OBSTACLES TO GETTING INTO THE INTERIOR. 563 



where missionaries and other Europeans might be able to recruit their health 

 without taking a long sea voyage. Besides incurring large personal expendi- 

 ture, which he asks and expects no one to refund, in order to promote an 

 enterprise on which he has set his heart, Mr. Thomson has exposed himself to 

 toil and trouble in countless forms, and has undergone more than usual risk 

 to health and life in the explorations he has undertaken with a view to the 

 completion of the task he has set before him." In writing from Cameroons 

 Mountain, July 14, 1874, he says : — 



"It is now over three years since I left home, and in that interval it has 

 been my lot to see a good deal of the strange and, to me at least, interesting. 

 From an early period of my life Africa has had a strange fascination for me. 

 The strength of this attraction has not diminished with advancing years, nor 

 has actual contact dispelled its force ; on the contrary, the little knowledge I 

 have acquired has increased the desire to know more. Although I cannot 

 boast of having travelled much in Africa, still, being untrammelled by any 

 definite line of duty, I spent the first nine or ten months of my residence in 

 it in visiting the various mission fields cultivated in this corner of the conti- 

 nent, making a longer or shorter stay at each according to circumstances, and 

 making several short journeys into the interior. In this way I have been 

 privileged to see more of the country and its people than others who have 

 been long resident on the coast, but whose duties confined them more to one 

 district. 



" Two serious obstacles present themselves to those who would pene- 

 trate beyond what may be called the coast-line : first, the extreme jealousy 

 of the native traders ; and, second, the great diversity of languages. The 

 first-mentioned has arisen out of the system of trading which has sprung up 

 between the coast tribes and Europeans. The people occupying the coast 

 and the banks of the large rivers, a short distance from their entrance in- 

 to the sea, receive the goods from the ships in exchange for produce, con- 

 vey them to the tribes immediately beyond, who pass them on again to 

 tribes dwelling more towards the interior, and they again to people more 

 remote, each set claiming the monopoly of trade in their own range. This 

 system is defined, both in regard to white traders and the native tribes. At 

 first, when our missionaries sought to penetrate into the interior, they were 

 prevented, sometimes by force and sometimes by craft, the native traders 

 not being able to comprehend that any white man could have other motive 

 than that of trade ; and now even, when they are somewhat better informed, 

 they fear that if the missionary is allowed to get in, others may in course of 

 time manage and ' spoil their trade,' as the saying is. Besides this fear as 

 to trade, the feeling of jealousy operates seriously against white men getting 

 much beyond the seaboard, the coast tribes having come to consider it an 

 honour pertaining to them, to have white missionaries residing in their own 



