The riverine islands of the Gaboon proper will be noticed as we ascend the bed. Pongo-land ignores all such artificial partitions as districts or parishes; the only divisions are the countries occupied by the several tribes. The four seasons of the temperates are utterly unknown to the heart of the tropics — even in Hindostan the poet who would sing, for instance, the charms of spring must borrow the latter word Buhar from the Persian.
The traveller is always assured that this time there have been no rains, or no dries, or no tornadoes, or one or all in excess, till at last he comes to the conclusion that the Clerk of the Weather must have mislaid his ledger. Contrary to the popular idea, which has descended to us from the classics, the climate under the Line is not of that torrid heat which a vertical sun suggests; the burning zone of the Old World begins in the northern hemisphere, where the regular rains do not extend, beyond the tenth as far as the twenty-fifth degree. The equatorial climate is essentially temperate: Upon the Gaboon the wet seasons are synchronous with the vertical suns at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
Then the tradewinds, blowing regularly at other seasons, become gradually weaker, and at length cease and give way to variable winds and calms. The nights and mornings are for the most part bright and clear. When the sun moves away from the zenith, the trade-winds again begin to be felt, and bring with them the dry season of the year, during which hardly ever a cloud disturbs the serenity of the skies.
Closer to the tropical lines, where the sun remains but once in the zenith, the rainy season is a continuous one. An explanation should be added of the reason why the cool wind ceases to blow, at the time when the air, heated and raised by a perpendicular sun, might be expected to cause a greater indraught. We at once, I have said, recognize its correctness at sea. The heavy downfalls are mostly at night, possibly an effect of the Sierra del Crystal. I found March 28th very like damp weather at the end of an English May; April 6th was equally exceptional, raining from dawn to evening.
After an interval of fiery sun, with occasional rain torrents and discharges of electricity, begin the Enomo Enun? Travellers are told that June and July are the cream of the year, the healthiest time for seasoned Europeans, and this phantom of a winter renders the climate more supportable to the northern constitution. In the Gaboon heavy showers sometimes fall, July being the least subject to them, and the fiery sun, when it can disperse the clouds, turns the soil to dust.
The rainy seasons are healthier for the natives than the cold seasons; and the explorer is often urged to take advantage of them. He must, however, consult local experience. Whilst ascending rivers in November, for instance, he may find the many feet of flood a boon or a bane, and his marching journeys are nearly sure to end in ulcerated feet, as was the case with poor Dr.
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The latter also are not unbroken by storms and showers, and they end with tornadoes, which this year have been unusually frequent and violent. Under such media the disease, par excellence, of the Gaboon is the paroxysm which is variously called Coast, African, Guinea, and Bullom fever. Ford, who has written a useful treatise upon the subject, 3 finds hebdomadal periodicity in the attacks, and lays great stress upon this point of chronothermalism.
He recognizes the normal stages, preparatory, invasional, reactionary, and resolutionary. Ford also recommends during the invasion or period of chills external friction of mustard or of fresh red pepper either in tincture or in powder, a good alleviator always procurable; and the internal use of pepper-tea, to bring on the stages of reaction and resolution. Many can testify personally to the value of the unofficinal prescription which he offers in cases of severe lichen prickly heat , leading to impetigo. It is as follows, and it is valuable: Oil of bitter almonds.. The tribes occupying the Gaboon country may roughly be divided into two according to habitat — the maritime and those of the interior, who are quasi-mountaineers.
The inner hordes are the Dibwe M. Linguistically we may distribute them into three, namely, 1. They are variously estimated at 5, to 7, head, serviles included. They inhabit both sides of the Gaboon, extending about thirty-five miles along its banks, chiefly on the right; on the left only seawards of the Shekyani. The two great families on the northern river bank are the Quabens and the Glass, who style themselves kings and princes; the southern side lodges King William Roi Denis near the mouth, and the powerful King George, about twenty-five miles higher up stream.
There are also settlements scattered at various distances from the great highway of commerce to which they naturally cling, and upon the Coniquet and Parrot Islands. I noticed several pyramidal and brachycephalic heads, contrary to the rule for African man and simiad. In the remarkable paper read by Professor Busk before the Ethnological Society, that eminent physiologist proved that the Asiatic apes, typified by the ourang-outang, are brachycephalic, like the Mongolians amongst whom they live, or who live amongst them; whilst the gorillas and the African anthropoids are dolichocephalic as the negroes.
The Gaboon men are often almost black, whilst the women range between dark brown and cafe au lait. The beard, usually scanty, is sometimes bien fournie, especially amongst the seniors, but, whenever I saw a light-coloured and well-bearded man, the suspicion of mixed blood invariably obtruded itself. It is said that during the last thirty years they have greatly diminished, yet their habitat is still that laid down half a century ago by Bowdich, and all admit that the population of the river has not been materially affected.
The Mpongwe women have the reputation of being the prettiest and the most facile upon the West African coast. It is easy to distinguish two types. Some of the Gaboon giantesses have, unlike their northern sisters, regular and handsome features. A custom noticed by Barbot, but apparently obsolete in the days of Bowdich, was to bore the upper lip, and to insert a small ivory pin, extending from nose to mouth. All these things, fits included, are now obsolete. The men shave a line in the hair like a fillet round the skull, and what is left is coiffe au coup de vent.
The ornaments are necklaces of Venetian beads, the white pound, and the black and yellow seed: They are often attached to rude bells of iron or brass Igelenga, Ngenge, Nkendo, or Wonga , like the Chingufu of the Congo regions and the metal cones which are struck for signals upon the Tanganyika Lake. Taste and caprice produce endless modifications. Others again train four parallel lines from nape to forehead, forming two cushions along the parietals.
The crest is heightened by padding, and the whole of the hair is devoted to magnifying it — at a distance, some of the bushwomen look as if they wore cocked hats. When dreaded baldness appears, rosettes of false hair patch the temples, and plaits of purchased wigs are interwoven to increase the bulk: The comb is unknown, its succedaneum being a huge bodkin, like that which the Trasteverina has so often used as a stiletto. This instrument of castigation is made of ivory or metal, with a lozenge often neatly carved and ornamented at the handle.
The ears are adorned with broad rings of native make, and, near the trading stations, with French imitation jewellery. The neck supports many strings of beads, long and short, with the indispensable talismans. Both are gathered in front like the Shukkah of the eastern coast, and the bosom is left bare.
