The Guinea Trade 



to construct sailing vessels of a modern type. The Sailing ship 

 did not arrive at perfection till it was becoming superseded by 

 the Steamer. 



And the traders, sailors, soldiers, captains who travelled 

 in these vessels, the early European visitors to Liberia ? They 

 were very religious in their 

 speech, literally very God-fear- 

 ing, but for the most part utterly 

 wanting in the practice of real 

 Christian principles. Their 

 dread of " God's providence " 

 and its wayward blows never 

 restrained them from kidnap- 

 ping, cheating, alcohol ising, or 

 otherwise corrupting the blacks, 

 towards whom they had not yet 

 developed a conscience. They 

 introduced to this and other 

 parts of West Africa all the 

 diseases of Europe, shameful 

 as well as unavoidable ; they 

 brought, it is true, cultivated 

 plants of the greatest value to 

 the Negro, and they reinforced 

 his stock of domestic animals. 

 He learnt from them little or 

 nothing in the industrial arts ; 

 and though there were Christian missionaries (mostly Jesuits) 

 at work during all the one and a half centuries of Portuguese 

 domination, they made but few — and no lasting — converts, and 

 apparently spread no knowledge of reading and writing, though 

 they used their influence (in vain) against the slave trade and 

 VOL. 1 8i 6 



34. A PORTUGUESE WAKKIOK, SIXTEENTH 

 CENTURY. FROM A BENIN CARVING 

 IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 



