It is one of the consequences of adopting false and artificial notions on political economy, that these drive the most conscientious and virtuous men to the most mischievous and violent extremities. Where things should be left to themselves they believe interference to be right, and so believing, they think it necessary to carry out their views at whatever cost. A remarkable instance of this was shewn by the virtuous and high-minded Duncan Forbes of Culloden. He thought the introduction of foreign commodities ruinous to the country. He considered that whatever was paid for them was so much lost to his fellow-countrymen. On this principle he waged a determined war against a foreign commodity coming into vogue in his latter days, using all his endeavours to suppress its use, and substitute for it a commodity of home-produce. Will the reader, in the days of temperance societies, believe that the commodity which he desired to suppress was tea, and that which he wished to encourage was beer? Here are his own words in a letter to a statesman of the time: 'The cause of the mischief we complain of is evidently the excessive use of tea, which is now become so common that the meanest families even of labouring people, particularly in burghs, make their morning's meal of it, and thereby wholly disuse the ale which heretofore was their accustomed drink; and the same drug supplies all the labouring women with their afternoon's entertainment, even to the exclusion of the twopenny.' After so formidable a picture, it is not unnatural to find him thus crying out against the influence of Dutch enterprise, which was then spreading the drink which cheers but not inebriates throughout Europe: 'They run their low-priced tea into Scotland, and sold it very cheap—a pound went from half a crown to three or four shillings. The goodwife was fond of it because her betters made use of tea; a pound of it would last her a month, which made her breakfast very cheap, so she made no account of the sugar which she took up only in ounces. In short, the itch spread; the refuse of the vilest teas were run into this country from Holland, sold and bought at the prices I have mentioned; and at present there are very few cobblers in any of the burghs of this country who do not sit down gravely with their wives and families to tea.'[1]] What a frightful picture! We may laugh at it, but it really was frightful to one who sincerely believed that the money paid for tea was a dead loss to the country, and who did not know that the tea was paid for by the exportation of home-produce.
Notes
[1.] Culloden Papers, 191. [Back to text]
[FAMILY LIFE IN A NEGRO TOWN.]
There is a large mass of mankind occupying an intermediate position between the savage and the civilised nations of the world. These have no literature of their own, yet they have received some amount of knowledge by tradition or communication with other people. They know little or nothing of science, yet they are skilled in some of the useful arts of life. They have no regular legislation nor codes of civil law, yet they have forms of government and unwritten laws to which they steadfastly adhere, and about which they can plead as eloquently as a Chancery barrister or an advocate in the Courts of Session. While they cultivate the ground, keep cattle, and live upon the lawful products of the soil, they have none of the culinary dainties of life; whilst they plant the cotton-tree, and weave and dye cloth to make their garments, their clothing is scant, and devoid of all excellence in the manufacture. As far removed from the polite European on the one hand, as from the savage Indian or the rude Hottentot on the other, they may be rightly termed the semi-barbarous portion of mankind. It is a curious question how they came to occupy this middle state of civilisation, which they have retained for so many centuries. We know that the wandering tribes of Asia, and some of the kingdoms of that continent which partake of the characteristics now described, in former ages enjoyed seasons of national splendour and gleams of civilisation, the twilight of which has not yet passed away; but we know nothing of the history of Central Africa, a large part of which is composed of semi-barbarous nations.
We now specially refer to that portion of the African continent which lies between the Great Desert and the Kong Mountains, with a continuation toward Lake Tchad—comprising a tract of country about 300 miles in length and 2000 in breadth. South of this latitude the people are more barbarous and cruel, and the deserts of the west are inhabited by tribes more purely negro and ignorant. Moors, Mandingoes, Foolahs, and Jaloofs, principally dwell in this vast region of West-Central Africa. All these peoples are more or less European in their form and countenance; the pure negroes occasionally mixed with them being probably imported slaves or their descendants. These nations differ from each other in their languages, and in some of their customs and manners; but there is a similarity in their mode of living, if we except the Moors, which makes it as unnecessary as it would be tedious to describe each of them separately. We wish to make our readers acquainted with the forms and habits of semi-barbarous life, whatever local name or geographical appearance it may assume.
The first and most important feature of observation is the position of the female sex. This regulates the size of the houses and the towns, the nature of agriculture, and the whole social economy. In Africa the women are emphatically the working-class of the community, and hold an intermediate station between wife and slave, occupying the rank and employments of both. A wife is usually bought for so many head of cattle or such a number of slaves, and then becomes the property of her husband. There is no limit to the number of wives. Even the Mohammedan negroes do not conform to the Koran in its restriction to the number of four. One chief boasted that he had eighty wives; and upon the Englishman answering that his countrymen thought one woman quite enough to manage, the African flourished a whip, with which he said he kept them in order. In some countries one of these wives is recognised as head-wife, and enjoys certain prerogatives appertaining to this place.
Being desirous of obtaining an insight into the minutiae of African life, we accepted the invitation of a negro who traded on the Gambia to pay him a visit, and spend a day in his town, especially as there would be a dance in the evening. We left our vessel in the morning, and having rowed for some miles up a tributary stream, landed in an open place. Here we met the horses which Samba had sent for us, as the town lay at a considerable distance. They were fine animals, of a small breed, but very spirited, and apparently only half-trained. Their accoutrements were in some respects novel; for the saddle was an unwieldy article, with a high pommel in front, and an elevation behind, so that we were fairly wedged in the seat, and had many thumps before we learned to sit correctly in these stocks. We therefore had no wish, as we had little opportunity, of trying the speed of our beasts, the road lying through a vast forest. The men who accompanied us were armed with muskets, and kept a sharp look-out among the bushes, though there was not much fear of being attacked in this place by wild beasts in the day-time, as it was a frequented route and had been often visited by the hunter. By and by we came, to a stream, which was fordable in the dry season. Senegambia abounds with rivers and creeks; indeed it seems to be one of the best-watered regions of the earth, and has excellent means of communication for trade. These waters are full of fish, which form an important article of food for the people.