NATIVES 



been changed. The law had been transcended. 

 The impossible had been accomplished. And then, 

 as logical sequence, his mind completed the syllogism. 

 If the white man can do this impossibility, why not 

 all the rest? To defy the laws of nature by flying 

 in the air or forcing great masses of iron to transport 

 one, is no more wonderful than to defy them by 

 striking a light. Since the white man can provedly 

 do one, what earthly reason exists why he should 

 not do anything else that hits his fancy? There is 

 nothing to get astonished at. 



This does not necessarily mean that the native 

 looks on the white man as a god. On the contrary, 

 your African is very shrewd in the reading of char- 

 acter. But indubitably white men possess great 

 magic, uncertain in its extent. 



That is as far as I should care to go, without 

 much deeper acquaintance, into the attitude of the 

 native mind toward the whites. A superficial study 

 of it, beyond the general principals I have enunci- 

 ated, discloses many strange contradictions. The 

 native respects the wfiite man's warlike skill, he 

 respects his physical prowess, he certainly acknowl- 

 edges tacitly his moral superiority in the right to 

 command. In case of dispute he likes the white 

 man's adjudication; in case of illness the man's 

 medicine; in case of trouble the white man's sus- 



219 



