Dwalla

Dwalla, a Bantu people of the Cameroons district, West Africa, settled chiefly about the Lower Wuri and Cameroon estuary. They are the best known of all the natives of this region, haying long dwelt in the vicinity of the European factories and missionary stations. The Dwallas are typical Bantus, with regular, almost European, features and well-developed lower extremities, in this respect presenting a marked contrast to the pure Negro races. Like the neighbouring Bakwiri they are well skilled in the "drum language," which is widely diffused amongst the coast peoples of the western seaboard. By this process of tom-toming and horn-blowing sentences are distinctly expressed, and news of all kinds rapidly communicated from tribe to tribe. The system is jealously guarded against women, slaves, and Europeans, not one of whom has over succeeded in obtaining a clue to its interpretation.