The African people have naturally a great deal of kindness of disposition. They are not treacherous, savage, and blood-thirsty without some cause. Their bitter and sore experience from the Arab traders has made them suspicious of all strangers, and has transformed their native kindness into sullen hatred and a desire for vengeance upon their enemies.
Moenemokata, an Arab who had travelled among African tribes more extensively than any of his race, said to Livingstone, “If a man go with a good-natured, civil tongue, he may pass through the worst people in Africa unharmed.” It is a remarkable fact that Livingstone, who traversed so large a portion of the great continent of Africa, and visited so many tribes widely differing in spirit and character, never resorted to violence. In no instance during his long wanderings and his manifold perils among these heathen people did he use his weapon to the injury of the natives.
Even in Manyuema, among the people that all said “are bad, very bad,” blood-thirsty cannibals, if none of them had been wronged by the Arab traders, plundered and spoliated, they would not be so inspired with feelings of malice and revenge. Livingstone had little difficulty in obtaining what he needed. He says, “None of the people are ferocious without cause.” It was a quite frequent occurrence for old men to come forward to him with bananas as a present, saying as he passed, with trembling accents, “Bolongo, bolongo!” (Friendship, friendship). If he paused to return the favor by some gift, others ran for plantains or palm-toddy. The Arabs would seize what they wished, demand food peremptorily, and eat it without one word of thanks, and then say to Livingstone, “They are bad. Don’t give them anything.” “Why, what badness is there in giving food?” Livingstone replied. “Oh! they like you, but hate us.”
Much of the barbarity and badness of these African tribes may be ascribed to the heartlessness, falsehood, pillage, and murder by the Mohammedan slave-dealers. Livingstone gives in his journal these incidents to show the characteristic kindness of the African race:—
“When we were on the Shiré, we used to swing the ship into mid-stream every night in order to let the air which was put in motion by the water pass from end to end. Musa’s brother-in-law stepped into the water one morning in order to swim off for a boat, and was seized by a crocodile. The poor fellow held up his hands imploringly, but Musa and the rest allowed him to perish. On my denouncing his heartlessness, Musa replied, ‘Well, no one tell him to go in there.’ When at Senna, a slave-woman was seized by a crocodile; four Makololo rushed in unbidden and rescued her, though they knew nothing about her. From long intercourse both with Johanna men and Makololo, I take these incidents as typical of the two cases. Those of mixed blood possess the vices of both races and the virtues of neither.”
Speke, at Kasangé Islet, made this statement, viz., “The mothers of these savage people have infinitely less affection than many savage beasts of my acquaintance. I have seen a mother-bear galled by frequent shots, obstinately meet her death by repeatedly returning under fire while endeavoring to rescue her young from the grasp of intruding men. But here, for a simple loin-cloth or two, human mothers eagerly exchanged their little offspring, delivering them into perpetual bondage to my Beluch soldiers.”—Speke, pp. 234, 235.
Livingstone contradicts this statement as a general one, and thinks it was only a single and exceptional case. His inquiries, put to Arabs who have travelled most extensively among the African tribes, failed to elicit any corroboration of this assertion of Speke, except in the very infrequent case of a child cutting the upper front teeth before the under, and because such a child is thought to be moiko (unlucky), and certain to bring death into the family. It is called an Arab child, and sold to the first Arab, or even left at his door. The Arabs knew of no child-selling except under these circumstances, which seldom occur, and the transaction, accordingly, grows out of a superstition. “Speke had only two Beluch soldiers with him, and the idea that they loaded themselves with infants stamps this tale as fabulous. He may have seen one sold,—an extremely rare and exceptional case, but the inferences drawn are just like that of the Frenchman who thought the English so partial to suicide in November that they might be seen suspended from trees in the common highways.”
Livingstone well says, “The education of the world is a terrible one, and it has come down on Africa with relentless vigor from most remote times. What the African will become after this awfully hard lesson is learned, is among the future developments of Providence. When He who is higher than the highest, accomplishes His purposes, this will be a wonderful country, and again something like that which it was of old, when Zerah and Tirhaka flourished and were great.”
Among the reflections inspired by his desire for the redemption of Africa which the missionary explorer was in the habit of recording from time to time in his journal, we find tributes to the character of these benighted men. The following is one of these testimonies by him who, better than any other man, knew the African race:—
“No jugglery or sleight-of-hand, as was recommended to Napoleon III, would have any effect in the civilization of Africa. They have too much good sense for that. Nothing brings them to place thorough confidence in Europeans but a long course of well-doing. They believe readily in the supernatural as effecting any new process or feat of skill, for it is part of their original faith to ascribe everything above human agency to unseen spirits. Goodness or unselfishness impresses their minds more than any kind of skill or power. They say ‘You have different hearts from ours; all black men’s hearts are bad, but yours are good.’ The prayer for a new heart and right spirit at once commends itself as appropriate.”