t they had
good reason for saying that they were ill. They scarified almost every
part of their bodies as a remedial measure; medicines, administered on
the supposition that their malady was the effect of a sudden chill, had
no effect, and in two days one of them actually died in consequence of,
as far as we could judge, a change from a malarious to a purer and more
rarefied atmosphere.

As we were on the slave route, we found the people more churlish than
usual. On being expostulated with about it, they replied, "We have been
made wary by those who come to buy slaves." The calamity of death having
befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken their sympathies. They
pointed out their usual burying-place, lent us hoes, and helped to make
the grave. When we offered to pay all expenses, they showed that they
had not done these friendly offices without fully appreciating their
value; for they enumerated the use of the hut, the mat on which the
deceased had lain, the hoes, the labour, and the medicine which they had
scattered over the place to make him rest in peace.

The primitive African faith seems to be that there is one Almighty Maker
of heaven and earth; that he has given the various plants of earth to man
to be employed as mediators between him and the spirit world, where all
who have ever been born and died continue to live; that sin consists in
offences against their fellow-men, either here or among the departed, and
that death is often a punishment of guilt, such as witchcraft. Their
idea of moral evil differs in no respect from ours, but they consider
themselves amenable only to inferior beings, not to the Supreme. Evil-
speaking--lying--hatred--disobedience to parents--neglect of them--are
said by the intelligent to have been all known to be sin, as well as
theft, murder, or adultery, before they knew aught of Europeans or their
teaching. The only new addition to their moral code is, that it is wrong
to have more wives than one. This, until the arrival of Europeans, never
entered into their minds even as a doubt.

Everything not to be accounted for by common causes, whether of good or
evil, is ascribed to the Deity. Men are inseparably connected with the
spirits of the departed, and when one dies he is believed to have joined
the hosts of his ancestors. All the Africans we have met with are as
firmly persuaded of their future existence as of their present life. And
we have found none in whom the be