The exposure of the upper person shows the size and tumidity of the areola, even in young girls; being unsupported, the mammae soon become flaccid. The legs, which are peculiarly neat and well turned, are made by art a fitting set-off to the head. It is the pride of a Mpongwe wife to cover the lower limb between knee and ankle with an armour of metal rings, which are also worn upon the wrists; the custom is not modern, and travellers of the seventeenth century allude to them.
The rich affect copper, bought in wires two feet and a half long, and in two sizes; of the larger, four, of the smaller, eight, go to the dollar; the brass are cheaper, as 5: The native smiths make the circles, and the weight of a full set of forty varies from fifteen to nineteen pounds.
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They are separate rings, not a single coil, like that used by the Wagogo and other East African tribes; they press tightly on the limb, often causing painful chafes and sores. The ankle is generally occupied by a brass or iron chain, with small links. Girls may wear these rings, of which the husband is expected to present a considerable number to his bride, and the consequence is, that when in full dress she waddles like a duck.
Commerce and intercourse with whites has made the Mpongwe, once the rudest, now one of the most civilized of African tribes; and, upon the whole, there is an improvement. The exact Barbot iv. The women, on the contrary, are as civil and courteous to them, and will use all possible means to enjoy their company; but both sexes are the most wretchedly poor and miserable of any in Guinea, and yet so very haughty, that they are perfectly ridiculous.
They are all excessively fond of brandy and other strong liquors of Europe and America. If they fancy one has got a mouthful more than another, and they are half drunk, they will soon fall a-fighting, even with their own princes or priests. Their exceeding greediness for strong liquors renders them so little nice and curious in the choice of them, that, though mixed with half water, and sometimes a little Spanish soap put into it to give it a froth, to appear of proof by the scum it makes, they like it and praise it as much as the best and purest brandy.
If so, the Mpongwe have changed for the better. Devoted to trade and become a people of brokers, of go-betweens, of middle-men, the Mpongwe have now acquired an ease and propriety, a polish and urbanity of manner which contrasts strongly with the Kru-men and other tribes, who, despite generations of intercourse with Europeans, are rough and barbarous as their forefathers. The youths used to learn English, which they spoke fluently and with tolerable accent, but always barbarously; they are more successful with the easier neo-Latin tongues.
Many of them have received advances of dollars by thousands, but the European merchant has generally suffered from his credulity or rapacity. Labourers are hired at the rate of two to three dollars per mensem, and gangs would easily be collected if one of the chiefs were placed in command. No sum of money will buy a free-born Mpongwe, and the sale is forbidden by the laws of the land. The three grades of Mpongwe may be considered as rude beginnings of caste. Old travellers record a belief that, unlike all other Guinea races, the Mpongwe marries his mother, sister, or daughter; and they compare the practice with that of the polished Persians and the Peruvian Incas, who thus kept pure the solar and lunar blood.
Marriage amongst the Mpongwe is a purely civil contract, as in Africa generally, and so perhaps it will some day be in Europe, Asia, and America. The following is, or rather I should say was, a fair list of articles paid for a virgin bride. He must indeed be a Solomon of a son who, sur les bords du Gabon, can guess at his own sire; a question so impertinent is never put by the ex-officio father. Trading tribes rarely affect the pundonor which characterizes the pastoral and the predatory; these people traffic in all things, even in the chastity of their women.
What with pre-nuptial excesses, with early unions, often infructuous, with a virtual system of community, and with universal drunkenness, it is not to be wondered at if the maritime tribes of Africa degenerate and die out. Such apparently is the modus operandi by which Nature rids herself of the effete races which have served to clear the ground and to pave the way for higher successors. Wealth and luxury, so generally inveighed against by poets and divines, injure humanity only when they injuriously affect reproduction; and poverty is praised only because it breeds more men.
The true tests of the physical prosperity of a race, and of its position in the world, are bodily strength and the excess of births over deaths. Separation after marriage can hardly be dignified on the Gaboon by the name of divorce. Quarrels about the sex are very common, yet, in cases of adultery the old murderous assaults are now rare except amongst the backwoodsmen. Yet the Mpongwe do not, like other tribes on the west coast, practise that separation of the sexes during gestation and lactation, which is enjoined to the Hebrews, recommended by Catholicism, and commanded by Mormonism — a system which partly justifies polygamy.
In Portuguese Guinea the enceinte is claimed by her relatives, especially by the women, for three years, that she may give undivided attention to her offspring, who is rightly believed to be benefited by the separation, and that she may return to her husband with renewed vigour. Meanwhile custom allows the man to co-habit with a slave girl. Polygamy, also, in Africa is rather a political than a domestic or social institution. When the head wife ages, she takes charge of the girlish brides committed to her guardianship by the husband.
I should try vainly to persuade the English woman that there can be peace in households so constituted: Wilson and Du Chaillu both assert that the wives rarely disagree amongst themselves. Everywhere, moreover, amongst polygamists, the husband is strictly forbidden by popular opinion to show preference for a favourite wife; if he do so, he is a bad man.
But polygamy here has not rendered the women, as theoretically it should, a down-trodden moiety of society; on the contrary, their position is comparatively high. When poor and slaveless and, naturally, when no longer young, they must work in the house and in the field, but this lot is not singular; in journeys they carry the load, yet it is rarely heavier than the weapons borne by the man.
On the other hand, after feeding their husbands, what remains out of the fruits of their labours is their own, wholly out of his reach — a boon not always granted by civilization. As in Unyamwezi, they guard their rights with a truly feminine touchiness and jealousy. The strong-minded of London and New York have not yet succeeded in thoroughly organizing and popularizing their clubs; the belles sauvages of the Gaboon have.
Dropped a few years ago by the men, it was taken up by their wives, and it now numbers a host of initiated, limited only by heavy entrance fees. This form of freemasonry deals largely in processions, whose preliminaries and proceedings are kept profoundly secret. The French officers, never standing upon ceremony in such matters, have often insisted upon being present. Circumcision, between the fourth and eighth year, is universal in Pongo-land, and without it a youth could not be married.
The operation is performed generally by the chief, often by some old man, who receives a fee from the parents: The Hebrews, who almost everywhere retained circumcision, have, in Europe at least, long abandoned excision. I regret that the delicacy of the age does not allow me to be more explicit. The Mpongwe practise a rite so resembling infant baptism that the missionaries have derived it from a corruption of Abyssinian Christianity which, like the flora of the Camarones and Fernandian Highlands, might have travelled across the Dark Continent, where it has now been superseded by El Islam.
