_Bull-roarers_ are known and made; but the elders do not like the lads to play with them, and give as their reason: “You are calling the leopards.” This is because the whirl of the bamboo makes a sound like the growling of a leopard. The young girls have an interesting little dance in which they form a circle around one of their number, who is on all fours in the centre. As the girls in the ring sing about the different animals, as the leopard, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the elephant, etc., the girl in the middle imitates the movements of the animal, and she receives praise or ridicule according to her ability to imitate the movements accurately. The men and women take very little part in any of these games (except the men at _lobesi_), but they monopolize a large share in all the dances, and in most of the dances the sexes are mixed. Wrestling of a rough-and-ready kind is indulged in by the lads; and round the fires of an evening stories are told with dramatic power, and conundrums are propounded and answered. Although Congo is practically a toyless land, and so far as the adults are concerned the children are not catered for, yet from their loud laughter the young folk seem to extract a great amount of pleasure out of life. The boys delight in talking a slang language of their own manufacture, which is called _jimu_. They select a syllable, say “_sa_,” and insert it between the syllables of the words they use, so _mboka_ = village becomes _mbo-sa-ka_ = _vil-sa-lage_. They acquire great glibness in this kind of talk, and enjoy the fun that it brings in mystifying others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XI A PAGE OF NATIVE HISTORY A great inland sea—The Boloki and Bantus—The Boloki man—A native retort—Meaning of Bangala—Movements of tribes—Murder of Boloki chief—Refuge in a tree—Boloki raiding—A famous chief—Comets an evidence of greatness—Tribal marks and meaning.