22 MEANS TO PROMOTE CIVILIZATION. Chap. I. 



prevented the bad effects of an exclusively vegetable diet. 

 The district being destitute of salt, the rich alone could afford 

 to buy it, and, when the poor, who had none, were forced to 

 live entirely on roots, they were often troubled with indiges- 

 tion. The native doctors, aware of the cause of the malady, 

 usually prescribed some of that condiment with their medicines. 

 Either milk or meat was equally remedial, though not so 

 rapid in its effects as salt. Long afterwards, when at two 

 distinct periods I was myself deprived of it for four months, I 

 felt no craving for it, but had a great longing for milk and meat. 

 This continued as long as I was confined to a vegetable diet, 

 and when I procured a meal of flesh, though boiled in perfectly 

 fresh rain-water, it tasted pleasantly saltish. 



In addition to other adverse influences, the necessity of 

 frequent absence for the purpose of either hunting game or 

 collecting roots and fruits, proved a serious barrier to the 

 progress of the people in knowledge. Sending the Gospel to 

 the heathen must include much more than is implied in the 

 usual picture of a missionary, which is that of a man going 

 about with a Bible under his arm. The promotion of com- 

 merce ought to be specially attended to, as this, more speedily 

 than anything else, demolishes that sense of isolation which 

 heathenism engenders, and makes the tribes feel themselves 

 mutually dependent on each other. Those laws which still 

 prevent free commercial intercourse among civilized nations 

 seem to be xiothing but the remains of our own heathenism. 

 By commerce we may not only put a stop to the slave-trade, 

 but introduce the negro family into the body corporate of 

 nations, no one member of which can suffer without the others 

 suffering with it. This, in both Eastern and Western Africa, 

 would lead to a much larger diffusion of the blessings of 

 civilization than efforts exclusively spiritual and educational 

 confined to any one tribe. These should of course be carried 

 on at the same time at large central and healthy stations. 

 Neither civilization nor Christianity can be Dromoted alone 

 In fact, they are inseparable^ 



