armed force, but alone, or almost alone, paid his way
with his brass buttons. 'I have conversed with all ranks and conditions
upon the subject of their faith,' he says, 'and can pronounce, without the
smallest shadow of doubt, that the belief in one God and in a future state
of reward and punishment is entire and universal among them.' This cannot
strictly be called monotheism, as there are many subordinate spirits who
may be influenced by 'magical ceremonies.' But if monotheism means belief
in One Spirit alone, or religious regard paid to One Spirit alone, it
exists nowhere--no, not in Islam.

Park thinks it remarkable that 'the Almighty' only receives prayers at the
new moon (of sacrifice to the Almighty he says nothing), and that, being
the creator and preserver of all things, he is 'of so exalted a nature
that it is idle to imagine the feeble supplications of wretched mortals
can reverse the decrees and change the purpose of unerring Wisdom.' The
new moon prayers are mere matters of tradition; 'our fathers did it before
us.' 'Such is the blindness of unassisted nature,' says Park, who is not
satirising, in Swift's manner, the prayers of Presbyterians at home on
Yarrow.

Thus, the African Supreme Being is unpropitiated, while inferior spirits
are constrained by magic or propitiated with food.

We meet our old problem: How has this God, in the conception of whom there
is so much philosophy, developed out of these hungry ghosts? The influence
of Islam can scarcely be suspected, Allah being addressed, of course, in
endless prayers, while the African god receives none. Indeed, it would be
more plausible to say that Mahomet borrowed Allah from the widespread
belief which we are studying, than that the negro's Supreme Being was
borrowed from Allah.

Park had, as we saw, many opportunities of familiar discussion with the
people on whose mercies he threw himself.

'But it is not often that the negroes make their religious opinions the
subject of conversation; when interrogated, in particular, concerning
their ideas of a future state, they express themselves with great
reverence, but endeavour to shorten the discussion by saying, _"Mo o mo
inta allo_" ("No man knows anything about it").'[19]

Park himself, in extreme distress, and almost in despair, chanced to
observe the delicate beauty of a small moss-plant, and, reflecting that
the Creator of so frail a thing could not be indifferent to any of His
creatures, plucked