communities that reside by the sea. But then, I
think, missionaries would have but a poor chance of
success unless they went there in a body, with wives
and families all as assiduous in working to the same
end as themselves, and all capable of other useful
occupations besides that of disseminating the Gospel,
which should come after, and not before, the people
are awake and prepared to receive it. As that country
must be cold in consequence of its great altitude,
the people would much sooner than in the hotter and
more enervating lowlands, learn any lessons of industry
they might be taught. To live idle in regard to
everything but endeavouring to cram these negroes
with Scriptural doctrines, as has too often been and
now is done, is, although apparently the straightest,
the longest way to reach the goal of their desires.
The missionary, I think, should be a Jack-of-all-
trades—a man that can turn his hand to anything;
and being useful in all cases, he would, at any rate,
make himself influential with those who were living
around him. To instruct him is the surest way of
gaining a black man’s heart, which, once obtained, can
easily be turned in any way the preceptor pleases, as
is the case with all Asiatics : they soon learn to bow
to the superior intellect of the European, and are
as easily ruled as a child is by his father.*
* Since ■writing this, as I have had more insight into Africa by travelling
from Kazd to Egypt down the whole length of the Nile, I would
he sorry to leave this opinion standing without'making a few more remarks.
Of all places in Africa, by far the most inviting to missionary
enterprise are the kingdoms of Karague, Uganda, and Unyoro. They
25 th.— We left Ulekampuri at 1 A.M., and marched
the last eighteen miles into Kaz6 under the delightful
influence of a cool night and a bright full moon. As
the caravan, according to its usual march of single file,
moved along the serpentine footpath in peristaltic
are extremely fertile and healthy, and the temperature is delightfully
moderate. So abundant, indeed, are all provisions, and so prolific
the soil, that a missionary establishment, however large, could
support itself after the first year’s crop. Being ruled by kings of
the Abyssinian type, there is no doubt but that they have a latent
Christianity in them. These kings are powerful enough to keep up
their governments under numerous officers. They have expressed a
wish to have their children educated; and I am sure the missionary
need only go there to obtain all he desires on as secure a basis as
he will find anywhere else in those parts of Africa which are not
under the rule of Europeans. If this was effected by the aid of an
Egyptian force at Gondokoro, together with an arrangement for putting
the White Nile trade on a legitimate footing between that station and
Unyoro, the heathen would not only be blessed, but we should soon
have a great and valuable commerce. Without protection, though, I
would not advise any one to go there.
Now, for the use of commercial inquirers, I may also add, that
it may be seen in my ‘Journal of the Discovery of the Source of
the Nile,’ that the kings of these three countries were all, more or
less, adverse to my passing through their countries to the Nile;
but they gave way, and permitted my doing so, on my promising to
open a direct trade with this country and theirs by the channel of
that river. I gave them the promise freely, for I saw by the nature of
the land, subjected as it is to frequently recurring showers of rain all
the year round, that it will be, in course of time, one of the greatest
nations on the earth. It is nearer to Europe than India ; it is far more '
fertile, and it possesses none of those disagreeable elements of discontent
which have been such a sharp thorn in our sides in Tndm I mean
a history and a religion far anterior to our own, which makes those we
govern there shrink from us, caused by a natural antipathy of being
ruled by an inferior race, as we are by them considered to be. These
countries, on the contrary, have no literature, and therefore have
neither history nor religion to excite discontent should any foreigners
intrench on their lands. By this I do not wish it to be supposed that I
would willingly see any foreign European power upset these Wahuma