It will best be established, not by the single great family of language, but by the similarity of manners, customs, and belief; of arts and crafts; of utensils and industry. The baptism of Pongo-land is as follows. It is placed upon a banana leaf, for which reason the plantain is never used to stop the water-pots; and the chief or the nearest of kin sprinkles it from a basin, gives it a name, and pronounces a benediction, his example being followed by all present.
Truly a new form of the regenerative rite! A curious prepossession of the African mind, curious and yet general, in a land where population is the one want, and where issue is held the greatest blessing, is the imaginary necessity of limiting the family. Perhaps this form of infanticide is a policy derived from ancestors who found it necessary. In the kingdom of Apollonia Guinea the tenth child was always buried alive; never a Decimus was allowed to stand in the way of the nine seniors. The birth of twins is an evil portent to the Mpongwes, as it is in many parts of Central Africa, and even in the New World; it also involves the idea of moral turpitude, as if the woman were one of the lower animals, capable of superfetation.
There is no greater insult to a man, than to point at him with two fingers, meaning that he is a twin; of course he is not one, or he would have been killed at birth. There is no novelty in the Mpongwe funeral rites; the same system prevails from the Oil Rivers to Congo-land, and extends even to the wild races of the interior.
The slave is thrown out into the bush — no one will take the trouble to dig a hole for him. The industry of the Mpongwe is that of the African generally; every man is a host in himself; he builds and furnishes his house, he makes his weapons and pipes, and he ignores division of labour, except in the smith and the carpenter; in the potter, who works without a wheel, and in the dyer, who knows barks, and who fixes his colours with clay. The men especially pride themselves upon canoe-making; the favourite wood is the buoyant Okumeh or bombax, that monarch of the African forest.
These craft easily carry 10 tons, and travel to miles, which, as Mr. Wilson remarks, would land them, under favourable circumstances, in South America. Captain Boteler found that the Mpongwe boat combined symmetry of form, strength, and solidity, with safeness and swiftness either in pulling or sailing. And of late years the people have succeeded in launching large and fast craft built after European models. The Persians, who commence drinking late in life, can swallow strong waters by the tumbler. Some tribes make a decent snuff of the common trade article, but I never saw either sex chew — perhaps the most wholesome, and certainly the most efficacious form.
Intoxicating hemp is now grown everywhere, especially in the Nkommi country, and little packages, neatly bound with banana leaves, sell on the river for ten sous each. I at once recognized the implement in the Brazil, where many slave-holders simply supposed it to be a servile and African form of tobacco-pipe.
My Spanish friends at Po tried but did not like it. The religion of African races is ever interesting to those of a maturer faith; it is somewhat like the study of childhood to an old man. They no longer see through a glass darkly; nothing with them is left vague or undetermined. Continuation, resurrection, eternity are hereditary and habitual ideas; they have become almost inseparable and congenital parts of the mental system.
This condition renders it nearly as difficult for us to understand the vagueness and mistiness of savage and unwritten creeds, as to penetrate into the modus agendi of animal instinct. And there is yet another obstacle in dealing with such people, their intense and childish sensitiveness and secretiveness. They are not, as some have foolishly supposed, ashamed of their tenets or their practices, but they are unwilling to speak about them. They fear the intentions of the cross-questioner, and they hold themselves safest behind a crooked answer. Nothing also can be more illogical than the awe and respect claimed by Mr.
Herbert Spencer for a being of which the very essence is that nothing can be known of it. And the very vagueness of the modern faith serves to assimilate it the more to its most ancient forms, one of which we are studying upon the Gaboon River. The missionary returning from Africa is often asked what is the religion of the people? He presently found that no two men thought alike upon any single subject: I need hardly say that he gave up in despair a work hopeless as psychology, the mere study of the individual.
I cannot but look upon it as the first dawn of a faith in things not seen.
And it must be studied by casting off all our preconceived ideas. For instance, Africans believe, not in soul nor in spirit, but in ghost; when they called M. They have a material, evanescent, intelligible future, not an immaterial, incomprehensible eternity; the ghost endures only for awhile and perishes like the memory of the little-great name. Hence the ignoble dread in East and West Africa of a death which leads to a shadowy world, and eventually to utter annihilation. Seeing nought beyond the present-future, there is no hope for them in the grave; they wail and sorrow with a burden of despair.
When so be you die, you come up for monkey! Certain missionaries in the Gaboon River have detected evidences of Judaism amongst the Mpongwe, which deserve notice but which hardly require detailed refutation. Circumcision, even on the eighth day as amongst the Efik of the old Calabar River; but this is a familiar custom borrowed from Egypt by the Semites; it is done in a multitude of ways, which are limited only by necessity; the resemblance of the Mpongwe rite to that of the Jews, though remarkable, is purely accidental.
The division of tribes into separate families and frequently into the number twelve; but this again appears fortuitous; almost all the West African people have some such division, and they range upwards from three, as amongst the Kru-men, the Gallas, the Wakwafi,and the Wanyika. Exogamy or the rigid interdiction of marriage between clans and families nearly related; here again the Hindu and the Somal observe the custom rigidly, whilst the Jews and Arabs have ever taken to wife their first cousins. Sacrifices with blood-sprinkling upon altars and door-posts; a superstition almost universal, found in Peru and Mexico as in Palestine, preserved in Ashanti and probably borrowed by the Hebrews from the African Egyptians.
The formal and ceremonial observance of new moons; but the Wanyamwezi and other tribes also hail the appearance of the lesser light, like the Moslems, who, when they sight the Hilal crescent , ejaculate a short prayer for blessings throughout the month which it ushers in. A specified time of mourning for the dead common to all barbarians as to civilized races , during which their survivors wear soiled clothes an instinctive sign of grief, as fine dresses are of joy , and shave their heads doubtless done to make some difference from every-day times , accompanied with ceremonial purifications what ancient people has not had some such whim?
The system of Runda or forbidden meats; but every traveller has found this practice in South as in East Africa, and I noticed it among the Somal who, even when starving, will not touch fish nor fowl. The Mpongwe and their neighbours have advanced a long step beyond their black brethren in Eastern Africa.
Moreover, the Gaboon pagans lodge their idols. Behind each larger establishment there is a dwarf hut, the miniature of a dwelling-place, carefully closed; I thought these were offices, but Hotaloya Andrews taught me otherwise. It represents in the highest signification the Columbian Manitou, and thus men talk of the Mbwiri of a tree or a river; as will presently be seen, it is also applied to a tutelar god; and I have shown how it means a ghost.
