INTRODUCTION.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to describe
all that appeared to me most important and interesting
among the events and the scenes that came under my
notice during my sojourn in the interior of Africa. If my
account should not entirely harmonise with preconceived
notions as to primitive races, I cannot help it. I profess
accurately to describe naked Africa — Africa in those
places where it has not received the slightest impulse,
whether for good or for 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,