locality in ages past. It is
plain that the glass beads found to have been so very common in Africa
were not only not imported, but were actually manufactured in great
quantities at home."

The terra-cotta pieces are "remains of another ancient and fine type of
art" and were "eloquent of a symmetry, a vitality, a delicacy of form, and
practically a reminiscence of the ancient Greeks." The antique bronze head
Frobenius describes as "a head of marvelous beauty, wonderfully cast," and
"almost equal in beauty and, at least, no less noble in form, and as
ancient as the terra-cotta heads."[64]

In a park of monuments Frobenius saw the celebrated forge and hammer: a
mighty mass of iron, like a falling drop in shape, and a block of quartz
fashioned like a drum. Frobenius thinks these were relics dating from past
ages of culture, when the manipulation of quartz and granite was
thoroughly understood and when iron manipulation gave evidence of a skill
not met with to-day.

Even when we contemplate such revolting survivals of savagery as
cannibalism we cannot jump too quickly at conclusions. Cannibalism is
spread over many parts of Negro Africa, yet the very tribes who practice
cannibalism show often other traits of industry and power. "These cannibal
Bassonga were, according to the types we met with, one of those rare
nations of the African interior which can be classed with the most
esthetic and skilled, most discreet and intelligent of all those generally
known to us as the so-called natural races. Before the Arabic and European
invasion they did not dwell in 'hamlets,' but in towns with twenty or
thirty thousand inhabitants, in towns whose highways were shaded by
avenues of splendid palms planted at regular intervals and laid out with
the symmetry of colonnades. Their pottery would be fertile in suggestion
to every art craftsman in Europe. Their weapons of iron were so perfectly
fashioned that no industrial art from abroad could improve upon their
workmanship. The iron blades were cunningly ornamented with damascened
copper, and the hilts artistically inlaid with the same metal. Moreover,
they were most industrious and capable husbandmen, whose careful tillage
of the suburbs made them able competitors of any gardener in Europe. Their
sexual and parental relations evidenced an amount of tact and delicacy of
feelings unsurpassed among ourselves, either in the simplicity of the
country or the refinements of the town. Originally