Every Mpongwe, woman as well as man, has some Mbwiri to which offerings are made in times of misfortune, sickness, or danger. I afterwards managed to enter one of these rude and embryonal temples so carefully shut. To the walls are suspended sundry mystic implements, especially basins, smeared with red and white chalk-mixture, and wooden crescents decorated with beads and ribbons. During worship certain objects are placed before the Joss, the suppliant at the same time jangling and shaking the Ncheke a rude beginning of the bell, the gong, the rattle, and the instruments played before idols by more advanced peoples.
It is a piece of wood, hour-glass-shaped but flat, and some six inches and a half long; the girth of the waist is five inches, and about three more round the ends. The wood is cut away, leaving rude and uneven raised bands horizontally striped with white, black, and red. Two brass wires are stretched across the upper and lower breadth, and each is provided with a ring or hinge holding four or five strips of wire acting as clappers. The beliefs and superstitions popularly attributed to the Mpongwe are these.
They are not without that which we call a First Cause, and they name it Anyambia, which missionary philologists consider a contraction of Aninla, spirit? He would harm if he could, ergo so would his god. I once hesitated to believe that these rude people had arrived at the notion of duality, at the Manichaeanism which caused Mr. Nor should I have credited them with so logical an apparatus for the regimen of the universe, or so stout-hearted an attempt to solve the eternal riddle of good and evil.
But the same belief also exists amongst the Congoese tribes, and even in the debased races of the Niger. The women and children fly at the approach of this devil on two sticks, and with reason: The negro finds it almost impossible to rid himself of his belief; the spiritual despotism is the expression of his organization, a part of himself. Progressive races, on the other hand, can throw off or exchange every part of their religion, except perhaps the remnant of original and natural belief in things unseen — in fact, the Fetishist portion, such as ghost-existence and veneration of material objects, places, and things.
But we blacks have known many men who have been bewitched and died. Witchcraft, which has by no means thoroughly disappeared from Europe, maintains firm hold upon the African brain. As amongst barbarians generally, no misfortune happens, no accident occurs, no illness nor death can take place without the agency of wizard or witch. There is nothing more odious than this crime; it is hostile to God and man, and it must be expiated by death in the most terrible tortures.
Metamorphosis is a common art amongst Mpongwe magicians: Here the adept naturally becomes a gorilla or a leopard, as he would be a lion in South Africa, a hyena in Abyssinia and the Somali country, and a loup-garou in Brittany. The poison ordeal is a necessary corollary to witchcraft. Professor John Torrey believes the active principle to be a vegeto-alkali of the Strychnos group, but the symptoms do not seem to bear out the conjecture. The accused, after drinking the potion, is ordered to step over sticks of the same plant, which are placed a pace apart. If the man be affected, he raises his foot like a horse with string-halt, and this convicts him of the foul crime.
Of course there is some antidote, as the medicine-man himself drinks large draughts of his own stuff: Doubtless many innocent lives have been lost by this superstition. The Mpongwe have also some peculiarities in their notions of justice. If a man murder another, the criminal is put to death, not by the nearest of kin, as amongst the Arabs and almost all wild people, but by the whole community; this already shows an advanced appreciation of the act and its bearings. The penalty is either drowning or burning alive: Here, again, we find a sense of the sanctity of life the reverse of barbarous.
Cutting and maiming are punished by the fine of a slave. And now briefly to resume the character of the Mpongwe, a nervous and excitable race of negroes. The men are deficient in courage, as the women are in chastity, and neither sex has a tincture of what we call morality. To commercial shrewdness and eagerness they add exceptional greed of gain and rascality; foreign rum and tobacco, dress and ornaments, arms and ammunition have been necessaries to them; they will have them, and, unless they can supply themselves by licit, they naturally fly to illicit means.
Pre-eminent liars, they are, curious to say, often deceived by the falsehoods of others, and they fairly illustrate the somewhat paradoxical proverb:. Unblushing mendicants, cunning and calculating, their obstinacy is remarkable; yet, as we often find the African, they are at the same time irresolute in the extreme. Their virtues are vivacity, mental activity, acute observation, sociability, politeness, and hospitality: The language of the Mpongwe has been fairly studied.
He first gave Appendix VI. In the Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London part ii. The Book of Proverbs, translated into the Mpongwe language at the mission of the A. The Books of Genesis, part of Exodus, Proverbs, and Acts, by the same, printed at the same place and in the same year. This branch has its peculiarities. Like Italian — the coquette who grants her smiles to many, her favours to few — one of the easiest to understand and to speak a little, it is very difficult to master.
Whilst every native child can thread its way safely through its intricate, elaborate, and apparently arbitrary variations, the people comprehend a stranger who blunders over every sentence. Wilson thus limits the use of the accent: The adjectival form is archaically expressed by a second and abstract substantive. This peculiarity is common in the South African family, as in Ashanti; but, as Bowdich observes, we also find it in Greek, e. As we advance north we find this phenomenon ever increasing; for instance in Fernando Po; but the Mpongwe limits the change to verbs.
Another distinguishing point of these three Gaboon tongues, as the Rev. There are, perhaps, no other languages in the world that approach them in the variety and extent of the inflections of the verb, possessing at the same time such rigid regularity of conjugation and precision of the meaning attached to each part. Liquid and eminently harmonious, concise and capable of contraction, the Mpongwe tongue does not deserve to die out.
The main defect is that of the South African languages generally — a deficiency of syntax, of gender and case; a want of vigour in sound; a too great precision of expression, rendering it clumsy and unwieldy; and an absence of exceptions, which give beauty and variety to speech. The people have never invented any form of alphabet, yet the abundance of tale, legend, and proverb which their dialect contains might repay the trouble of acquiring it. The Spanish, formerly the favourite, and always worth 4s. Houlston and Stoneman, Albert Tootal, annotated by myself, and published by the Hakluyt Society, I was by no means sanguine of success — when the fight is against Time, the Old Man usually wins the day.
Thus whilst I, without any fault of my own, utterly failed in shooting a gorilla, although I saw him and heard him, and came upon his trail, and found his mortal spoils, another traveller had hardly landed in the Gaboon before he was so fortunate as to bring down a fine anthropoid. However, as man cannot command success, I was obliged to content myself with doing all in my power to deserve it. I offered five dollars, equalling the same number of sovereigns in England, to every huntsman for every fair shot, and ten dollars for each live ape.
