Captain Canot by Brantz Mayer

The Africans who cluster about the bold headland of Cape Mount, -- which, in fair weather, greets the mariner full thirty miles at sea, -- belong to the Vey tribe, and are in no way inferior to the best classes of natives along the coast. Forty or fifty families constitute "a town," the government of which is generally in the hands of the oldest man, who administers justice by a "palaver" held in public, wherein the seniors of the settlement are alone consulted. These villages subject themselves voluntarily to the protectorate of larger towns, whose chief arbitrates as sovereign without appeal in all disputes among towns under his wardship; yet, as his judgments are not always pleasing, the dissatisfied desert their huts, and, emigrating to another jurisdiction, build their village anew within its limits.

The Veys of both sexes are well-built, erect, and somewhat stately. Their faith differs but little from that prevalent among the Soosoos of the Rio Pongo. They believe in a superior power that may be successfully invoked through _gree-grees_ and _fetiches_, but which is generally obstinate or mischievous. It is their idea that the good are rewarded after death by transformation into some favorite animal; yet their entire creed is not subject to any definite description, for they blend the absurdities of Mahometanism with those of paganism, and mellow the whole by an acknowledgment of a supreme deity.