522 MILDNESS OF THEIR RELIGION". Chai>. XXV. 



whether of good or evil, is ascribed to the Deity. Men are 

 inseparably connected with the spirits of the departed, and 

 when one dies he is believed to have joined the hosts of his 

 ancestors. All the Africans we have met with are as firmly 

 persuaded of their future existence as of their present life. 

 And we have found none in whom the belief in the Supreme 

 Being was not rooted. He is so invariably referred to as the 

 Author of everything supernatural, that, unless one is igno- 

 rant of their language, he cannot fail to notice this promi- 

 nent feature of their faith. When they pass into the un- 

 seen world, they do not seem to be possessed with the fear 

 of punishment. The utensils placed upon the grave are all 

 broken as if to indicate that they will never be used by the 

 departed again. The body is put into the grave in a sitting 

 posture, and the hands are folded in front. In some parts of 

 the country there are tales which we could translate into 

 faint glimmerings of a resurrection ; but whether these fables, 

 handed down from age to age, convey that meaning to the 

 natives themselves we cannot tell. The true tradition of faith 

 is asserted to be "though a man die he will live again ;" the 

 false, that when he dies he is dead for ever. 



Though cheerless enough to a Christian, the African's reli- 

 gion is mild in its character. In one very remote and small 

 corner of the country, called Dahomey, it has degenerated 

 into a bloody superstition. Human blood there takes the 

 place of the propitiatory plants which are used over nine- 

 tenths of the continent. The reckless disregard of human 

 life mentioned by Speke and Grant is quite exceptional. We 

 have heard from natives that a former possessor of Mati- 

 amvo's Chieftainship was subject to fits of a similar blood- 

 thirstiness, but he was clearly insane ; and the great reverence 

 for royalty, with which the Africans are imbued, alone saved 

 him, and probably Speke's Chief, Mtesi, also, from decapita- 



