ELOQUENCE. 



95 



derer is more often mulcted than handed over 

 for death to the family of the slain ; and little 

 is said concerning the slaughter of a slave. 

 Divided into half-a-dozen sub-trihes, each barely 

 sufficient to stock an English village, these 

 savages find petty political jealousies and in- 

 trigues as necessary and as ready to hand as do 

 the highly civilized. 



The Wanyika readily attended the European 

 schools as long as these were a novelty; pre- 

 sently, with the characteristic African levity and 

 inconsequence, they grew weary of application, 

 and they dubbed all who so exerted themselves 

 Wazingu, or fools. Yet in one point they are an 

 anomaly. They possess, in a high degree, the 

 gift of many negro and negroid races, an un- 

 studied eloquence which the civilized speaker 

 might envy, and which, like poetry, seems to 

 flourish most in the dawn of civilization. To 

 see, says a Brazilian author, men so eloquent and 

 so badly governed does not suggest that public 

 speaking in the virility of civilization is a great 

 ruling power. Their unpremeditated speech 

 rolls like a torrent ; every limb takes its part in 

 the great work of persuasion, and the peculiar 

 rhythm of their copious dialect, favourable to 

 such displays of oratory, forms an effective com- 