I implicitly obeyed all words of command, and my factotum Selim Agha was indefatigable in his zeal. Sporting parties are often made up by the Messieurs du Plateau, I had been told at the Comptoir; but such are the fascinations of les petites, that few ever progress beyond the first village. The next day was perforce a halt, as had been expected; moreover, rains and tornadoes were a reasonable pretext for nursing the headache.
The 21st was also wet and stormy, so Nimrod hid himself and was not to be found.
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Then the balivernes began. Before dark, Forteune appeared, and swore that he had spent the day in the forest, he had shot at a gorilla, but the gun missed fire — of course he had slept in a snug hut. It promised sand-flies, the prime pest of this region; a tall amphitheatre of trees on a dune to the west excluded the sea-breeze, and northwards a swampy hollow was a fine breeding place for M.
She placed mats upon the bamboo couch under the verandah, brought water to wash our feet, and put the kettle on that we might have tea. At dawn on the 23rd we set out for the southern bush, Selim, Forteune, and a carrier Kru-man — to carry nothing. We passed through a fresh clearing, we traversed another village three within five miles!
The leaves no longer crackled crisp under foot, and the late rains had made the swamps somewhat odorous. After an hour of cautious walking, listening as we went, we saw evident signs of Mister Gorilla. A little beyond we were shown a spot where two males had been fighting a duel, or where a couple had been indulging in dalliance sweet; the prints were 8 inches long and 6 across the huge round toes; whilst the hinder hand appeared almost bifurcate, the thumb forming nearly a half.
Presently we came upon the five bushmen who had been appointed to meet us. They were a queer-looking lot, with wild, unsteady eyes, receding brows, horizontal noses, and projecting muzzles; the cranium and the features seemed disposed nearly at a right angle, giving them a peculiar baboon-like semblance.
There were also two boys with native axes, small iron triangles, whose points passed through knob-sticks; these were to fell the trees in which our game might take refuge, and possibly they might have done so in a week. A few minutes with this party convinced me that I was wilfully wasting time; they would not separate, and they talked so loud that game would be startled a mile off.
I proposed that they should station me in a likely place, form a circle, and drive up what was in it — they were far above acting beaters after that fashion. So we dismissed them and dispersed about the bush. My factotum shot a fine Mboko Siurus eborivorus , 2 ft. I had heard of it in East and Central Africa, but the tale appeared fabulous: The bushmen also brought a Shoke Colubus Satanas , a small black monkey, remarkably large limbed: Forteune walked in very tired about sunset. He had now added streaks of red to the white chalk upon his face, arms, and breast, for he suspected, we were assured, witchcraft.
Monday the 24th was a Black Monday, sultry and thundery. We went to the bush, and once more we returned, disgusted by the chattering of the wild men. As we discussed our plans for moving, Forteune threw cold water upon every proposal. This puzzled me, and the difficulty was to draw his secret. I did not believe a word of his intelligence; the direction is south-west instead of south-east, towards the sea instead of into the forest.
But the next day dawned, and the sun rose high, and the world was well heated and aired before the bushmen condescended to appear. Our specimen was strung with thin cords made from the fibre of a lliana; I was shown this growth, which looked much like a convolvulus. The people have a long list of instruments, and their music, though monotonous, is soft and plaintive: The path plunged westward into the bush, spanned a dirty and grass-grown plantation of bananas, dived under thorn tunnels and arches of bush, and crossed six nullahs, Neropotamoi, then dry, but full of water on our return.
Like most of their congeners, the animals die when exposed to the sun. It is little feared in the Gaboon; when its armies attack the mission-houses, they are easily stopped by lighting spirits of turpentine, or by a strew of quicklime, which combines with the formic acid. We passed the mortal remains of a gorilla lashed to a pole; the most interesting parts had been sold to Mr.
Walker, and were on their way to England. In the style of collecting the gum olamboo was to spread with a knife the glutinous milk as it oozed from the tree over the shaved breast and arms like a plaister; it was then taken off, rolled up in balls to play with or stretched over drums, no other use being known. The juice is milk-white, thick, and glutinous, soon stiffening, darkening, and hardening without aid of art.
I should like to see the raw material tried for making waterproofs in the tropics, where the best vulcanized articles never last. The difficulty everywhere is to make the negro collect it, and, when he does, to sell it unadulterated: At a brook of the sweetest water, purling over the cleanest and brightest of golden sands, we filled the canteens, this being the last opportunity for some time. Forest walks are thirsty work during the hot season; the air is close, fetid, and damp with mire; the sea-breeze has no power to enter, and perspiration streams from every pore.
After heavy rains it is still worse, the surface of the land is changed, and paths become lines of dark puddles; the nullahs, before dry, roll muddy, dark-brown streams, and their mouths streak the sea with froth and scum. Hardly a living object meets the eye, and only the loud, whirring flight of some large bird breaks the dreary silence. The music of the surf now sounded like the song of the sea-shell as we crossed another rough prism of stone and bush, whose counter-slope fell gently into a sand-flat overgrown with Ipomaa and other bright flowering plants.
After walking about an hour equal to 2. Northwards lay Point Ipizarala, southways Nyonye, both looking like tree-clumps rising from the waves. I could not sufficiently admire, and I shall never forget the exquisite loveliness of land and sea; the graceful curve of the beach, a hundred feet broad, fining imperceptibly away till lost in the convexity of waters. The morning sun, half way to the zenith, burned bright in a cloudless sky, whilst in the east and west distant banks of purple mist coloured the liquid plain with a cool green-blue, a celadon tint that reposed the eye and the brain.
The shoreline was backed by a dark vegetable wall, here and there broken and fronted by single trees, white mangroves tightly corded down, and raised on stilted roots high above the tide. Upon the classic shores of Greece I should have thought of Poseidon and the Nereids; but the lovely scene was in unromantic Africa, which breeds no such visions of.
We then came upon a blockaded lagoon; the sea-water had been imprisoned by a high bank which the waves had washed up, and it will presently be released by storms from the south-west. Near the water, even at half-ebb, we find the floor firm and pleasant; it becomes loose walking at high tide, and the ribbed banks are fatiguing to ascend and descend under a hot sun and in reeking air. A seine would have supplied a man-of-war in a few hours; large turtle is often turned; in places young ones about the size of a dollar scuttled towards the sea, and Hotaloya brought a nest of eggs, which, however, were too high in flavour for the European palate.
Presently we came to a remarkable feature of this coast, the first specimen of which was seen at Point Ovindo in the Gaboon River. These prairies bear a green sward, seldom taller than three feet, and now ready for the fire — here and there the verdure is dotted by a tree or two. It is universally asserted that they cannot be cultivated; and, if this be true, the cause would be worth investigating.
