Anyhow, There They Are All One
Height, And All One Colour, And Apparently Allowing No Other
Vegetation To Make Any Headway Among Them.
But I found when I
carefully investigated egombie-gombie patches that there were a few
of the great, slower-
Growing forest trees coming up amongst them,
and in time when these attain a sufficient height, their shade kills
off the egombie-gombie, and the patch goes back into the great
forest from which it came. The frequency of these patches arises
from the nomadic habits of the chief tribe in these regions, the
Fans. They rarely occupy one site for a village for any
considerable time on account - firstly, of their wasteful method of
collecting rubber by cutting down the vine, which soon stamps it out
of a district; and, secondly, from their quarrelsome ways. So when
a village of Fans has cleared all the rubber out of its district, or
has made the said district too hot to hold it by rows with other
villages, or has got itself very properly shelled out and burnt for
some attack on traders or the French flag in any form, its
inhabitants clear off into another district, and build another
village; for bark and palm thatch are cheap, and house removing just
nothing; when you are an unsophisticated cannibal Fan you don't
require a pantechnicon van to stow away your one or two mushroom-
shaped stools, knives, and cooking-pots, and a calabash or so. If
you are rich, maybe you will have a box with clothes in as well, but
as a general rule all your clothes are on your back.
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