Abundant Corroboration Of His
Arguments Is Met With In This Country, Where The Natives Require But
Little In The Way
Of clothing, and have remarkably hardy stomachs.
Although possessing a knowledge of all the edible roots and fruits in
the
Country, having hoes to dig with, and spears, bows, and arrows to
kill the game, - we have seen that, notwithstanding all these
appliances and means to boot, they have perished of absolute
starvation.
The art of making fire is the same in India as in Africa. The
smelting furnaces, for reducing iron and copper from the ores, are
also similar. Yellow haematite, which bears not the smallest
resemblance either in colour or weight to the metal, is employed near
Kolobeng for the production of iron. Malachite, the precious green
stone used in civilized life for vases, would never be suspected by
the uninstructed to be a rich ore of copper, and yet it is
extensively smelted for rings and other ornaments in the heart of
Africa. A copper bar of native manufacture four feet long was
offered to us for sale at Chinsamba's. These arts are monuments
attesting the fact, that some instruction from above must at some
time or other have been supplied to mankind; and, as Archbishop
Whately says, "the most probable conclusion is, that man when first
created, or very shortly afterwards, was advanced, by the Creator
Himself, to a state above that of a mere savage."
The argument for an original revelation to man, though quite
independent of the Bible history, tends to confirm that history. It
is of the same nature with this, that man could not have MADE
himself, and therefore must have had a Divine CREATOR. Mankind could
not, in the first instance, have CIVILIZED themselves, and therefore
must have had a superhuman INSTRUCTOR.
In connection with this subject, it is remarkable that throughout
successive generations no change has taken place in the form of the
various inventions. Hammers, tongs, hoes, axes, adzes, handles to
them; needles, bows and arrows, with the mode of feathering the
latter; spears, for killing game, with spear-heads having what is
termed "dish" on both sides to give them, when thrown, the rotatory
motion of rifle-balls; the arts of spinning and weaving, with that of
pounding and steeping the inner bark of a tree till it serves as
clothing; millstones for grinding corn into meal; the manufacture of
the same kind of pots or chatties as in India; the art of cooking, of
brewing beer and straining it as was done in ancient Egypt; fish-
hooks, fishing and hunting nets, fish-baskets, and weirs, the same as
in the Highlands of Scotland; traps for catching animals, etc.,
etc., - have all been so very permanent from age to age, and some of
them of identical patterns are so widely spread over the globe, as to
render it probable that they were all, at least in some degree,
derived from one Source. The African traditions, which seem
possessed of the same unchangeability as the arts to which they
relate, like those of all other nations refer their origin to a
superior Being.
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