This author, in his Tour in Africa, writes thus: “The inhabitants here
along the Golden coast of Guinea, and Benin, bounded with Tombotu,
(Timbuctoo,) Gualata, and Mellis, and watered by the great river Niger,
but, especially in the Mediterranean (inland) parts, know no God, nor
are at all willing to be instructed by nature—“Scire nihil
jucundissimum.” Howbeit the Divel, who will not want his ceremonie, has
infused prodigious idolatry into their hearts, enough to relish his
pallet, and aggrandize their tortures, where he gets power to fry their
souls, as the raging sun has scorched their cole-black carcasses. * * *
Those countries are full of black-skinned wretches, rich in earth, as
abounding with the best minerals and with elephants, but miserable in
Demonomy. * * * Let one character serve for all. For colour they
resemble chimney-sweepers; unlike them in this, they are of no
profession, except rapine and villany make one; for here, _Demonis omnia
plena_. * * * But in Loango and the Anziqui the people are little other
than divels incarnate; not satisfied with nature’s treasures, as gold,
precious stones, flesh in variety, and the like; the destruction of men
and women neighbouring them, whose dead carcasses they devour with a
vulture relish and appetite; whom if they miss, they serve their friends
such scurvy sauce, butchering them, and thinking they excuse all in a
compliment that they know no better way to express love than in making
two bodies in one, by an inseparable union; yea, some, as some report,
proffering themselves to the shambles, accordingly are disjointed and
set to sale upon the stalls. * * * The natives of Africa being
propagated from Cham, both in their visages and natures, seem to inherit
his malediction. * * * They are very brutes. A dog was of that value
here that twenty salvages (slaves) have been exchanged for one of them;
but of late years the exchange here made for negroes, to transport into
the Cariba isles and continent of America, is become a considerable
trade.”
It will be remembered how great have been the exertions of the British
Government to abolish totally the slave-trade in Africa. A great number
of slave ships were captured, and the negroes found on board sent to
Sierra Leone. Strong hopes were entertained that “_poor, suffering
Africa_” was about to be civilized.
We quote from the Hibernian Auxiliary Missionary Report, Christian
Observer, 1820, pages 888 and 889:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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