The White Traders In
The Maritime Districts Take No Pains To Counteract This Unhappy
Prejudice, Always Performing Their Own Devotions In Secret, And
Seldom Condescending To Converse With The Negroes In A Friendly And
Instructive Manner.
To me, therefore, it was not so much the
subject of wonder as matter of regret to observe that, while the
superstition of Mohammed has in this manner scattered a few faint
beams of learning among these poor people, the precious light of
Christianity is altogether excluded.
I could not but lament that,
although the coast of Africa has now been known and frequented by
the Europeans for more than two hundred years, yet the negroes still
remain entire strangers to the doctrines of our holy religion. We
are anxious to draw from obscurity the opinions and records of
antiquity, the beauties of Arabian and Asiatic literature, etc.; but
while our libraries are thus stored with the learning of various
countries, we distribute with a parsimonious hand the blessings of
religious truth to the benighted nations of the earth. The natives
of Asia derive but little advantage in this respect from an
intercourse with us; and even the poor Africans, whom we affect to
consider as barbarians, look upon us, I fear, as little better than
a race of formidable but ignorant heathens. When I produced
Richardson's Arabic Grammar to some slatees on the Gambia, they were
astonished to think that any European should understand and write
the sacred language of their religion. At first they suspected that
it might have been written by some of the slaves carried from the
coast, but on a closer examination they were satisfied that no
bushreen could write such beautiful Arabic, and one of them offered
to give me an ass and sixteen bars of goods if I would part with the
book. Perhaps a short and easy introduction to Christianity, such
as is found in some of the catechisms for children, elegantly
printed in Arabic, and distributed on different parts of the coast,
might have a wonderful effect. The expense would be but trifling;
curiosity would induce many to read it; and the evident superiority
which it would possess over their present manuscripts, both in point
of elegance and cheapness, might at last obtain it a place among the
school-books of Africa.
The reflections which I have thus ventured to submit to my readers
on this important subject naturally suggested themselves to my mind
on perceiving the encouragement which was thus given to learning
(such as it is) in many parts of Africa. I have observed that the
pupils at Kamalia were most of them the children of pagans; their
parents, therefore, could have had no predilection for the doctrines
of Mohammed. Their aim was their children's improvement; and if a
more enlightened system had presented itself, it would probably have
been preferred. The children, too, wanted not a spirit of
emulation, which it is the aim of the tutor to encourage. When any
one of them has read through the Koran, and performed a certain
number of public prayers, a feast is prepared by the schoolmaster,
and the scholar undergoes an examination, or (in European terms)
takes out his degree.
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