صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

avail themselves of. There are elevations and tablelands where the conditions are favourable both to health and enjoyment. Many parts of the countries which lay in the traveller's route were of this description. We may look at a few as he has described them. stage of his journey he writes:

In an earlier

"This is the hottest month of the year, but the air is delightfully clear and delicious. The country is very fine, lying in long slopes, with mountains lying all round, from 2000 to 3000 feet above this upland. They are mostly jagged and rough the long slopes are nearly denuded of trees, and patches are so large and often squarish in form, that but little imagination is required to transform the whole into the cultivated fields of England. Just now the young leaves are out, but not yet green. In some lights they look brown, but with transmitted light, or when one is near them, crimson prevails. A yellowish green is met sometimes in the young leaves, and brown, pink, and orange red. The soil is rich, but the grass is only excessively rank in spots; in general it is short."

The Lake Tanganyika and scenery around it present a scene more beautiful and imposing.

"We had to descend at least 2000 feet before we got to the level of the lake. It seems about eighteen or twenty feet broad, and we could see about thirty miles up to the north. The nearly perpendicular ridge of about 2000 feet extends with breaks all around, and there, embosomed in tree-covered rocks, reposes the lake tranquilly in the large cup-shaped cavity.

“I never saw anything so still and peaceful as it lies all the morning. About noon a gentle breeze springs up and causes the waves to assume a bluish tinge. Several rocky islands rise in the eastern end, which are inhabited by fishermen, who capture abundance of fine large fish, of which they enumerate about twentyfour species. After living a fortnight at the lake it still appears one of surpassing loveliness. Its peacefulness is remarkable, though at times it is said to be lashed into storms. It lies in a deep basin, whose sides are nearly perpendicular, but covered with trees; the rocks that appear are bright argillaceous schist, the trees are at present all green, down some of these rocks come beautiful cascades, and buffaloes, elephants, and antelopes wander and graze on the more level spots, while lions roar by night. The village at which we first touched the lake is surrounded by palm-oil trees, requiring two men to carry a bunch of the ripe fruit."

May we venture on the description of another lake, the lake Liemba?

"On the 2nd of April we reached a deep cup-like cavity in which the lake reposes. The descent is 2000 feet, still the surface of the lake is 2500 above the level of the sea. The sides of the hollow are very steep, and sometimes the rocks run the whole 2000 feet sheer down to the water. Nowhere is there three miles of level land from the foot of the cliff to the shore, but top, sides and bottom are covered with well-grown wood and grass, except where the bare rocks protrude. The scenery is extremely beautiful. A stream fifteen yards wide and thigh-deep came down alongside our precipitous path, and formed cascades by leaping 300 feet at a time. These, with the bright red of the clay schist among the greenwood trees, made the dullest of my attendants pause and remark with wonder. Antelopes, elephants, and buffaloes abound in the steep slopes, and hippopotami, crocodiles, and fish swarm in the waters."

But a scene, not so grand, but still more interesting, because more instinct with human life, is described in a later part of his Journal.

"Left Mamohela, and travelled over fine grassy plains, crossing in six hours fourteen running rills from three to fourteen feet deep. Tree-covered mountains

K

on both sides. Our path lay through dense forests, and again on the 5th our march was in the same dense jungle of lofty trees and vegetation that touch our arms on each side. We came to some villages among beautiful tree-covered hills. The villages are very pretty, standing on slopes. The main street generally lies east and west, to allow the bright sun to stream his clear hot rays from one end to the other, and lick up quickly the moisture from the frequent showers which is not drained off by the slopes. A little verandah is often made in front of the door, and here at dawn the family gathers round a fire, and while enjoying the heat needed in the cold that always accompanies the first darting of the light or sun's rays across the atmosphere, inhale the delicious air, and talk over their little domestic affairs. The various shaped leaves of the forest all around their village and near their nestlings are bespangled with myriads of dewdrops. The cocks crow vigorously, and strut and ogle; kids gambol and leap on the backs of their dams quietly chewing the cud; other goats make-believe fighting. Thrifty wives often bake their new clay pots in a fire, made by lighting a heap of grass roots; the next morning they extract salt from the ashes, and so two birds are killed with one stone. The beauty of this morning scene of peaceful enjoyment is indescribable. Infancy gilds the fairy picture with its own lines, and it is probably never forgotten, for the young, taken up from slavers, and treated with all philanthropic missionary care and kindness, still revert to the period of infancy as the finest and fairest they have known. They would go back to freedom and enjoyment as fast as would the sons of our own soil, and be heedless to the charms of hard work and no play which we think so much better for them if not for us.”

