TRADING HABITS OF THE NATIVES. 155 



the whole of the Sacred Scriptures will, it is hoped, soon be translated, and 

 the time necessary for learning and reducing the negro language may not be 

 su barren as is usually the case. The Barotse, Batoka, Balonda, and Ambonda 

 dialects (or language spoken by the Angolese), with those spoken in Luba and 

 beyond, as also those of the people on the east coast, are all undoubtedly 

 cognate with the Bechuana tongue and Kaffre. The very considerable number 

 of words exactly alike or only slightly varied in their inflections, can only be 

 explained on that hypothesis, for there has been no intercourse between these 

 tribes, at least for centuries past. Each of the negro tribes readily learns the 

 language of the others. The Bechuanas, however, often fail to acquire that 

 of the negroes though living among them. Yet my companions acquired it in 

 Angola as readily as I could a smattering of Portuguese, and failed entirely 

 in the latter. The influence of the Sacred Scriptures in the true negro language 

 will be immense. If we call the actual amount of conversion the direct results 

 of missions, and the wide diffusion of better principles the indirect, I have no 

 hesitation in asserting that the latter are of infinitely more importance than the 

 former. 1 do not undervalue the importance of the conversion and salvation of 

 the most abject creature that breathes, but viewing our work of wide sowing 

 of the good seed, relatively to the harvest when all our heads are low, there 

 can, I think, be no comparison. 



" It might be premature to contemplate the probability of any results 

 from the circulation of the edition of the Testament which was furnished to 

 Park ; but the circumstances are somewhat similar, seeing that all the Arabs 

 I have met with are able to read and write. We may accomplish that which 

 he was not permitted to do. It will, at all events, be working in the right 

 direction. 



Openings foe the Ultimate Spread of Civilization and Christianity. 



" The Africans are all deeply imbued with the spirit of trade. We 

 found great difficulty in getting past many villages ; every artifice was em- 

 ployed to detain us, that we might purchase our suppers from them. And 

 having finished all the game, they are entirely dependent on English calico 

 for clothing. It is retailed to them by inches; a small piece will purchase a 

 slave. If they had the opportunity of a market they would raise on their 

 rich soil abundance of cotton, and zingoba beans for oil. I cannot say they 

 were lazy, though they did seem to take the world easy. Their hair was 

 elaborately curled ; many of their villages were models of neatness, and so 

 were their gardens and huts. Many were inveterate musicians. The men 

 who went with me to Loanda did so in order to open up a path for commerce, 

 and without any hope of payment from me. Though compelled to part with 

 their hard-won earnings in that city for food, on our way home I never beard 

 a murmur. The report they gave of the expedition, both in public and 



