868 LIFE OF DA VII) LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



to attain the language of the natives in order to teach them properly. The 

 African language was so entirely different in construction, inflections, and 

 grammar, from the English language, that the latter was extremely difficult for 

 them. Although they might learn to talk English, it was difficult for them 

 to get a true appreciation of ideas from it. Fortunately, with regard to this 

 matter, from Zanzibar on the east coast to the strip of coast south of the 

 Congo on the west, the languages spoken by the natives belonged to one 

 great family, called by a great geographer the Kisuabili, the language of 

 Zanzibar. Any one having a competent knowledge of this language would 

 find it comparatively easy to acquire any of the languages of the part of 

 Africa to which he was referring. For his own part, the Kisuabili had car- 

 ried him from one coast to the other. These languages were so engrained 

 into the ways of thought of the Africans of that part, that it was imperative 

 they should labour to teach them in their own, and not in a foreign tongue. 



One great result they hoped to attain from the construction of highways 

 into the interior of Africa was the wiping out of that great blot on the human 

 race, the slave trade. At the same time the work of doing away with slavery 

 in Central Africa was not one to be done in five or ten years, or in a gene- 

 ration. Let it be sufficient for them that they commenced the work— even if 

 it was reserved for their grandchildren or great grandchildren to see its ac- 

 complishment. But if they did not see immediate results, let them not be dis- 

 heartened. Such an enormous revolution in the whole African manner of 

 thought was not to be accomplished in a short time. It was only to be 

 accomplished by the patient, unremitting toil of generations. The idea of 

 slavery was so thoroughly engrained in the African nature, that if it could be 

 swept away to-morrow, the slaves set free would be complaining because 

 they could not own slaves themselves. They had to be educated out of the 

 idea that human beings of whom they got possession by war or robbery were 

 mere chattels, to be bought and sold. Of course, a great deal of the actual 

 traffic in slaves arose from the way in which the trade with the interior was 

 carried on. The Arabs went there for ivory; in some parts, it was true, they 

 went simply for slaves, but the great trade was in ivory, and if there were 

 proper roads and proper means of transport the Arabs would gladly enough 

 relieve themselves of the trouble of buying slaves. 



Sometimes the slaves ran away ; and, of course, they were disinclined 

 to work. All this was so much loss of capital, and many of the merchants 

 had assured him that if they could possibly do without them they would buy 

 no more slaves except for domestic service. As to this domestic slave ques- 

 tion, they had an idea that many men could afford to buy a slave who could 

 not afford to hire a servant. They failed to see the force of the argument 

 that one servant would do the work of half a dozen slaves. Wherever slave 

 labour was employed there was always an enormous waste of labour, and it 



