If My Account Should Not Entirely Harmonise
With Preconceived Notions As To Primitive Races, I Cannot Help
It.
I profess accurately to describe native Africa - Africa in
those places where it has not received the slightest impulse,
whether for good or evil, from European civilisation.
If the
picture be a dark one, we should, when contemplating these sons
of Noah, try and carry our mind back to that time when our poor
elder brother Ham was cursed by his father, and condemned to be
the slave of both Shem and Japheth; for as they were then, so
they appear to be now - a strikingly existing proof of the Holy
Scriptures. But one thing must be remembered: Whilst the people
of Europe and Asia were blessed by communion with God through the
medium of His prophets, and obtained divine laws to regulate
their ways and keep them in mind of Him who made them, the
Africans were excluded from this dispensation, and consequently
have no idea of an overruling Providence or a future state; they
therefore trust to luck and to charms, and think only of self-
preservation in this world. Whatever, then, may be said against
them for being too avaricious or too destitute of fellow-feeling,
should rather reflect on ourselves, who have been so much better
favoured, yet have neglected to teach them, than on those who,
whilst they are sinning, know not what they are doing. To say a
negro is incapable of instruction, is a mere absurdity; for those
few boys who have been educated in our schools have proved
themselves even quicker than our own at learning; whilst, amongst
themselves, the deepness of their cunning and their power of
repartee are quite surprising, and are especially shown in their
proficiency for telling lies most appropriately in preference to
truth, and with an off-handed manner that makes them most
amusing.
With these remarks, I now give, as an appropriate introduction to
my narrative - (1.) An account of the general geographical
features of the countries we are about to travel in, leaving the
details to be treated under each as we successively pass through
them; (2.) A general view of the atmospheric agents which wear
down and so continually help to reduce the continent, yet at the
same time assist to clothe it with vegetation; (3.) A general
view of the Flora; and, lastly, that which consumes it, (4.) Its
Fauna; ending with a few special remarks on the Wanguana, or men
freed from slavery.
Geography
The continent of Africa is something like a dish turned upside
down, having a high and flat central plateau, with a higher rim
of hills surrounding it; from below which, exterially, it
suddenly slopes down to the flat strip of land bordering on the
sea. A dish, however, is generally uniform in shape - Africa is
not. For instance, we find in its centre a high group of hills
surrounding the head of the Tanganyika Lake, composed chiefly of
argillaceous sandstones which I suppose to be the Lunae Montes of
Ptolemy, or the Soma Giri of the ancient Hindus.
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