A PLEA FOR THE NATIVE 379 
some ground for the protest I desire to make against the 
common statements you read everywhere, of the utter 
immorality and untruthfulness of the native population 
between the sea and the great lakes. Those who bunch 
them all together and speak of them as beasts, liars, and 
thieves, prove simply that, though they may have rushed 
through the country, they know little of the inhabitants. 
No man who has written on the problem of East Africa 
knows his subject better than does Sir Harry Johnston. I 
remember that he somewhere says: “It may have required 
one million years for the evolution of the brute into the man, 
and half a million more to raise him to the level of the 
Australian savage. On the other hand, a few hundred 
years were probably enough for the development of the 
savage Hamitic races into the civilized Egyptians.” 
The best informed can only venture a guess on these 
subjects, and when it comes to guessing on what has been, 
or what may yet be, in Africa, there are everywhere so 
many unknown factors that they who know most will ven- 
ture fewest guesses. But so much is certain, the East 
African is so far behind his white instructor that the latter’s 
processes of thought are quite beyond his understanding. 
As I said before, he is an atheist, he has no idea of causation, 
death itself he makes no effort to explain, unless it be to 
attribute it to a witch doctor. Witchcraft is not a religion 
with him, but perhaps it is the nearest thing he knows to 
religion. The spirits help the witch doctors, the witch 
doctors set the spirits at their evil work; but back of it all is 
no idea of Creator or of Supreme Cause producing good 
or evil. He is content with things as they are. Only when 
some calamity strikes him does he look about for its cause, 
and if it continues he will probably burn some witch doctor 
alive. If he believes in nothing else he believes in witch- 
craft, and this, his one belief, offers to the missionary a most 
difficult obstacle. Only as this is eradicated can the native 
