THE WASAWAHILI. 



417 



fondness for praise, honours, and distinctions; 

 keenness together with short-sightedness in 

 matters of business, and a nameless horror of re- 

 sponsibility and regular occupation. Africa has 

 gifted them with comparative freedom from 

 bigotry — they are not admodum dediti re- 

 ligionibus. Usually the Moslem combines com- 

 merce with proselytizing, opposed to our sys- 

 tem, which divides by a wide gulf the merchant's 

 career from that of the Missionary, and which 

 unites them only upon the subscription sheet. 

 These people care little to make converts : 

 their African languor upon doctrinal points pre- 

 vents their becoming fanatics or proselytizers. 

 African also is their eternal, restless suspicion, the 

 wisdom of serf and slave compensating for their 

 sluggish imagination and small powers of concen- 

 tration. They excel in negro duplicity ; they are 

 infinitely great in the £ Small wares and petty 

 points of cunning,' and they will boast of this 

 vile eminence, saying, c Are we not Wasawahili ? ' 

 men who obtain then ends by f oxship ? Natum 

 mendacio genus, truth is unknown to it ; honesty 

 and candour are ignored even by name. When 

 they assert they probably he, when they swear 

 they certainly lie. The favourite oath is 6 Mi mi 

 Avad (or MYma) haramf — I am a bastard if,' &c, 



vol. i. 27 