On another occasion, speaking of several valleys through which they passed, he says,—

"The valleys present a lovely scene of industry, all the people being eagerly engaged in weeding and hoeing, to take advantage of the abundant rains which have drenched us every afternoon."

The people whose condition and social habits are thus so graphically described are, it may not be uninteresting to learn, as far superior to the negroes we usually meet with, as the scenery amidst which they live is to the African coast, with which we are best acquainted, or the dreary waste which is so much associated with our early notions of that quarter of the globe. Frequent notices occur of the physical form of the people. "The women are beautiful, with straight noses, and well clothed." "The women have small well-shaped heads and pretty faces; colour brown; very pleasant to speak to; well-shaped figures, with small hands and feet; the last with high insteps, and springy altogether." But the longest and most specific description is one of the latest entries on this subject that we find in his diary, written not long before the sad end of his journey and of his life, and therefore is that of the inhabitants of an interior part of the continent.

"Neama's people are particularly handsome. Many of the men have as beautifully formed heads as one would find in an assembly of Europeans. All have fine forms, with small hands and feet. None of the West coast ugliness, from which most of our ideas of the negroes are derived, is here to be seen. No prognathous jaws nor lark-heels offend the sight. My observations deepened the impression first obtained from the remarks of Wimwood Reade, that the typical negro is seen in the ancient Egyptians, and not in the ungainly forms which grow up in the unhealthy swamps of the West coast. Indeed it is probable that this upland forest is the true home of the negro. The women excited the admiration of the Arabs. They have fine, small, well-formed features; their great defect is one of fashion, which does not extend to the next tribe; they file their teeth to points, the hussies, and that makes their smile like that of the crocodile."

The descriptions of personal beauty and the pictures of social harmony and domestic happiness do not apply equally to all the tribes, and far less are they all represented as engaged in and enjoying the peaceable fruits of honest and productive toil. But this, as an almost universal rule, is not their fault but their misfortune. The slave-dealer, wherever he has penetrated, has demoralized them. In some circumstances oppression and persecution and wrong lend strength to virtue; but in this nefarious traffic chiefs are induced to sell their subjects, and men to betray each other, and even husbands are tempted to sell their wives, and parents their children. This system produces mutual distrust and common insecurity, paralyzes industry, and spreads desolation and wretchedness over the whole country, whithersoever the traffic in human flesh extends. Perhaps we should speak of this fearful trade and crying sin as much in shame as in grief and indignation. It is not so long since we ourselves were slave-dealers. The conscience of Europe, of Christendom, is but recently awakened to the wickedness of this form of man's inhumanity to man. But if our national repentance is sincere, we should try to make the African, whom we so long hunted and enslaved, some befitting and adequate recompense for the most cruel of all wrongs we had done him, and greatest of injuries we had remorselessly inflicted upon him. We have indeed done something to close the outlets of the slave-trade, and our last effort has been to obtain the co-operation of the Sultan of Zanzibar, where there has hitherto been a slave-market. But Africa still bleeds. The slavetrade continues to be largely carried on throughout the greater part of her known territory, and pursued with a callous indifference to the sorrows and sufferings of her children. Can nothing be done to arrest the evil at its source? to carry remedial measures into the heart of Africa? The Viceroy of Egypt has undertaken to suppress slavery in a portion of the country watered by the Nile. Livingstone has little. expectation of any real benefit to Africa from this annexation of territory to Egypt. He does not believe that it will prevent slavedealing, and hopes for no good from Moslem teaching and example. But assuming that the rule of the Khedive will be employed to effect his ostensible object, is there any reason why some Christian nation, or nations, should not follow his example, we do not mean by annexing, if this be either wrong or undesirable, but by carrying preventive means further inland? The nations of Christendom spend more than a hundred millions in keeping up armaments to protect themselves from each other. Might they not spare a small part of this force, in the interests of humanity, to help the downtrodden Africans to protect themselves against their enemies, who are the enemies of the human race? We hope that the accounts Livingstone has given of the cruelties and horrors of the slave-trade, as it still exists and thrives in Central Africa, may have the effect of arousing the nations of Christendom to adopt some more effective and active measures for the speedy extinction of a trade and traffic, the evils of which are as great to those who live as to those who suffer by it. We think it desirable

that there should be an anti-slavery revival among Christians; and in order to help it forward, we intend, as want of space prevents us for the present, to give in our next some parts of Livingstone's testimony on the extent and effects of slavery as he saw and deplored it.

Review.

