214 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
law, both civil and criminal. But even the poorest man 
may appeal from his village court to the district court, and 
finally to the king in council. The legal procedure is 
characterised by rough and ready justice, and although men 
of business and advocates are unknown, yet trials are 
conducted with remarkable decorum and ability. It is most 
interesting to watch one of these trials, to witness the 
courteous bearing of the litigants, to hear the native 
eloquence with which they plead their cause, to comprehend 
the acute cross-examining of witnesses, and to see the way 
in which the people willingly submit to the judgment given 
in their cases. Writers tell us that the punishments inflicted 
in Central Africa are barbarous. This I fail to see. You 
cannot judge these people by nineteenth-century ideas, and 
their punishments compare, I believe, most favourably with 
those in vogue in ancient Greece and Rome. And when we 
remember the crimes for which the death penalty was 
administered in our own country within comparatively 
recent times, we must acknowledge that Central African 
justice is tempered with mercy. All this is a matter of 
pure comparison, and when we consider the state of develop- 
inent which these natives have reached, we cannot help. 
being surprised at their enlightened condition. 
Before concluding, I have to refer to the method which 
should be adopted in introducing both religion and civilisa- 
tion into Central Africa. 
The great mistake which is made in dealing with Central 
Africans is to thrust European opinions upon a people 
unprepared to receive them. One can lead where one 
cannot drive; and the only result of shaking belief, or of 
inculeating disrespect for law as it obtains, is to induce 
scepticism on the one hand, and lawlessness on the other. 
Respecting religion, I maintain that it is the duty of all 
missionaries, first, to make themselves thoroughly acquainted 
with the beliefs of the people they are sent to teach; and 
then to build upon them, and gradually to wean the people 
from their superstitions, and from the worship of the 
unknown God to the recognition of Christianity in its 
purity. The African of to-day, coming in contact as he 
