290 
THE WESTERN COAST. 
manners, customs, and religious opinions. They 
all believe in one supreme God, the creator and 
preserver of all things. But in order to fix their 
ideas, they require some definite figure, and gene- 
rally invest him with the human form, as the 
most perfect. To believe in a being devoid of 
form, seems to the negro a belief in nothing, for 
his only test of the truth of an idea, is the liveli- 
ness of his conception. To this supreme being 
prayers are often offered, when his worshippers 
turn their faces towards the sun, as the most glo- 
rious emblem of his majesty. Loyer gives us a 
formula of morning prayer used at Issini. " My 
" God give me this day rice and yams ; give me 
" gold and aigris ; * give me slaves and riches ; 
" give me health, and grant that I may be active 
" and swift.* * The same inaccuracy of thinking, 
the same vague manner of expression, the same ob- 
stinate adherence to propositions, the terms of 
which are indefinite and obscure, that have oc- 
casioned so many incurable religious dissensions 
among civilized nations, have produced a diversity 
* The Aigris is a stone of a greenish blue colour, suppos- 
ed to be a species of jasper, small perforated pieces of which, 
valued at their weight in gold, and used for money, like the 
cowry shells which pass current in the countries along the 
Niger, from Bambara to Cassina, at ten times their value in 
Bengal. 