SON, REMEMBER. AN ESSAY ON THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SOUL BEYOND THE GRAVE. By the Rev. JOHN PAUL, B.A., Rector of St. Alban's, Worcester.

London: H. K. Lewis. 1875.

THE object of this work is to show from the testimony of Scripture that probationary life does not close with the death of the body, but continues in the other world till the last judgment shall determine the soul's final condition. It is the production of an earnest and intelligent man, and deserves to be read with serious and respectful attention. We regard it as a praiseworthy attempt to vindicate the ways of God to man, by showing that the Divine Father is long-suffering with His children, and, being love itself, desires, if it be possible, to save them all. He does not appear to hold the doctrine of universal restoration, but only extends to the utmost possible limit the period within which grace is offered and repentance is available. We would go much further, and say that the season of grace never ends, and that repentance never ceases to be efficacious for pardon and acceptance with God. We only say that repentance after the death of the body is impossible, not because there is any hindrance on the Lord's part, not because Divine justice ever presents any obstacle, but because the soul, when separated from the body, has neither the will nor the power to change from evil to good nor from good to evil. The reasons for this we do not here go into, they are given in the Writings of the Church; and if the author could be induced to study them, we are not without hope that they might convince him. Several points besides that of probation would, however, require to be considered, and brought to bear upon the subject of salvation. The author has the ordinary belief in the original creation and fall of angels; of the creation of man, if not to supply the place of the fallen angels, at least to help to keep the unfallen angels in their integrity; in the resurrection of the body, and a final judgment upon all mankind at the end of the world. He believes in the middle state as one of conscious existence; and here, he supposes, the soul, away from the body, which obscured and enticed it, will be able to see its errors and correct them. The middle state is indeed one of conscious existence; but it is a state of preparation, not of probation.

[ocr errors]

137

Miscellaneous.

BENJAMIN ATTWOOD, ESQ. To the Editor.-Sir,-Having been the means of eliciting the following letter from the late Benjamin Attwood, I venture to ask you to give it a place in your pages. His quiet munificence is eliciting the good words of the civilized world; and it is a happiness to know that he was a receiver of the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, as taught to mankind in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, as his fervent letter shows.-Yours in the cause, J. J. GARTH WILKINSON. "PENGELLY HOUSE, CHESHUNT, HERTS, April 22, 1874. "My dear Sir,-Your letter of the 8th inst., enclosing one from Mr. J. H. Elliott, the Secretary of the Swedenborg Society, to you, arrived here during my absence from home, or I should have replied to it before this. Since my return home I have been consider ing much of the grave matter to which those letters relate, and I have come to the conclusion that the best course I can take in order to promote that great and important object, the more wide and effectual diffusion of the vital and momentous truths contained in the writings of Swedenborg, will be to place money at the disposal of the Swedenborg Society, and leave them to apply it for that purpose in such manner as they in their judgment may think the best calculated to achieve that most desirable object, as they, who have so much more thorough a knowledge of his works than I possess, must be far better able than I can be to decide upon the best mode of causing that knowledge to be diffused and adopted as the rule of life throughout the world. I propose therefore now to place £1000 at their disposal, and if you will have the goodness to inform me who are the Society's bankers, I will pay in that amount to

the credit of their account there; and when that is spent, if more money is required for the purpose, let them not hesitate to apply to me again; and may the Lord prosper all their labours in such a holy cause.

"When it first occurred to me to make a presentation of the Theological works of Swedenborg to the Library of Lady Huntingdon's College at Cheshunt, I had some doubts in my mind if it would be prudent to place the whole of those works at once in an institution of that kind, or whether some few of them had not better be omitted, and in my perplexity upon that point I went and consulted the Rev. Mr. Clissold upon it, and although I was an entire stranger to him, he very freely and very kindly entered into the subject with me, and said he thought it would be very useful to place the books in such a library; but I found that he, like myself, had some doubts as to the policy of at once placing there the whole of the works, and said he would consider further of that. I asked him if he did not think it would be likely to draw the attention of the students of the College, and increase their estimation of the Theological works of Swedenborg, if his Philosophical works, and further, perhaps, if some of the commentary works of different authors, which had been written for the purpose of expounding and making clear the Theology of Swedenborg, were placed with them, and he thought they would both be very useful in that point of view, and said he would consider what works it would be best to send for that purpose. therefore left it entirely to him to make the selection of such books as should be sent and such as should be omitted, and I think he exercised a wise discretion in the omissions that he made.

I

"I am disposed to think well of the suggestion which you say Mr. Elliott

« السابقةمتابعة »