92 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



cool night winds sigh through the forest their 

 woolly heads, you may observe, rest so close to 

 the heated embers that you will wonder how it 

 is they do not burn as well. But there is far 

 more in the simple expression than is evident in 

 this little elucidation of the strictly literal pur- 

 port of the remark. We of the white race are 

 at infinite pains and ruinous expenditure to rear 

 up unto ourselves gigantic edifices, and when 

 we have built them we feel lonely within their 

 portals. We fuss and fret to gain ourselves 

 pleasures and comforts, and when we have 

 secured them we fear to reap the full measure 

 of our joys. In short, we kindle titanic furnaces 

 at sacrifice of a tremendous amount of labour 

 and time and expense, and then the heat is so 

 great that it drives us from it. And the negro 

 in his primitive wisdom concerns himself only 

 with those toys which he can indulge in to his 

 heart's content, builds grass huts at a minimum 

 of trouble, lights his little fires in the middle 

 of them and sits over the warming flames. And 

 who do you think is the wiser? 



Those who do not know the Central African 

 native are far too apt to assign to him an ignor- 

 ance which he does not possess, and to imagine 

 him incapable of any wisdom or reasoning which 

 exceeds that of the beasts of the fields. The 

 dwellers of the mysterious interior have no 

 literature, but they have their stories, and the 

 folk-lore of Central Africa is the most interesting 

 in the world. They have their music, too, and 

 although you might not appreciate the wondrous 

 fascination of the soft sibilant chants or the deep 

 roar of the chorus if you heard it on the stage 

 of a music-hall, you would, in Central Africa, 

 listen entranced to the march song of a " ulendo," 



