ated are sorghum, tobacco, sesame
and durra. The Bongo eat the fruits, tubers and fungi in which the
country is rich. They also eat almost every creature--bird, beast,
insect and reptile, with the exception of the dog. They despise no
flesh, fresh or putrid. They drive the vulture from carrion, and eat
with relish the intestinal worms of the ox. Earth-eating, too, is
common among them. They are particularly skilled in the smelting and
working of iron. Iron forms the currency of the country, and is
extensively employed for all kinds of useful and ornamental purposes.
Bongo spears, knives, rings, and other articles are frequently fashioned
with great artistic elaboration. They have a variety of musical
instruments--drums, stringed instruments, and horns--in the practice of
which they take great delight; and they indulge in a vocal recitative
which seems intended to imitate a succession of natural sounds.
Schweinfurth says that Bongo music is like the raging of the elements.
Marriage is by purchase; and a man is allowed to acquire three wives,
but not more. Tattooing is partially practised. As regards burial, the
corpse is bound in a crouching position with the knees drawn up to the
chin; men are placed in the grave with the face to the north, and women
with the face to the south. The form of the grave is peculiar,
consisting of a niche in a vertical shaft, recalling the mastaba graves
of the ancient Egyptians. The tombs are frequently ornamented with rough
wooden figures intended to represent the deceased. Of the immortality of
the soul they have no defined notion; and their only approach to a
knowledge of a beneficent deity consists in a vague idea of luck. They
have, however, a most intense belief in a great variety of petty goblins
and witches, which are essentially malignant. Arrows, spears and clubs
form their weapons, the first two distinguished by a multiplicity of
barbs. Euphorbia juice is used as a poison for the arrows. Shields are
rare. Their language is musical, and abounds in the vowels o and a; its
vocabulary of concrete terms is very rich, but the same word has often a
great variety of meanings. The grammatical structure is simple. As a
race the Bongo are gentle and industrious, and exhibit strong family
affection.

See G.A. Schweinfurth, _The Heart of Africa_ (London, 1873); W.
Junker, _Travels in Africa_ (Eng. edit., London, 1890-1892).

BONGO (_Boocercus eurycerus_), a West African bushbuck, t