INTERIOR OF AFRICA. - 263 
to forget the disinterested charity, and tender solicitude, with 
which many of these poor heathens (from the sovereign of 
Sego, to the poor women who received me at different times 
into their cottages, when I was perishing of hunger) sympa- 
thized with me in my sufferings; relieved my distresses; and 
contributed to my safety. This acknowledgment, however, 
is perhaps more particularly due to the female part of the 
nation. Among the men, as the reader must have seen, my 
reception, though generally kind, was sometimes otherwise. It 
varied according to the various tempers of those to v^/hom I 
made application. The hardness of avarice in some, and the 
blindness of bigotry in others, had closed up the avenues to 
compassion : but I do not recollect a single instance of hard- 
heartedness towards me in the women. In all my wanderings 
and wretchedness, I found them uniformly kind and compas- 
sionate ; and I can truly say, as my predecessor Mr. Ledyard, 
has eloquently said before me; " To a woman, I never ad- 
** dressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, 
without receiving a decent and friendly answer. If I was 
" hungry, or thirsty, wet, or sick, they did not hesitate, like 
•* the men, to perform a generous action. In so free, and so 
" kind a manner did they contribute to my relief ; that if I 
" was dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, I eat 
'* the coarsest morsel with a double relish." 
It is surely reasonable to suppose, that the soft and amiable 
sympathy of nature, which was thus spontaneously manifested 
towards me, in my distress, is displayed by these poor people, 
as occasion requires, much more strongly towards persons of 
