46 LECTURE IL 



My object in labouring as I have in Africa, is to 

 open up the country to commerce and Christianity. 

 This is my object in returning thither. I contend that 

 we ought not to be ashamed of our religion, and had 

 we not kept this so much out of sight in India, we should 

 not be now in such straits in that country. Let us 

 appear just what we are. For my own part, I intend to 

 go out as a missionary, and hope boldly, but with civility, 

 to state the truth of Christianity and my belief that 

 those who do not possess it are in error. My object in 

 Africa is not only the elevation of man, but that the 

 country might be so opened, that man might see the need 

 of his soul's salvation. 



I propose in my next expedition to visit the Zambesi, 

 and to propitiate the different chiefs along its banks, 



Kooranko people ; the white man ate nothing but fish when he lived in 

 the water, and that is the cause of his being so thin. If he came among 

 black men he would get fat, for they would give him cows, goats, and 

 sheep to eat, and his thirst should be quenched with draughts of milk." 



The women were less complimentary, and shewed a spirit not quite 

 so kindly as those did to Mungo Park. The burden of the ladies' song, 

 after the dance, was, "Of the white man who had come to their town ; 

 of the houseful of money which he had, such cloth, such beads, such fine 

 things as had never been seen in Kooranko before. If their husbands 

 were men, and wished to see their wives well dressed, they ought to take 

 some of the money from the white man ! " This counsel had a bad 

 effect, and was mainly set aside by the major's native attendant, Tamba, 

 shrewdly slipping in and singing, " Of Sierra Leone, of houses a mile 

 in length filled with money ; that the white man who was here had 

 nothing compared with those at Sierra Leone ; if therefore they wished 

 to see some of these rich men come into Kooranko, they must not 

 trouble this one ; whoever wanted to see a snake's tail must not strike 

 it on the head." — Lond. Encyclop. Vol. I. p. 259. 