In some places they are perfectly level, and almost flush with the sea; in others they swell gently to perhaps feet; in other parts, again, they look like scarps and earth-works, remarkably resembling the lower parasitic craters of a huge volcano; and here and there they are pitted with sinks like the sea-board of Loango. During our halt for breakfast at the barracoon, we were visited by Petit Denis, a son of the old king.
He was dressed in the usual loin-wrap, under a broadcloth coat, with the French official buttons. The fiery sun had sublimated black clouds, the northeast quarter looked ugly, and I wished to be housed before the storm burst. The coast appeared populous; we met many bushmen, who were perfectly civil, and showed no fear, although some of them had probably never seen a white face. All were armed with muskets, and carried the usual hunting talismans, horns and iron or brass bells, hanging from the neck before and behind.
We crossed four sweet-water brooks, which, draining the high banks, flowed fast and clear down cuts of loose, stratified sand, sometimes five feet deep: Those which are not bridged with fallen trees must be swum during the rains, as the water is often waist-deep. Many streamlets, shown by their feathery fringes of bright green palm, run along the shore before finding an outlet; they are excellent bathing places, where the salt water can be washed off the skin.
The sea is delightfully tepid, but it is not without risk — it becomes deep within biscuit-toss, there is a strong under-tow, and occasionally an ugly triangular fin may be seen cruizing about in unpleasant proximity. It was then noon, and we had walked about three hours and a half in a general south-south-west direction. As a return for our information, he told us that the Gorilla was everywhere to be found, even in the bush behind his town. I agreed the more willingly to the suggestion of a cruize, as my Mpongwe fashionables, like the Congoese, and unlike the Yorubans, proved to be bad and untrained walkers; they complained of sore feet, and they were always anticipating attacks of fever.
Wednesday, as we might have expected, was wasted, although the cool and cloudy weather was perfection for a cruize. I followed him incredulously at first, but presently the crashing of boughs and distant grunts, somewhat like huhh! He was accompanied by a young wife, with a huge toupel, and a gang of slaves, who sat down and stared till their eyes blinked and watered. For the loan of his old canoe he asked the moderate sum of fifteen dollars per diem, which finally fell to two dollars; but there was a suspicious reservation anent oars, paddles and rudder, mast and sail.
After dark Forteune returned. As the monster was close, and had shown signs of wrath, we were expected to congratulate Nimrod on his escape. Kindly observe the neat gradations, the artistic sorites of Mpongwe lies. I replied by paying him his money, and ordering the craft to be baled and launched. It was a spectacle to see the bushmen lying upon their bellies, kicking their heels in the air, and yep-yep-yeping uproariously when Forteune, their master, begged of them to bear a hand. Dean Presto might have borrowed from them a hint for his Yahoos.
The threat to empty the Alugu rum upon the sand was efficacious. One by one they rose to work, and in the slowest possible way were produced five oars, of which one was sprung, a ricketty rudder, a huge mast, and a sail composed half of matting and half of holes. A lad was started to fetch these articles; and he set off at a hand-gallop, making me certain that behind the first corner he would subside into a saunter, and lie down to rest on reaching the huts.
Briefly, it was 9 A. With wind, tide, and current dead against us, we hugged the shore where the water is deep. The surf was breaking in heavy sheets upon a reef or shoal outside, and giving ample occupation to a hovering flock of fish-eating birds. Whilst returning over water smooth as glass I observed the curious effect of the current.
To compact grain she added small specific gravity, and, though stout and thick, she advanced at a speed of which I could hardly believe her capable. Past Nyonye the coast forms another shallow bay, with about ten miles of chord, in every way a copy of its northern neighbour — the same scene of placid beauty, the sea rimmed with opalline air, pink by contrast with the ultramarine blue; the limpid ether overhead; the golden sands, and the emerald verdure — a Circe, however, whose caress is the kiss of death.
A creek supplied us with pure cold water, a spreading tree with a roof, and the soft clean shore with the most luxurious of couches — at 3 P. I could hardly persuade myself that an hour had flown. Seeing that our course was unaltered, a large and well-manned canoe put off, and the rest of the population walked down shore. Consequently, here, as in Angola and in the lowlands of the Brazil, it is a slight to pass by without a visit; and jealousy, a ruling passion amongst Africans, suggests that the stranger is bound for another and rival village.
But what could I do? To indulge native prejudice would have stretched my cruize to a fortnight; and I had neither time, supplies, nor stomach for the task. On our return, however, he prospected us from afar with the greatest indifference; we were empty-handed. As we had not even a stone for an anchor, the plea proved, valid. We guided ourselves, by the fitful flashes of forked and sheet lightning combined, towards a ghostly point, whose deeper blackness silhouetted it against the shades.
We lost nearly half an hour of most valuable time in pottering and groping before all had landed. At that moment the rain-clouds burst, and in five minutes after the first spatter all were wet to the skin. Selim and I stood close together, trying to light a match, when a sheet of white fire seemed to be let down from the black sky, passing between us with a simultaneous thundering crash and rattle, and a sulphurous smell, as if a battery had been discharged.
I saw my factotum struck down whilst in the act of staggering and falling myself; we lay still for a few moments, when a mutual inquiry showed that both were alive, only a little shaken and stunned; the sensation was simply the shock of an electrical machine and the discharge of a Woolwich infant — greatly exaggerated. We then gave up the partie; it was useless to contend against Jupiter Tonans as well as Pluvialis.
The gentlemen who stay at home at ease may think damp sheets dangerous, but Malvern had long ago taught me the perfect safety of the wettest bivouac, provided that the body remains warm. At Fernando Po, as at Zanzibar, a drunken sailor after a night in the gutter will catch fever, and will probably die. But he has exposed himself to the inevitable chill after midnight, he is unacclimatized, and both places are exceptionally deadly — to say nothing of the liquor. The experienced African traveller awaking with a chilly skin, swallows a tumbler of cold water, and rolls himself in a blanket till he perspires; there is only one alternative.
Next day I arose at 4 A. Some country people presently came up, and rated us for sleeping in the bush; we retorted in kind, telling them that they should have been more wide-awake. The forest showed a novel feature: The streamlet is a favourite haunt of the hippopotamus; a small one dived when it sighted us, and did not reappear.
