PREFATORY LETTER. lxxv 



central Africa. For he knew them long and well. They 

 had learned to call him Father, and he loved them as his 

 children: and to prove that this was not, on his part, an idle 

 and inoperative sentiment (for words of love cost little, and 

 may sometimes be used to turn and grace a sentence), he is 

 now gone again to the Zambesi, with his wife (Ma-Robert) 

 and his son — willing with them to encounter fresh toils, and 

 to brave the climate of Africa; and hoping with them to carry 

 the message of peace and good- will to its poor inhabitants. 



The living pictures of our Author do not shew us the black 

 man as he is seen in the base, crouching attitude of a slave. 

 Sometimes he may be well treated while he is in that condition 

 (for a good man may have the social misfortune to possess 

 slaves, however infamous he may count the slave-dealer) ; but 

 while a slave he is liable, at every turn of fortune or wanton- 

 ness of caprice, to be trampled on by those who are stronger 

 than himself. Nor is the African often painted by Livingstone 

 as he is seen on the outskirts of his own Continent, corrupted 

 and brutalized by his commerce with civilized dealers in the 

 flesh and blood of men — dealers who have tempted him to 

 abominable sin, led him to cast away all the true elements of 

 his humanity, and taught him nothing that deserves the name 

 of good. But he is here put before us in his true colours — 

 with all the elements of good and evil that belong to his 

 native, unsophisticated character. Barbarous he may be, and 

 liable to gusts of passion that sometimes carry him to deeds of 

 savage violence : ignorant he may be, and the slave of a gross 

 idolatry: but he is not insensible to kindness; he is not 

 unwilling to be taught and raised to something that belongs 

 to a far higher order of humanity. And take him as he is, — 

 untaught, ignorant of the arts of life, and the sport of savage 

 passion — yet has he learnt to be faithful to his leader; to be 

 true to his word, and honest in his dealings; and he has learnt 

 so much of the nature of social union, that he is loyal to his 

 Chief, and proud of his tribe and name ; and he has many of 



