Capes, promontories, and other prominent points of land are favorite dwelling-places of the spirits. The Ogowe River, some one hundred and forty miles from its mouth, receives on its left bank a large affluent, the Ngunye, coming from the south. The low point of land at the junction of the two rivers was sacred. The riverine tribes themselves would pass it in canoes, respectfully removing their head coverings; but passage was forbidden to coast tribes and other foreigners. Portuguese slave-traders might come to the point; but, stopping there, they could trade beyond only through the hands of the local tribe (evidently superstition had been invoked to protect a trade monopoly). A certain trader, Mr. R. B. N. Walker, agent for the English firm of Hatton & Cookson, headquarters at Libreville, Gabun, in extending his commercial interests some forty years ago, made an overland journey from the Gabun River, emerging on the Ogowe, on its right bank, _above_ that sacred point. Ranoke, chief of the Inenga tribe, a few miles below, seized him, his porters, and his goods, and kept them prisoners for several months. Mr. Walker succeeded in bribing a native to carry a letter to the French Commandant at Libreville, who was pleased to send a gunboat to the rescue. Incidentally it furnished a good opportunity to demonstrate France's somewhat shadowy claim to the Ogowe. After the rescue a company from the gunboat proceeded to the Point and lunched there, thus effectually desecrating it. Mr. Walker made peace with his late captor, and established a trading-station at the Inenga village, Lambarene. For years afterward, natives still looked upon that Point with respect. My own crew in 1874 sometimes doffed their hats; but before I left the Ogowe in 1891, a younger generation had grown up that was willing to camp and eat and sleep there with me, on my boat journeys.
Graveyards, of course, are homes of spirits, and therefore are much dreaded. The tribes, especially of the interior, differ very much as to burial customs. Some bury only their chiefs and other prominent men, casting away corpses of slaves or of the poor into the rivers, or out on the open ground, perhaps covering them with a bundle of sticks; even when graves are dug they are shallow. Some tribes fearlessly bury their dead under the clay floors of their houses, or a few yards distant in the kitchen-garden generally adjoining. But, by most tribes who do bury at all, there are chosen as cemeteries dark, tangled stretches of forest, along river banks on ground that is apt to be inundated or whose soil is not good for plantation purposes. I had often observed, in my earlier African years, such stretches of forest along the river, and wondered why the people did not use them for cultivation, being conveniently near to some village, while they would go a much longer distance to make their plantations. The explanation was that these were graveyards. Such stretches would extend sometimes for a mile or two. Often my hungry meal hour on a journey happened to coincide with our passing just such a piece of forest, and the crew would refuse to stop, keeping themselves and myself hungry till we could arrive at more open forest.
