INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 3I5 
dingo language, with tolerable exactness, by different people; 
and my surprise was not greater on hearing these accounts 
from tlie lips of the Negroes, than theirs, on finding that I 
was already acquainted with them ; for although the Negroes 
in general have a very great idea of the wealth and power of 
the Europeans, I am afraid that the Mahomedan converts 
among them, think but very lightly of our superior attainments 
in religious knowledge. The white traders in the maritime 
districts, take no pains to counteract this unhappy prejudice; 
always performing their own devotions in secret, and seldom 
condescending to converse with the Negroes in a friendly and 
instructive manner. To me, therefore, it was not so much the 
subject of wonder, as matter of regret, to observe, that while 
the superstition of Mahomet has, in this manner, scattered a 
few faint beams of learning among these poor people, the pre- 
cious light of Christianity is altogether excluded. I could not 
but lament, that although the Coast of Africa has now been 
known and frequented by the Europeans for more than two 
hundred years, yet the Negroes still remain entire strangers 
to the doctrines of our holy religion. We are anxious to draw 
from obscurity the opinions and records of antiquity, the 
beauties of Arabian and Asiatic literature, &c. ; but while our 
libraries are thus stored with the learning of various countries, 
we distribute with a parsimonious hand, the blessings of reli- 
gious truth, to the benighted nations of the earth. The natives 
of Asia derive but little advantage in this respect from an 
intercourse with us; and even the poor Africans, whom we 
affect to consider as barbarians, look upon us, I fear, as little 
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