340 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



do better than to follow the advice of Bacon — • " Use 

 savages justly and graciously, with sufficient guard 

 nevertheless." They must be held as foes ; and the 

 prudent stranger will never put himself in their power, 

 especially where life is concerned. The safety of a 

 caravan will often depend upon the barbarian's fear of 

 beginning the fray : if the onset once takes place, the 

 numbers, the fierce looks, the violent gestures, and the 

 confidence of the assailants upon their own ground, 

 will probably prevail. When necessary, however, seve- 

 rity must be employed ; leniency and forbearance are 

 the vulnerable points of civilised policy, as they en- 

 courage attack by a suspicion of fear and weakness. 

 They may be managed as the Indian saw directs, by 

 a judicious mixture of the "Narm" and "Garm" — 

 the soft and hot. Thus the old traders remarked in 

 Guinea, that the best way to treat a black man was to 

 hold out one hand to shake with him, while the other is 

 doubled ready to knock him down. In trading with, or 

 even when dwelling amongst this people, all display of 

 wealth must be avoided. A man who would purchase 

 the smallest article avoids showing anything beyond its 

 equivalent. 



The ethnologist who compares this sketch with the 

 far more favourable description of the Kafirs, a kindred 

 race, given by travellers in South Africa, may suspect 

 that only the darker shades of the picture are placed 

 before the eye. But, as will appear in a future page, 

 much of this moral degradation must be attributed to 

 the working, through centuries, of the slave-trade : the 

 tribes are no longer as nature made them; and from 

 their connection with strangers they have derived no- 

 thing but corruption. Though of savage and barbarous 

 type, they have been varnished with the semi-civilisation 



