- I wish the black sympathisers in
England could see Africa's inmost heart as I do, much of their sympathy
would subside.
Human nature viewed in its crude state as pictured
amongst African savages is quite on a level with that of the brute, and
not to be compared with the noble character of the dog. There is neither
gratitude, pity, love, nor self-denial; no idea of duty; no religion;
but covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness and cruelty. All are thieves,
idle, envious, and ready to plunder and enslave their weaker
neighbours."
CHAPTER VI.
THE FUNERAL DANCE.
Drums were beating, horns blowing, and people were seen all running in
one direction; - the cause was a funeral dance, and I joined the crowd,
and soon found myself in the midst of the entertainment. The dancers
were most grotesquely got up. About a dozen huge ostrich feathers
adorned their helmets; either leopard or the black and white monkey
skins were suspended from their shoulders, and a leather tied round the
waist covered a large iron bell which was strapped upon the loins of
each dancer, like a woman's old-fashioned bustle: this they rung to the
time of the dance by jerking their posteriors in the most absurd manner.
A large crowd got up in this style created an indescribable hubbub,
heightened by the blowing of horns and the beating of seven nogaras of
various notes. Every dancer wore an antelope's horn suspended round the
neck, which he blew occasionally in the height of his excitement.
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