The curiosity of those who have not seen a white man before, or are not used to seeing him, is unbounded and at first attaches to everything that he possesses. Magic is their easy explanation of everything they do not understand. A match (until they become accustomed to it) will scatter a crowd as quickly as a Gatling gun. It is the supernatural of which they are most afraid; as with us, those who believe in ghosts are more afraid of them than the worst of living enemies. Nothing of ours is more wonderful or more desired than the looking-glass. Yet they are not always conceited in regard to their appearance. One poor interior woman, seeing her face in the looking-glass for the first time, sank to the ground with a little cry, and said: “I did not think I was so ugly.” Their wonder is not always directed as we would expect. It is not the greatest achievement that excites the greatest wonder. One day, after my return to America, in company with a friend I was passing one of the greatest buildings of Chicago, when the friend said: “What would your Africans think of such a building?” “My Africans,” I replied (pointing to a man on the corner with a tin monkey climbing a string), “would be so entirely occupied with that tin monkey climbing a string that you could not get them to look at the building.” In the invention of the monkey they would have some comprehension of the difficulties to be overcome, while not knowing how it had been accomplished; hence the mystery. But in the case of the great building they have no present knowledge which would enable them in any measure to realize the difficulties, or the principles involved. The African wonders most at those things which bear some relation to his present knowledge. For wonder is not exactly an expression of ignorance, as it has been called, but rather an expression of imperfect knowledge. All things in our possession of which they did not know the use were regarded as fetishes. I wore glasses when studying. One day at Efulen I came out of the house with the glasses on. A group of women were standing in front of the house; and several of them, seeing me look at them through the glasses, fell flat on the ground; whereupon I discovered that they supposed my glasses were a fetish by which I might (as one of them said) turn them into monkeys. They supposed that we were “spirits,” and so they called us. Looking at my black shoes one of them exclaimed: “The spirit’s hands and face are white, but his feet are black, and I suppose the rest of his body is black.” Another said: “The spirit has feet, but he has no toes.” Another said: “What an ugly colour! But he would be a beauty if he were black.” Dear reader: Were you ever an object of curiosity? Of course you have been on some single occasion—for a passing moment, or even a whole evening. But I mean day after day, and all the time, for an indefinite period. If so, you have my profound sympathy.