68 INTELLECTUAL AND 



vour to propagate. " They have no idea of a Divine Being," 

 says one of these men ; f ' they appear to have no comprehen- 

 sion of the things they commit to memory, I mean especially 

 as regards religious subjects." "What can we do/ ' says an- 

 other, et with a nation whose language possesses no terms corre- 

 sponding to justice or sin, and to whose mind the ideas expressed 

 by these words are completely strange and inexplicable ?" 



As to Central Africa, we confine ourselves to relating a few 

 facts relative to this want of religious belief, gathered from dif- 

 ferent points in the periphery of the vast triangle, almost un- 

 explored and unknown, which is described by lines joining 

 together Senegal, Zanzibar, and the Cape. 



An American missionary,* who lived four years amongst the 

 Mpongwes, one of tie most important nations of Central 

 Africa, the Mandingos, and the Grebos, and who knew their 

 language perfectly, declares that they had neither religion, 

 nor priests, nor idolatry, nor any religious assemblies what- 

 soever. Dr. Livingstone says the same thing concerning the 

 Bechuanas.f The Austrian missionaries, established upon 

 the distant banks of the White Nile, have met with the same 

 want of religion, the same voidj in the mind. In fact, among 

 the Caffres, the name which they give to the Divine Being, as 

 among the Hottentots, is undeniable evidence that they for- 

 merly had no idea of anything similar. This name is Tixo, 

 and its history is too curious not to be related ; it is composed 

 of two words which, together, signify the " wounded knee." 

 It was, they say, the name of a doctor or sorcerer, well known 

 among the Hottentots and Namaquas, on account of some 

 wound which he had received on his knee. Having been held 

 in great estimation for his extraordinary power during his life, 

 the Wounded Knee continued to be invoked even after his 

 death, as being able to comfort and protect ; and consequently 

 his name became the term which best represented, to the minds 

 of his countrymen, their confused idea of the missionaries' God ! 



* John Leighton. 



f See Bertillon, Bulletins de la Socitte d' Anthropologie, March 15, 1860. 

 [See above, p. 66, note. EDITOR.] 



I I had this fact from the mouth of M. de Lesseps, on his return from a 

 journey to Khartum. 



