village consists of a number of low, conical
grass huts, ranged round a circular common, in
the centre of which are three or four fier- trees
kept for the double purpose of supplying shade
to the community, and bark-cloth to the chief.
The doorways to the huts are very low, scarcely
30 inches high. The common fenced round
by the grass huts shows plainly the ochreous
colour of the soil, and it is so well trodden that
not a grass blade thrives upon it.
On presenting myself in the common, I attracted
out of doors the owners and ordinary inhabitants
of each hut, until I found myself-the
centre of quite a promiscuous population of
naked men, women, children, and infants. Though
I had appeared here for the purpose of studying
the people of Uhombo, and making a treaty
of friendship with the chief, the villagers seemed
to think I had come merely to make a free exhibition
of myself as some natural monstrosity.
I saw before me over a hundred beings of the
most degraded, unpresentable type it is possible
to conceive, and though I knew quite well that
some thousands of years ago the beginning of
this wretched humanity and myself were one
and the same, a sneaking disinclination to believe
it possessed me strongly, and I would even now
willingly subscribe some small amount of silver
money for him who could but assist me to controvert
the discreditable fact.
But common-sense tells me not to take into
undue consideration their squalor, their ugliness,
or nakedness, but to gauge their true position
among the human race by taking a view of the
cultivated fields and gardens of Uhombo, and I
am compelled to admit that these debased specimens
of humanity only plant and sow such
vegetables and grain as I myself should cultivate
were I compelled to provide for my own sustenance.
I see, too, that their huts, though of
grass, are almost as well made as the materials
will permit, and indeed I have often slept in
worse. Speak with them in their own dialect
of the law of tneum and tuum, and it will soon
appear that they are intelligent enough upon
that point. Moreover, the muscles, tissues, and
fibres of their bodies, and all the organs of
sight, hearing, smell, or motion, are as well
developed as in us. Only in taste and judgment,
based upon larger experience, in the power of
expression, in morals and intellectual culture,
are we superior.
I strive, therefore, to interest myself in my
gross and rudely shaped brothers and sisters.
Almost bursting into a laugh at the absurdity,
I turn towards an individual whose age marks
him out as one to whom respect is due, and
say to him after the common manner of greeting:—
“My brother, sit you down by me on this