North of the Ba-Luba follows the great _Ba-Lolo_ nation, whose domain comprises nearly the whole of the region between the equator and the left bank of the Congo, and whose Kilolo speech is still more widely diffused, being spoken by perhaps 10,000,000 within the horseshoe bend. These "Men of Iron" in the sense of Cromwell's "Ironsides," or "Workers in Iron," as the name has been diversely interpreted (from _lolo_, iron), may not be all that they have been depicted by the glowing pen of Mrs H. Grattan Guinness[278]; but nobody will deny their claim to be regarded as physically, if not mentally, one of the finest Bantu races. But for the strain of Negro blood betrayed by the tumid under lip, frizzly hair, and wide nostrils, many might pass for average Hamites with high forehead, straight or aquiline nose, bright eye, and intelligent expression. They appear to have migrated about a hundred years ago from the east to their present homes, where they have cleared the land both of its forests and the aborigines, brought extensive tracts under cultivation, and laid out towns in the American chessboard fashion, but with the houses so wide apart that it takes hours to traverse them. They are skilled in many crafts, and understand the division-of-labour principle, "farmers, gardeners, smiths, boatbuilders, weavers, cabinet-makers, armourers, warriors, and speakers being already differentiated amongst them[279]." From the east or north-east a great stream of migration has also for many years been setting right across the cannibal zone to the west coast between the Ogowai and Cameruns estuary. Some of these cannibal bands, collectively known as _Fans_, _Pahuins_, _Mpangwes_[280], _Oshyebas_ and by other names, have already swarmed into the Gabun and Lower Ogowai districts, where they have caused a considerable dislocation of the coast tribes. They are at present the dominant, or at least the most powerful and dreaded, people in West Equatorial Africa, where nothing but the intervention of the French administration has prevented them from sweeping the _Mpongwes_, _Mbengas_, _Okandas_, _Ashangos_, _Ishogos_, _Ba-Tekes_[281], and the other maritime populations into the Atlantic. Even the great _Ba-Kalai_ nation, who are also immigrants, but from the south-east, and who arrived some time before the Fans, have been hard pressed and driven forward by those fierce anthropophagists. They are still numerous, certainly over 100,000, but confined mainly to the left bank of the Ogowai, where their copper and iron workers have given up the hopeless struggle to compete with the imported European wares, and have consequently turned to trade. The Ba-Kalai are now the chief brokers and middlemen throughout the equatorial coastlands, and their pure Bantu language is encroaching on the Mpongwe in the Ogowai basin.