CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 187 
tend greatly to improve Africa, by rendering the com- 
munication between different parts of the country free from 
the danger of being kidnapped, which now represses all 
curiosity, or all desire of the people of one banza to go be- 
yond the neighbouring one. Every man I have conversed 
with indeed acknowledges, that if white men did not come 
for slaves, the practice of kidnapping would no longer 
exist, and the wars, which nine times out of ten result from: 
the European slave trade, would be proportionally less 
frequent. The people at large most assuredly desire the 
cessation of a trade, in which, on the contrary, all the great 
men deriving a large portion of their revenue from the 
presents it produces, as well as the slave merchants, who 
however are not numerous, are interested in the con- 
tinuance. It is not however to be expected that the effects 
of the abolition will be immediately perceptible; on the 
contrary, it will probably require more than one generation 
to become apparent: for effects, which have been the 
consequence of a practice of three centuries, will certainly 
continue long after the cause is removed ; and in fact, if we 
mean to accelerate the progress of civilization, it can only 
be done by colonization, and certainly there could not be a 
better point to commence at than the banks of the Zaire. 
