338 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
affected to believe the South Americans of a 
species inferior to themselves. They ruinously 
acted on that belief for centuries, and the de- 
scendants of those Spaniards have lived to see 
the day, when long observation has taught them, 
at a large expense, a very different lesson. It 
is not however denied, that slaves must and will 
be slaves, with all the cunning and treachery 
which their condition engenders, and perhaps 
it may still be a question, if persons enfranchised 
from a state of slavery can, by the fact of such 
an enfranchisement, become at once, or even 
very speedily, fit and useful members of a free 
and enlightened community. At the first blush 
of the question the answer would be in the ne- 
gative, but that negative should not be left 
unqualified. The people amongst whom I have 
travelled, and of whom only I would now be 
understood to write, are illiterate and conse- 
quently superstitious ; but the former arises 
not from want of capacity or genius so much as 
from the want of means to cultivate them ; 
their mechanical like their agricultural know- 
ledge is extremely limited, but why from that 
argue their incapacity to meet improvement, if 
improvement were happily thrown in their way ? 
They have beside, a civil polity and a diploma- 
tic chicane in their intercourse with each other. 
