The Botanist Will Have Ample Opportunities Of Straying From Our Path To
Examine Plants With Which I Confess A Limited Acquaintance.
The
Ethnologist shall have precisely the same experience that I enjoyed, and
he may either be enlightened or confounded.
The Geologist will find
himself throughout the journey in Central Africa among primitive rocks.
The Naturalist will travel through a grass jungle that conceals much
that is difficult to obtain: both he and the Sportsman will, I trust,
accompany me on a future occasion through the "Nile tributaries from
Abyssinia," which country is prolific in all that is interesting. The
Philanthropist, - what shall I promise to induce him to accompany me? I
will exhibit a picture of savage man precisely as he is; as I saw him;
and as I judged him, free from prejudice: painting also, in true
colours, a picture of the abomination that has been the curse of the
African race, the SLAVE TRADE; trusting that not only the
philanthropist, but every civilized being, will join in the endeavour to
erase that stain from disfigured human nature, and thus open the path
now closed to civilization and missionary enterprise. To the
Missionary, - that noble, self-exiled labourer toiling too often in a
barren field, - I must add the word of caution, "Wait"! There can be no
hope of success until the slave trade shall have ceased to exist.
The journey is long, the countries savage; there are no ancient
histories to charm the present with memories of the past; all is wild
and brutal, hard and unfeeling, devoid of that holy instinct instilled
by nature into the heart of man - the belief in a Supreme Being.
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