It was the only specimen that I saw during my three years upon the West African Coast — a great contrast to that of Zanzibar, where half a dozen may be shot in a single day. The musket has made all the difference. The day was exceptional for West Africa, and much like damp weather at the end of an English May; the grey air at times indulged us with a slow drizzle. After two hours we passed another maritime village, where the farce of yesterday evening was re-acted, but this time with more vigour.
Whereupon Hotaloya began pathetically to reproach him for being thus prodigal of the truth. He then blustered and threatened instant death, at which it was easy to laugh. It was a beautiful site, the end of a grassy dune, declining gradually toward the tree-fringed sea; the yellow slopes, cut by avenues and broken by dwarf table-lands, were long afterwards recalled to my memory, when sighting the fair but desolate scenery south of Paraguayan Asuncion. These downs appear to be a sea-coast raised by secular upheaval, and much older than the flat tracts which encroach upon the Atlantic.
We could now understand the position of the town which figures so largely in the squadron-annals of the equatorial shore; it was set upon a hillock, whence the eye could catch the approaching sail of the slaver, and where the flag could be raised conspicuously in token of no cruiser being near. A deep silence reigned where the song of joy and the shrieks of torture had so often been answered by the voice of the forest, and Eternal Nature had ceased to be disturbed by the follies and crimes of man. King Pass-all had completed his education in Portugal: Towards the end of his life he became paralytic, like King Pepple of Bonny, and dangerous to the whites as well as to the blacks under his rule.
The people, however, still speak highly of him, generosity being a gift which everywhere covers a multitude of sins. He was succeeded by one of his sons, who is favourably mentioned, but who soon followed him to the grave. I saw another, a boy, apparently a slave to a Mpongwe on the coast, and the rest of the family is scattered far and wide.
I deferred a visit until a more favourable time, and — that time never came. Cape Lopez is said to have considerable advantages for developing trade, but the climate appears adverse. A large Catholic mission, described by Barbot, was established here by the Portuguese: Little need be said about our return, which was merrier than the outward bound trip. Wind, tide, and current were now in our favour, and we followed the chords, not the arcs, of the several bays. Various obstacles delayed us on the way, and the shades of evening began to close in rapidly; night already reigned over the forest.
Progress under such circumstances requires the greatest care; as in the streets of Damascus, one must ever look fixedly at the ground, under penalty of a shaking stumble over cross-bars of roots, or fallen branches hidden by grass and mud. And the worst of these wet walks is that, sooner or later, they bring on swollen feet, which the least scratch causes to ulcerate, and which may lame the traveller for weeks.
They are often caused by walking and sitting in wet shoes and stockings; it is so troublesome to pull off and pull on again after wading and fording, repeated during every few hundred yards, that most men tramp through the brooks and suffer in consequence. Constant care of the feet is necessary in African travel, and the ease with which they are hurt — sluggish circulation, poor food and insufficient stimulants being the causes — is one of its deplaisirs. The people wash and anoint these wounds with palm oil: Since my departure from the coast, French naval officers, travellers and traders, have not been idle.
The explorers found many shoals and shifting sands before entering the estuary; in the evening they stopped at the Ogobe confluence, where a French seaman was employed in custom-house duties. Paris Factory, however, had fallen to ruins, the traders having migrated miles higher up the Kamma River.
The fauna and flora of the Ogobe are those of the Gaboon, and the variety of beautiful parrots is especially remarked. On January 9, , M. Their country is large and contains many factories, the traders securing allies by marrying native women. The exports are almost entirely comprised in gum mastic and ivory.
At the factory of Mr. Walker, who made sundry excursions between and , also wrote from Elobe that he had left the French explorers, MM. They did not leave before collecting specimens of the language. Further eastward, going towards the country of the Yalimbongo tribe, they found the Okanda River, which they make the southern fork, the Okono being the northern, descending from the mountains; here food was plentiful compared with Okota-land.
This building is of Genoese style from the 19th century. It possesses an entry surround by two columns. Its facade is decorated by a painted border representing stylized pipe dreams. There are several artworks in the garden among which a statue o First edition, Berceuse, Op. In its original version it is for solo violin and piano.
The composer later published a version for violin and orchestra, and the work has been arranged by others for various musical forces. He set the pattern followed by Liszt and others in their berceuses: Gabriel Faure was a French poet, novelist and essayist. He was the author of many books about Italy, and the editor of a book prefaced by Benito Mussolini. The work was first performed the following year on 4 August in a version with accompaniment of strings and organ.
The style shows similarities with his later work, Requiem. Today, the two works are often performed together. There he received training in piano, theory, composition, and classical languages. Weekly choir singing was part of the curriculum for all students.
The Conservatoire offers instruction in music, dance, and drama, drawing on the traditions of the "French School". Today the conservatories operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. It is written to be sung by vocal quartet or choir, with piano or — a later addition — an orchestral accompaniment. The song was reused in in the composer's Masques et bergamasques.
The pianist and scholar Graham Johnson comments that the song has "the wittiness and suggestiveness of a speech by the best man at a wedding. Bach which may have had some private significance for t The work is dedicated to Mme Maurice Rouvier, widow of the former prime minister. Although he had been reluctant to do so, it brought him more free time to devote to composition, and his final years were marked by the production of many substantial new works.
He used a similar technique for his later song cycle La bonne chanson,[3] which was also based on Verlaine's poetry. It was first performed in , seven years after his first quartet. Nectoux adds that there was the advantage that the exist Formes et Forces La Sainte Face La Danse sur le Feu et l'Eau Histoire de l'Art — L'Esprit des Formes D'Autres Terres en Vue Critical edition by Juliette Hoffenberg, Seghers , Ravel in Joseph Maurice Ravel ; French: He is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term.
In the s and s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz.
He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibit After studying at the Paris Conservatoire he followed a conventional career as a church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and, from , La Madeleine, the official church of the French Empire. After leaving the post twenty years later, he was a successful freelance pianist and composer, in demand in Europe and the Americas. Police photograph of Faure taken before He engaged in politics as a socialist before turning to anarchism in At the time of the Dreyfus affair, he was one of the leading supporters of Alfred Dreyfus.
In , he launched the periodical "Ce qu'il faut dire". Faure also co-founded with Voline the Synthesis, or also known as synthesis anarchism which was an influential form of conceiving a His work draws on cultural theory, anthropology, and gender studies. His father was the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and he's married to philosopher and musicologist Danielle Cohen-Levinas.
