326 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



ends by contrivances which we cannot comprehend; 

 and his artifices and polity excite, by their shallowness 

 and " inconsequence," our surprise and contempt. Like 

 that Hindu race that has puzzled the plain-witted 

 Englishman for the century closing with the massacres 

 of Delhi and Cawnpore, he is calculated to perplex 

 those who make conscience an instinct which elevates 

 man to the highest ground of human intelligence. He 

 is at once very good-tempered and hard-hearted, com- 

 bative and cautious ; kind at one moment, cruel, pitiless, 

 and violent at another ; sociable and unaffectionate ; 

 superstitious and grossly irreverent ; brave and cowardly, 

 servile and oppressive ; obstinate, yet fickle and fond of 

 changes ; with points of honour, but without a trace of 

 honesty in word or deed ; a lover of life, though ad- 

 dicted to suicide ; covetous and parsimonious, yet 

 thoughtless and improvident; somewhat conscious of 

 inferiority, withal unimprovable. In fact, he appears an 

 embryo of the two superior races. He is inferior to the 

 active-minded and objective, the analytic and perceptive 

 European, and to the ideal and subjective, the synthetic 

 and reflective Asiatic. He partakes largely of the 

 worst characteristics of the lower Oriental types — stag- 

 nation of mind, indolence of body, moral deficiency, 

 superstition, and childish passion ; hence the Egyptians 

 aptly termed the Berbers and negroes the " perverse 

 race of Kush." 



The main characteristic of this people is the selfish- 

 ness which the civilised man strives to conceal, because 

 publishing it would obstruct its gratification. The bar- 

 barian, on the other hand, displays his inordinate 

 egotism openly and recklessly; his every action discloses 

 those unworthy traits which in more polished races 

 chiefly appear on public occasions, when each man 



