1812. 
CONTEMPLATION OF THE SCENE, 
443 
was highly amusing. But the men were more moderate in their 
curiosity, as most of them had ah'eady had an opportunity of seeing 
me at my waggons : some joined our party, and all inquired, whither 
I was going. 
The different engravings in this volume, will give some idea of 
the appearance of this strange and singular town ; yet nothing but 
breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it and 
beholding its living inhabitants in all the peculiarities of their move- 
ments and manners, can communicate those gratifying, and literally 
indescribable, sensations, which every European traveller of feeling, 
will experience on finding himself in the midst of so interesting a 
scene : — a scene not merely amusing ; but one which may be highly 
instructive, for a contemplative mind. Let us endeavour to imagine 
the contrast, and to conceive the full force of it, by supposing our- 
selves, — while occupied in the busy metropolis of our own country, 
with all its bustle, its refinements, its complicated affairs, its extended 
views, its luxuries, its learning, its arts, the ingenuity and perfection 
of its manufactures, its numerous and beautiful piles of masonry, 
its floating edifices those admirable efforts of human skill ; in fine, 
its intellectual and exalted characters, and its pure knowledge of the 
Deity; — let us, by supposing ourselves instantaneously transported 
to the spot which I am now describing, the mental image of which 
is still before me as bright and glowing as the reality then was, 
endeavour to form in our mind the picture I would attempt to draw ; — 
of a nation and a town whose secluded existence, deep in the interior 
of an unexplored quarter of the globe, was unknown to us a few years 
before, and whose names even, had not hitherto reached us correctly ; 
of men who knew as little of the rest of the world, as the rest of the 
world knew of them, and whose personal appearance, dress, and 
customs, are so widely different from all which we have in our own 
country been used to behold ; of manners of the simplest kind ; of 
intellect unexpanded or in its weaKest state ; of a society without 
arts, without other occupation than that of providing for daily wants 
and for the support of mere animal existence ; of minds insensible 
to the charms of exalted virtue, unconscious of the better destiny of 
3 L 2 
