There is a kind of poetry which underlies many of their expressions, and which invests some objects with a certain charm of indefiniteness; thus for example they call a leaf “mbillee-kaggah,” “an ear of the tree,” and a man’s chest they name “doah kiddi,” or “the capital of the veins.” The speech of a people is very often indicative of the predominating character of their pursuits. By the name of “mony,” which originally meant the common sorghum, which is the staple of their produce, the Bongo, being an agricultural people, have come to denote not so much the particular corn, as eatables of any description. They have, moreover, adopted this word as the root of a verb which is conjugated. In a way corresponding to this the Niam-niam, who are mainly addicted to hunting, give a very comprehensive meaning to their word “push-yo,” which signifies “meat.” Of almost infinite variety are the names of the different individuals among the Bongo. I had opportunities of making inquiries whilst I was measuring nearly a hundred of the people, and I do not think that I found more than five names that occurred more than once. As a regular rule parents name their children after trees or animals, or some object in nature, and it is quite exceptional for any personal peculiarity to be associated with the appellation. [Sidenote: INTERMINGLING OF RACES.] In the labyrinth of African culture it is very difficult to disentangle the hundred threads which lead up to the centre from which they have been all unwound. Not a custom, not a superstition is found in one part which is not more or less accurately repeated in another; not one contrivance of design, not one weapon of war exists of which it can be declared that it is exclusive property of any one race. From north to south, and from sea to sea, in some form or other every invention is sure to be repeated; it is “the thing that has been.” The creative hand of Nature alone produces what is new. If we could at once grasp and set before our minds facts that are known (whether as regards language, race, culture, history, or development) of that vast region of the world which is comprehended in the name of Africa, we should have before us the witness of an intermingling of races which is beyond all precedent. And yet, bewildering as the prospect would appear, it remains a fact not to be gainsaid, that it is impossible for any one to survey the country as a whole without perceiving that high above the multitude of individual differences there is throned a principle of unity which embraces well nigh all the population.