438 
THE NATIVE LANGUAGES. 
The air is full of blue haze, and very sultry. When the 
rains begin the face of the country changes with wonderful 
rapidity. Though the atmosphere is not moist and hot- 
house like, as it is on the West coast, yet the herbage 
springs up quickly; the air is so clear that one can see dis- 
tinctly at great distances; the landscape is full of light; 
and in the early morning, before the heat of noon, every- 
thing is filled with a delightful freshness. The young foliage 
of various trees, more especially on the highlands, comer 
out brown, pale red, or pink, like the hues of autumi 
foliage, and as the leaves grow they become a light, fresh 
green, while white, scarlet, pink and yellow flowers in pro- 
lusion delight the eye with their brilliancy of color. The 
birds and insects gather in crowds, the butterflies flit about, 
and an African Christmas is like an English May. It was 
loug ago remarked that in Africa everything was contrary; 
“ wool grows upon the heads of men, and hair on the backs 
of sheep.” The men frequently wear their hair long, the 
women scarcely ever. Where there are cattle, the women 
till the land, plant the corn, and build the huts. The men 
stay at home to sow, spin, weave, gossip and milk the cows. 
The men pay a dowry for their wives, instead of receiving 
one with them. These inhabitants of the mountains are 
feeble, spiritless and cowardly, when compared even with 
their own countrymen of the plains. Some of the Africans 
believe that at death their souls pass into the bodies of 
apes. Most writers suppose that the blacks are all savages; 
nearly all the blacks believe the whites to be cannibals. 
The “ bogie ” of the one is black, of the other white. Tha 
natives of Africa all speak a beautiful language, and have 
no vulgar patois ; owing to the difference of idiom, very 
few Europeans acquire an actuate knowledge of African 
tongues, unless they begin to learn them when young. A 
complaint of the poverty of the language is often only a 
sure proof of the ignorance of the complainer, and gross 
mistakes are often made by the most experienced. A grave 
professor put down in a scientific work the word “ Kaia " 
