And I may remark you will find the same opinion in regard to the
Dualla in Cameroons river - on the undeniable authority of Dr.
Buchner, and my own extensive experience of the West Coast bears it
out.
Physically the Bubis are a fairly well-formed race of medium height;
they are decidedly inferior to the Benga or the Krus, but quite on a
level with the Effiks. The women indeed are very comely: their
colour is bronze and their skin the skin of the Bantu. Beards are
not uncommon among the men, and these give their faces possibly more
than anything else, a different look to the faces of the Effiks or
the Duallas. Indeed the people physically most like the Bubis that
I have ever seen, are undoubtedly the Bakwiri of Cameroons Mountain,
who are also liable to be bearded, or possibly I should say more
liable to wear beards, for a good deal of the African hairlessness
you hear commented on - in the West African at any rate - arises from
his deliberately pulling his hair out - his beard, moustache,
whiskers, and, occasionally, as among the Fans, his eyebrows.
Dr. Baumann, the great authority on the Bubi language says it is a
Bantu stock. {56} I know nothing of it myself save that it is harsh
in sound. Their method of counting is usually by fives but they are
notably weak in arithmetical ability, differing in this particular
from the mainlanders, and especially from their Negro neighbours,
who are very good at figures, surpassing the Bantu in this, as
indeed they do in most branches of intellectual activity.
