Epidemics. 281 



The upshot of the whole matter is this that, so far as 

 defective history gives us data, either by architectural 

 monuments or by written statements, either the best blood 

 of ancient races died out after a given culminating point of 

 progress, and left the field to be occupied by inferior but more 

 abiding blood ; or, as a man at the top of the tree gets some 

 untoward bad luck, begins to get lower and lower, till the 

 next generation forgets his position and greatness, and the 

 poor in the neighbourhood alone remember the habitations 

 of fallen greatness, so a nation, once trampled down and ex- 

 hausted of its resources and liberties, falls, in lapse of ages, 

 into a menial position, and is an object, not of fear, but of 

 patronizing sympathy and contemptuous indifference as to 

 its threats, large talk, and puerile efforts at distinction or 

 authority to wit, Turkey, Spain, Greece, and Egypt. 



The African's limited and child-like intellect, with strange 

 notions of duty, right, and social privileges, tending strongly 

 in the individual as years advance to assume a cruel and 

 unfeeling regard for his neighbour, and only grows wise in 

 cunning and cruelty as he gets older, is, through his inter- 

 course with European blood, fast observing the evils he 

 suffers through his service to the white man, and is ready 

 to adopt measures for his own comforts and advantage, with 

 an increasing desire with those advantages to maintain his 

 own freedom ; though, as far as the individual is concerned, 

 he gradually is more cruel and cunning as his age advances. 



And this increasing perception of liberty is the first spark 

 for many ages, which has passed over the African nation, 

 that gives a clue to his associating in many devices put 

 forward by Europeans to turn his country into a large pro- 

 ducing field for the good of all. 



But it is going too far, as some would have it, to suppose 

 that Africa was always equally debased as on its south- 

 eastern and western coasts it is at present found ; relics of 