Poster of the Les XX exhibition Les XX was a group of twenty Belgian painters, designers and sculptors, formed in by the Brussels lawyer, publisher, and entrepreneur Octave Maus. For ten years "Les Vingt" French pronunciation: Les XX was in some ways a successor to the group L'Essor. Composed during —10, it is based on the collection of poetry of the same name by Charles van Lerberghe.
It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux. Modern Le Havre remains deeply influenced by its employment and maritime traditions. Its port is the second largest in France, after that of Marseille, for total traffic, and the largest French container port. The name Le Havre means "the harbour" or "the port".
Its inhabitants are known as Havrais or Havraises. Le Havre is the capital of the canton and since has been the see of the diocese of Le Havre. Le Havre is the most populous commune of Upper Normandy, although the total population of the greater Le Havre conurbation is smaller than that of Rouen. It is also the se The Proust Questionnaire is a questionnaire about one's personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust.
Proust answered always with enthusiasm. The original manuscript of his answers of , at the time of his volunteer internship or some little time afterwards, titled "by Marcel Proust himself," was found in The television host Bernard Pivot, seeing an opportunity for a writer to reveal at the same time aspects of his work and his personali It depicts a female nude and a scantily dressed female bather on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural setting.
Her body is starkly lit and she stares directly at the viewer. The two men, dressed as young dandies, seem to be engaged in conversation, ignoring the woman. In front of them, the woman's clothes, a basket of fruit, and a round loaf of bread are displayed, as in a still life. He participated in two successful military coups, in January and January , and became President on April 14, As President, he created a political party, the Rally of the Togolese People RPT , and headed an anti-communist[1] single-party regime until the early s, when reforms leading to multiparty elections began.
Although his rule was seriously challenged by the events of the early s, he ultimately consolidated power again and won multiparty presidential elections in , , and ; the opposition boycotted the election and denounced the and election results as fraudulent. He was nearsighted yet a brilliant student since young age, earning a bachelor's degree at 15, and a law degree at 19 in Paris.
During the German occupation of World War II, he joined the French Resistance in the Maquis, and in , he fled to Charles de Gaulle's headquarters in Algiers, where he was made head of the Provisional Government of the Republic's legislative department. At the end of the war, he served as French counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials.
He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars especially Lilian Harvey and Ginger Rogers , traveling, stereoscopic photography and socialism. This tower is for the artist like a lighthouse shining out across the world. His mother's family came from Alsace and he identified with that region; his maternal grandfather had been the noted philanthropist and textile manufacturer Jean Dollfus, and Koechlin inherited his strongly developed social conscience.
His father died when he was Biography Born in Nice, a pupil of the pianist and composer Yves Nat, Eymar had a rich post-war career as a pianist and chamber musician. She has toured extensively in Europe, the USSR , , , Southeast Asia and America , offering piano recitals and chamber music concerts. He became a major figure in the musical life of Paris and later London, both as a conductor and a composer. Many of his Parisian works were also produced in the West End and some on Broadway; the most successful had long runs and numerous international revivals. He wrote two operatic works in English, and his later output included musical comedies for Sacha Guitry and Yvonne Printemps.
As a conductor, Messager held prominent posit Louis Aguettant 3 April — 10 March was a French musicologist, writer and teacher of French literature. Music, poetry and literature He was a professor-lecturer of European culture, an outstanding artist and pianist as witnessed by Ignacy Paderewski who took an interest in him and considered that he had the stuff of "a talent of the first order.
For 33 years, he left an irreplaceable imprint on his students. His courses on Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire still testify to his penetrating t It appeared at slightly irregular intervals till February The title reappeared in Algiers in and was then produced in Brussels between and Le Libertaire returned in and was produced intermittently till , though after it was restricted to online publication.
There are reports that it continues to exist as an "internet space". History Le Libertaire New York: On 1 January , it was merged into the commune Annecy. The mayor, Bernard Accoyer, is serving his second term. Geography Geographical features around Lake Annecy. The Fier forms most of the commune's northern border. The next day, her birth was registered in the church of Saint-Eustache, Paris, when her father was stated to be a certain bourgeois from Paris called Louis Florimond de Norville.
Fauré Le Page | Revolvy
However, no other trace of a man of this name has been found, and the paternity of the King is suggested by later evidence. In Celtic-speaking Brittany, the corresponding name is Le Goff ic , with the article le to translate Breton ar. For Anglophone pronunciation purposes, the name has evolved, especially in the United States and Anglophone regions of Canada mainly by Acadians, among whom it is also a common surname, to LaFave, LeFave, Lefever and Lafevre, as well as other variant spellings.
The English surname Feaver is also derived from Lefebvre. The name derives from faber, the Latin word for "craftsman", "worker"; used in Late Latin in Gaul to mean smith. Many northern French surnames especially in Normandy are used with the definite masculine article as a prefix Lefebvre It is the French equivalent of the German Lied. A chanson, by contrast, is a folk or popular song.
The literal meaning of the word in the French language is "melody". Debussy goes on to write that 'clarity of expression, precision and concentration of form are qualities peculiar to the French genius. Bernac writes that "the art of the greatest French composers is an art of suggestion",[1] rather than explicit statement of feelings. He was the son of the composer Edouard Lalo.
His reviews for the Parisian paper Le Temps combined conservatism and wit; among his principal targets was the composer Maurice Ravel, whose music Lalo disparaged throughout his career. In addition to his journalistic work Lalo served on the governing boards of the Paris Conservatoire and the national radio station Radiodiffusion. Life and career Lalo was born in Puteaux, 8. His father, Edouard Lalo, was a composer; his mother, Julie de Maligny, was a professional singer of Breton origin. He was a fine scholar, excelling in the study of literature, classics, philosophy and modern languages.
He has been a Special Adviser to the President since A nocturne from the French which meant nocturnal, from Latin nocturnus [1] is usually a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night. Historically, nocturne is a very old term applied to night Offices and, since the Middle Ages, to divisions in the canonical hour of Matins. History The name nocturne was first applied to pieces in the 18th century, when it indicated an ensemble piece in several movements, normally played for an evening party and then laid aside.
At this time, the piece was not necessarily evocative of the night, but might merely be intended for performance at night, much like a serenade. The chief difference between the serenade and the notturno was the time of the evening at which they would typically be performed: French brands Revolvy Brain revolvybrain. Rue de Richelieu topic Rue de Richelieu is a long street of Paris, starting in the south of the 1st arrondissement, ending in the 2nd arrondissement. Member feedback about Rue de Richelieu: French agnostics Revolvy Brain revolvybrain.
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