We are grateful for the perfect frankness with which she expresses her views on these three subjects, as it makes it an easier task to discredit her opinion on Christian missions; for, in this day and generation, to believe in these three social evils of Africa and at the same time to believe in missions were impossible. If these are not evils it is a foregone conclusion that the missionary, who is fighting them to the death, is doing more harm than good, is wasting both blood and money, and is at the best a “well-meaning fool.” Miss Kingsley assures us that she went to Africa in the belief that the missionary represented everything that was good and the trader everything that was evil. But on shipboard, long before she reached Africa, when Miss Kingsley was mistaken for a missionary she thought it the greatest joke of modern times—and I rather agree with her. This is the one joke that she repeats with infinite laughter every time that it occurs. Her laughter of course measures her inward sense of utter incongruity and want of sympathy. Her fellow passengers knew her attitude before she reached the first African port. Another marked feature about Miss Kingsley’s books is the author’s want of sympathy for the sufferings of the natives, and her want of pity when they bleed under the cruel lash of the white man. Though written by a woman, they are books without tears. For instance, a story of heartrending wrong and suffering was told me by a trader of Fernando Po, who, although he had been on the coast for years, and, one would think, had been hardened by cruel sights, was yet deeply affected as he related it. I was able to verify it afterwards. It was a story of the cruelty of Portuguese planters to certain Krumen, whom by a false contract they enticed to San Thomé Island and then compelled them to remain and labour on the coco plantations as slaves. The conduct of the Portuguese in Africa justifies the opinion of the Kruman, who says: “God done make white man and God done make black man but dem debil done make Portuguee.” These enslaved Krumen, watching their opportunity, after two years escaped from San Thomé in canoes by night. They did not know that they were one hundred and fifty miles from the mainland, and they hoped that by some unforeseen means they might reach their own country. They all perished; most of them by hunger and thirst. After many days one or two canoes drifted to Fernando Po. In these the men were still alive—but scarcely alive, and they died after being rescued.