Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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In All The Moorish
Borders Where Writing Is Known, It Forms The Basis Of Fetisherie,
And Its Productions Enclosed In Golden Or Ornamented Cases, Are Hung
Round The Person As Guardian Influences.
Absurd, however, as are the
observances of the negro, he is a stranger to the bigotry of his
moslem neighbours.
He neither persecutes nor brands as impious those
whose religious views differ from his own. There is only one point,
on which his faith assumes a savage character, and displays darker
than inquisitorial horrors. The despot, the object of boundless
homage on earth, seeks to transport all his pomp and the crowd of his
attendants to his place in the future world. His death must be
celebrated by the corresponding sacrifice of a numerous band of
slaves, of wives and of courtiers; their blood must moisten his
grave, and the sword of the rude warrior once drawn, does not readily
stop; a general massacre often takes place, and the capitals of these
barbarian chiefs are seen to stream with blood.
CHAPTER XV.
It is impossible not to view the unquenchable zeal and intrepidity,
which Park evinced on his first journey, without feeling for the
individual the highest sentiments of admiration and respect. In
addition to those high qualifications, we witnessed an admirable
prudence in his intercourse with the natives, and a temper not to be
ruffled by the most trying provocations; a union of qualities often
thought incompatible, and which in our days we fear we cannot expect
to see again directed to the same pursuits. It may be further stated,
that to our own feelings, scarcely an individual of the age can be
named, who has sunk under circumstances of deeper interest than this
lamented traveller; whether we consider the loss, which geographical
science has suffered in his death, or whether we confine our views to
the blasted hopes of the individual, snatched away from his
hard-earned, but unfinished triumph, and leaving to others that
splendid consummation, which he so ardently sought to achieve. True
it is, that the future discoverer of the termination of the Niger,
must erect the structure of his fame on the wide foundation, with
which his great predecessor had already occupied the ground; but
although the edifice will owe its very existence to the labours of
Park, yet another name than his is now recorded on the finished pile;
Hos ego - feci, tulit alter honores.
The African Association, although enthusiastically attached to every
subject connected with the interior of Africa, soon found that,
unless the government would take up the subject as a national affair,
no great hope existed of arriving at the great objects of their
research; it was therefore proposed by Sir Joseph Banks, that a
memorial should be presented to his majesty George III, praying him
to institute those measures, by which the discoveries that Park had
made in the interior of Africa could be prosecuted, and which might
ultimately lead to the solution of those geographical problems, to
which the attention of the scientific men of the country were then
directed.
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