1884.] From the Zambesi to Benguella. 119 
"christian relics." 
In conversation with the people of Bihe about the one true 
God, they profess to believe in His existence, and say that there 
is and must be a great Spirit over and above all, whom they call 
Suku, but that they do not know him. They do not appear in 
any way to connect " Suku " with the things which are daily 
occurring around them. I cannot even say that they truly 
believe him to be a universal God, for they always speak of the 
white man as being under a separate set of gods and spirits from 
themselves. 
Judging according to human judgment, I should say that the 
missionary of the gospel would find the ground here very hard 
indeed. Besides the mass of superstition, which surpasses any- 
thing I ever heard of in Africa, there have been for nearly two 
centuries many evil and brutalising influences working upon the 
people, and few humanising ones. During all this time rum and 
the slave trade have had full scope. For the greater part 
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were many 
Roman Catholic missionaries at work all along the west 
coast, and for some little way into the interior; but the only 
remaining traces of them or their work are a few "Christian 
relics " added to the heap of native charms, and, here and there, 
a wooden cross standing at the head of some pagan's grave, 
sharing the ground with fantastic heathen images and symbols. 
Many thoughts come into one's mind on looking upon such a 
scene of confusion. 
Only the one confident assurance that there is a God who 
liveth could strengthen the heart of any servant of the Lord 
coming to this part. 
AFRICAN LANGUAGES. 
The languages, though of course perplexing to a stranger, are 
undoubtedly easy, both in construction and pronunciation. 
Speaking as they do in fidelity to the natural law of euphony, 
they are wonderfully accurate. When reducing the languages to 
a written form, missionaries find that if they can but discover any 
grammatical rule it has almost no exceptions. 
African languages are not to be learned at all correctly by 
direct conversation with the natives. They are more accurately 
