THE WEST COAST OF EQUATORIAL AFRICA. 
105 
sides, from Englishmen, foreigners, and free men of colour, we 
hear but one opinion, modified indeed in its expression, but 
invariably the same in substance. “ The negroes are an 
indolent, bad race ;” they don’t, and won’t work ; the women 
do all the field labour, planting mandioca {Anglice, manioc, of 
which more hereafter), carrying heavy burdens, nursing, cook- 
ing,— in fact doing everything but “ drinking” (and in many 
cases that also). The men eat, drink, fight, “palaver” 
(quarrel), and sleep. Of their horrible “ fetish-worship,” 
superstition, human sacrifices, and cannibalism, practised espe- 
cially in Ashantee, Dahomey, Loango,* and other parts where 
the civilizing guns of the Europeans have not yet resounded, we 
have no room to speak; besides/enough has been said, and too 
little done to suppress these barbarities; but even where the 
temptations of gain have to some extent brought them within 
the pale of civilization, the African negroes are as bad as the 
worst of our European dealers, being the most unscrupulous 
traders to be met with on the face of the earth. 
Although our information fully justifies us in making this 
sweeping assertion as regards the coloured men inhabiting this 
part of the world, we do not mean thereby to impugn the 
character of the whole race. Even in this region many honour- 
able exceptions are to be found ; and without at all referring to 
those who are in a state of servitude in America, or who have, 
through their education, been placed on a perfect equality with 
the white man, we shall, when we come to speak of the trade of 
the coast, be enabled to show that the honesty of the blacks 
might in some instances serve as an example to the more highly- 
endowed European. 
Before passing away from this part of the subject, we must 
say a few words concerning the means that have been employed 
to reclaim this unfortunate branch of the human family. Of 
their wholesale deportation, by fraud and violence, to the plan- 
tations of Cuba, or wherever they may be consigned to servitude, 
little need be said ; for the voice of civilized nations lias declared 
this to be an unlawful act, and it is only a matter of surprise 
that it is not reckoned amongst the gravest of human crimes. 
Although the worldly condition of the negroes (at least, of such 
as reach their destination) may be somewhat ameliorated by the 
transference, yet the process is instigated by the most sordid 
motives, conducted without the smallest regard to humanity, 
and often accompanied throughout by horrors as indescribable 
as those enacted in the home of the negro. 
* Cannibalism is not practised at Loango, but at Goanzo, up the Congo 
and in the district of Cape St. Braz, a little south of Loanda, Fetish-worship 
is prevalent along the whole coast. 
