornfully asked, “_Did you plant the earth?_” (i.e. Did you create the world?), as though it were a pumpkin over which he had sole rights of ownership. A lad who gives an impertinent answer is described as having a _sharp mouth_, while one who is not good at repartee is looked upon as having _no mouth at all_.

A person who frequently reverts to the cause of a quarrel, or a woman who is constantly nagging, has a word applied to her which means the _bubbling up of boiling water_; and one who does not contribute his share to the general talk around the evening fire is likened to the useless _fibrous core of a cassava root_, only fit to be thrown away; while a person who answers a question not addressed to him is _picking up something before it is lost_.

The native word for an _umbrella_ means a _large bat_. When the eyes are dimmed from any cause they are said to _be covered with cobwebs_; and a man suffering from hunger says, “_My waist is stuck to my back_”; i.e. I am so empty of food that there is nothing to keep the front of the stomach from sticking to the backbone. A foolish, credulous person is likened to _a squirrel constantly nodding its head in assent to everything that is said_. To become conscious of someone behind looking at you is expressed in the phrase: _to feel the back heavy_. The Congo crow has a broad white band round its neck, and when the river is dark with the reflection of the frowning storm-clouds above, and the wind is blowing up-river, covering the water with white-crested waves, such waves are called by the natives _a flock of crows_.

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