53 



Binue, resembling those dug from Anglo-Saxon graves, and of which 

 you may remember a description in the Illustrated London News of 

 October 7th, 1854. Of these a few examples may be also seen at 

 Kew ; amongst them a pot-shaped article perforated with a number 

 of small holes, and used for straining the water off the bodies 

 of locusts after they have been boiled, preparatory to making them 

 into cakes for human food. "It is remarkable also " Mr. Wright 

 adds, " that some of these graves contain cowrie shells— articles which 

 are found only on the shores of the Pacific," — and equally remarkable, 

 I may add, that in the present day cowrie shells are the chief currency 

 throughout Central and a great part of Western Africa. 



To these people and those countries, both of which are in a state of 

 infancy, our Government owes a great practical lesson, founded upon an 

 imperative duty. Independent of her character for unfurlmg the 

 British banner as the aegis of civiUzation and Christianity over the 

 world, she has stiU a weighty debt on her shoulders to the vast continent 

 of Africa. I cannot be accused of any attempt at declamation in 

 saying that the twenty millions of money spent in West Indian eman- 

 cipation are little alleviation to the miseries caused by the fact of the 

 inhuman slave traffic being legalized amongst us for nearly two cen- 

 turies. The voices of humanity and religion, the glory and honour of 

 our empire, and the practically commercial character of our country, 

 loudly call for the aid of Government in assisting private enterprise 

 to open the inexhaustible resources in nature's treasury along the banks 

 of the rivers Niger, Tshadda and Binue. The idea of the native 

 African being averse to labour is a complete fallacy. There was no 

 fact which impressed itself on my mind so vividly during my resi- 

 dence in that part of the world, as the knowledge which many members 

 of the negro race possess of the immense industrial resources of the 

 country, with a consciousness of their ovra incapacity to turn these to 

 account. And when I point to the results of our late voyage to de- 

 monstrate that the climate would ,not be so fatal as it has hitherto 

 proved to European constitutions, if a proper method of prophylactic 

 hygiene, a different mode of daily living, and another line of thera- 

 peutic practice were adopted, it will not be considered as building 

 castles in the air for me to say, that if the Government lend a helping 

 hand to private enterprise to open trade operations here, British 

 influence would be extended; pillage amongst the Filatahs would cease; 

 with its cessation would flow into Central Africa all those blessings of 

 civilization which otherwise centuries cannot produce ; and the iiidus- 

 triiil resources of the country will at length boconie developed, to the 



