INTKODUCTION. XXI 



and to mitigate our judgment even in regard to the bad features of their character. Tliey are naturally 

 kind and simple-hearted, remarkably courteous in their mutual intercourse, and strongly attached to their 

 country, friends, and kindred. All the moral virtues, and especially gratitude and honesty, are inculcated 

 in their proverbs. It is a remarkable fact, that although the missionaries have had hundreds of parcels of 

 cowries and supplies brought by native carriers from the coast to their interior stations, there has scarcely 

 been an instance of theft. Adultery and other crimes are much rarer than we could suppose. During my 

 six years' residence in the country I never knew a case of an illegitimate child, although the women do not 

 marry before they are eighteen or twenty years of age. 



When the first missionary entered the Iketu country in 1850, some regarded him as a spy, and others 

 had superstitious fears that the presence of a white man would bring misfortune on the country. For these 

 reasons they, in many instances, refused to admit him into their towns, but they never treated him with 

 violence. The same thing occurred subsequently when he entered the kingdom of Yoruba. They obliged 

 him to sleep without the walls, but they supplied him with food without charge. On one occasion he 

 encamped under a tree near the gate of Awaye. Hundreds of friendly people came to look at him, and 

 next day the women were singing a newly made song commencing with, Oibo gui) sidi akpe, " The white 

 man encamped aft the foot of the akpe tree." Now that the people understand the real object of the mission- 

 aries, they are not only willing but anxious to receive them. 



The gospel was first preached to the Yorubas in Sierra Leone, where there are thousands of them who 

 have been rescued from the slave ships. Most of them have embraced Christianity, and many have learned 

 to read. Some have accumulated considerable wealth, and others have made no mean attainments in 

 information if not in learning. The character of the Rev. Samuel Crowther, whose Yoruba name is 

 Adiaye, struggling for life, is known to the public, and much admired both in Europe and America; 

 and yet Mr. Crowther is only one among other Yoruba men, his equals in mind, moral character, and 

 respectable attainments. The people are found to be equally susceptible of improvement in their native 

 country. Although the missions have been so recently established, all the eight kingdoms of the Yoruba 

 country have felt more or less the stimulus of truth ; and if the social laws now at work among the people 

 produce their natural results, it cannot be many generations before Yoruba will be reckoned among civilized 

 nations. 



