78 



has had possession of the African continent, with all 

 its variety of situation, climate, and produce, from 

 time immemorial, and yet he has no arts save the 

 rudest, no literature, no science, no cities nor temples, 

 no ships, no moral code ; in most instances no idea 

 even of a Supreme Being — nothing, in fine, that 

 removes him much beyond the desires and necessities 

 of animal existence. Speaking of Commoro, one of 

 the most active and intelligent of the chiefs whom he 

 met on the Upper Nile, Sir Samuel Baker says : — 

 " In this naked savage there was not even a super- 

 stition upon which to found a religious feeling ; there 

 was a belief in matter; and to his understanding 

 everything was material."* As with the African, so 

 according to Dr. Mouat, with the Andamaner, and so 

 also, according to Dr. Lang, with the natives of 

 Australia ; " they have no idea of a Supreme Divinity, 

 no objects of worship, no idols nor temples, no sacri- 

 fices, nothing whatever in the shape of religion to 

 distinguish them from the beasts." t 



Notwithstanding all this, and a thousand times 

 more which could be adduced from every region, there 



ence tends to proye," say they, " that the European constitution 

 has a power of endurance, even in the tropics, greater than that of 

 the hardiest of the meat-eating Africans." — Narrative of an Expe- 

 dition to the Zamhesi, p. 179. 



* Great Basin of the Nile, vol. i. p. 250. 



■|- Lang's Aiorigines of Australia. 



