The Fang village in this territory is built close to the river or stream. The population of a village varies from fifty to three hundred; the average population is probably not more than a hundred persons. Those of the same village are closely related, usually brothers or first cousins, and their wives and children, with the elders, or grandfathers. They regard themselves as one family, and all the children of the village as brothers and sisters. Under no circumstances would they intermarry. The child addresses ever so many men as “Father,” and ever so many women as “Mother.” Parental authority is not exclusive; the whole town has more or less to say in the control and discipline of each child. The result is that while a score of parents are adding zest to existence in a fine squabble as to whether the child shall sit here, or there, shall do this, or that, the child, heedless of conflicting orders, does as he likes and goes where he pleases. Yet, one finds, as he knows them better, that the real parents are always distinguished and exercise the final authority. The village consists of a single street running away from the river, though sometimes there is a second street, at right angles with the first, and occasionally even a third. On either side of the street the houses are built in straight rows, close together, and almost exactly the same. Among the Bulu the houses are detached; but among the Fang they are under one continuous roof. This arrangement is convenient for an enemy in time of war. For, to set fire to the first house is to burn the whole town; and nothing could burn more rapidly than dry thatch. Nearer the coast the enemy will often saturate the end of the first roof with kerosene—it is the only use they make of kerosene. Across each end of the street is a “palaver-house,” which is the public place, where the men spend most of the day in talking, eating, sleeping and quarrelling. This is the _club-house_ of the men, and the women enter it only on privilege. A missionary entering a town will nearly always be sure of an audience in the palaver-house. The houses have bark walls held by horizontal strips of bamboo tied with rope of vine, and supported by upright poles two feet apart, which are sharpened at the lower end and stuck in the ground. The roof is of palm thatch, and there is no floor. Not a nail is used in the entire construction of the house. Nearer the coast, bark is not used for walls. They are made of split bamboo, attached horizontally to upright poles.