being of a public nature: no care extended beyond private interest;
and it may be doubted whether the Chiefs of these nations ever
exert their Authority for the general good of their subjects, by putting
in requisition the labor of the community, for the accomplishment
of any work of this kind.
The intervening ground remained in a state of nature, scattered
over with bushes and here and there with a tuft of smaller plants or a
patch of herbage, between which appeared the naked sandy soil of the
same red color which had been remarked almost every where in the
Plains of Litakun. The site of the town had formerly been occupied
by a grove of acacias; mostly of those species which have hitherto been
confounded under the name of 1 camelthorn.’ Among them was a
new sort called by the inhabitants, muhm, or mokwi, or mokala-mokwi,
distinguishable by the unusual thickness of its branches and even of
its youngest shoots. *
As I passed through the different clusters of dwellings, the inhabitants
ran out to view me. The greater number were women and
girls ; the men being abroad in the plains, either hunting or attending
their cattle. A white-man must have been a perfectly novel
sight to the younger children; and, judging from the eager looks
and surprise of many of the older people, this must have been the
first time in their lives that they had beheld so extraordinary a
phenomenon. They did not attempt to follow me, but continued
standing without the door of their fence, gazing with fixed attention,
till I had reached some distance from them. We passed a few of the
houses before they knew that I was in that quarter; and, my visit being
quite unexpected, the haste with which they scrambled out to the
door to have a look at me before I had gone too far from their abode,
* A sada robusta, B. Citta!. Geogr. 2266. Arbor 20—80-pedalis, trunco robusto,
ramis ramulìsquè robustissimi?. Folia bipinnata, pinnis S—4-jugis gianduia solitaria inter
ultimis. Foliola 8— 13-juga glabra, oblonga obtusa. Spinse geminse stipulares albte rectse,
plerumque longse, at ssepe alise breves in eodem ramulo videndse. Flores odorati pallide
flavi, ex gemmis ramulorum anni prsecedentis (in A . Capenti, ex ramulis anni instantis)
pròveniunt, in capituiis globosis pedunculatis pluribus (usque ad 10). Legumen fuscum
nudum lato-lineare bivalve rectum, Acacia Capensis duplo majus. Habitus et facies arbpris
est Acacia giraffa, at legumina diversissima.
was highly amusing. But the men were more moderate in their
curiosity, as most of them had already had an opportunity of seeing
me at my waggons : some joined our party, and all inquired, whither
I was going.
The different engravings in this volume, will give some idea of
the appearance of this strange and singular town ; yet nothing but
breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it and
beholding its living inhabitants in all the peculiarities of their movements
and manners, can communicate those gratifying, and literally
indescribable, sensations, which every European traveller of feeling,
will experience on finding himself in the midst of so interesting a
scene: — a scene not merely amusing; but one which may be highly
instructive, for a contemplative mind. Let us endeavour to imagine
the contrast, and to conceive the full force of it, by supposing ourselves,—
while occupied in the busy metropolis of our own country,
with all its bustle, its refinements, its complicated affairs, its extended
views, its luxuries, its learning, its arts, the ingenuity and perfection
of its manufactures, its numerous and beautiful piles of masonry,
its floating edifices those admirable efforts of human skill; in fine,
its intellectual and exalted characters, and its pure knowledge of the
Deity ; — let us, by supposing ourselves instantaneously transported
to the spot which I am now describing, the mental image of which
is still before me as bright and glowing as the reality then was,
endeavour to form in our mind the picture I would attempt to draw ;—■
of a nation and a town whose secluded existence, deep in the interior
of an unexplored quarter of the globe, was unknown to us a few years
before, and whose names even, had not hitherto reached us correctly ;
of men who knew as little of the rest of the world, as the rest of the
world knew of them, and whose personal appearance, dress, and
customs, are so widely different from all which we have in our own
country been used to behold; of manners of the simplest kind; of
intellect unexpanded or in its weakest state; of a society without
arts, without other occupation than that of providing for daily wants
and for the support of mere animal existence; of minds insensible
to the charms of exalted virtue, unconscious of the better destiny of
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