96 



CHARACTER. 



bination. Eew, however, can ' follow the words/ 

 that is to say, answer in due order the heads of 

 an opponent's speech. Such power of memory 

 and logical, faculty is not in them. The abuse of 

 the gift of language makes them boisterous in 

 conversation, unable to keep silence — the negro 

 race is ever loquacious — and addicted to ' bend- 

 ing their tongues like their bows for lies.' They 

 cannot even, to use a Zanzibar German mer- 

 chant's phrase, 'lie honestly.' Their character 

 may thus be briefly summed up : a futile race of 

 barbarians, drunken and immoral ; cowardly and 

 destructive ; boisterous and loquacious ; indolent, 

 greedy, and thriftless. Their redeeming points 

 are, a tender love of family, which displays itself 

 by the most violent ' kin-grief,' and a strong 

 attachment to an uninviting home. 



A certain critic, who had probably never 

 transgressed the bounds of Europe, but who pro- 

 bably had read Macaulay (' by judicious selection 

 and previous exaggeration, the intellect and the 

 disposition of any human being might be de- 

 scribed as being made up of nothing but startling 

 contrasts'), thus complained of my description 

 of Somal inconsistency. ' This affectionately- 

 atrocious people,' he declares, ' is painted in 

 strangely opposite colours.' Can we not, then, 



