The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873: Continued By A Narrative Of His Last Moments And Sufferings, Obtained From His Faithful Servants Chuma And SusiLivingstone, David
History
The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873: Continued By A Narrative Of His Last Moments And Sufferings, Obtained From His Faithful Servants Chuma And Susi
Livingstone, David
Africa, Central -- Description and travel
The Bakatala at Lualaba West killed Salem bin Habib. _Mem._--Keep clear
of them. Makwamba is one of the chiefs of the rock-dwellers, Ngulu is
another, and Masika-Kitobwé on to Baluba. Sef attached Kilolo N'tambwé.
_19th May, 1869._--The emancipation of our West-Indian slaves was the
work of but a small number of the people of England--the philanthropists
and all the more advanced thinkers of the age. Numerically they were a
very small minority of the population, and powerful only from the
superior abilities of the leading men, and from having the right, the
true, and just on their side. Of the rest of the population an immense
number were the indifferent, who had no sympathies to spare for any
beyond their own fireside circles. In the course of time sensation
writers came up on the surface of society, and by way of originality
they condemned almost every measure and person of the past.
"Emancipation was a mistake;" and these fast writers drew along with
them a large body, who would fain be slaveholders themselves. We must
never lose sight of the fact that though the majority perhaps are on the
side of freedom, large numbers of Englishmen are not slaveholders only
because the law forbids the practice. In this proclivity we see a great
part of the reason of the frantic sympathy of thousands with the rebels
in the great Black war in America. It is true that we do sympathize
with brave men, though we may not approve of the objects for which they
fight. We admired Stonewall Jackson as a modern type of Cromwell's
Ironsides; and we praised Lee for his generalship, which, after all, was
chiefly conspicuous by the absence of commanding abilities in his
opponents, but, unquestionably, there existed besides an eager desire
that slaveocracy might prosper, and the Negro go to the wall. The
would-be slaveholders showed their leanings unmistakably in reference to
the Jamaica outbreak; and many a would-be Colonel Hobbs, in lack of
revolvers, dipped his pen in gall and railed against all Niggers who
could not be made slaves. We wonder what they thought of their hero,
when informed that, for very shame at what he had done and written, he
had rushed unbidden out of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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