i86 
Return to the River . 
evil are not those of more advanced nations; still 
the idea is there, and progress or tradition works 
it out in a thousand different ways. 
My visits to Mr. Walker first gave me the idea 
of making the negro describe his own character in 
a collection of purely Hamitic proverbs and idioms. 
It appeared to me that, if ever a book aspires to 
the title of “TAfricain peint par lui-meme” it must 
be one in which he is the medium to his own 
spirit, the interpreter to his own thoughts. Hence 
“ Wit and Wisdom from West Africa ” (London, 
Tinsleys, 1856), which I still hold to be a step in 
the right direction, although critics, who possibly 
knew more of Cornhill than of Yoruba, assured me 
that it was “rather a heavy compilation.” Nor 
can I yet see how the light fantastic toe can show 
its agility in the sabots of African proverbs. 
