As seen in my loneliness, there was this difference between the Bible and the newspapers. The one reminded me that, apart from God, my life was but a bubble of air, and it bade me remember my Creator; the other fostered arrogance and worldliness. When that vast upheaved sky, and mighty circumference of tree-clad earth, or sere downland, marked so emphatically my personal littleness, I felt often so subdued that my black followers might have discerned, had they been capable of reflection, that Africa was changing me. It may be taken for granted that some of the newspaper issues which I took up, one after another, when examined under this new light, were uncommonly poor specimens of journalism. Though all contained some facts appertaining to the progress of the world’s affairs, in which every intelligent man ought to be concerned, these were so few and meagre that they were overwhelmed by the vast space devoted to stupid personalities, which were either offensively flattering or carpingly derogatory; and there came columns of crime records, and mere gutter-matter. It was during these days I learned that, as teeth were given to chew our bread, and taste to direct our sense of its quality, so knowledge and experience were capable of directing the judgment; and from that period to this, I have never allowed another to govern my decisions upon the character of any person, or to pervert my own ideas as to the rights and wrongs of a matter. I find, if one wishes to be other than a mere number, he must learn to exercise his own discretion. I have practised these rules ever since, and I remember my delight when I first found that this method had so trained and expanded my judgment that my views upon things affecting other people, or affairs in which I had no personal concern, were in harmony with those expressed by the best leading journals. A multitude of records of African travel have been read by me during twenty-four years; but I do not remember to have come across anything which would reveal the inward transition, in the traveller’s own feelings, from those which move him among his own kindred, to those he feels when he discovers himself to be a solitary white man in the new world of savage Africa, and all the pageantry of civilisation, its blessings, its protection, its politics, its energy and power,--all have become a mere memory. I was but a few days in the wilderness, on the other side of the Kingani River, when it dawned upon me with a most sobering effect. The sable native regarded me with as much curiosity as I should have regarded a stranger from Mars. He saw that I was outwardly human, but his desire to know whether my faculties and usages were human as well was very evident, and until it was gratified by the putting of my hand into his and speaking to him, his doubt was manifest. * * * * *