disposition; none of the people are ferocious without cause; and the
sore experience which they gain from slaves with guns in their hands
usually ends in sullen hatred of all strangers.

The education of the world is a terrible one, and it has come down with
relentless rigour on Africa from the 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 what it was of old, when Zerah and Tirhaka
flourished, and were great.

The soil of Manyuema is clayey and remarkably fertile, the maize sown in
it rushes up to seed, and everything is in rank profusion if only it be
kept clear of weeds, but the Bambarré people are indifferent
cultivators, planting maize, bananas and plantains, and ground-nuts
only--no dura, a little cassava, no pennisetum, meleza, pumpkins,
melons, or nyumbo, though they all flourish in other districts: a few
sweet potatoes appear, but elsewhere all these native grains and roots
are abundant and cheap. No one would choose this as a residence, except
for the sake of Moenékuss. Oil is very dear, while at Lualaba a gallon
may be got for a single string of beads, and beans, ground-nuts,
cassava, maize, plantains in rank profusion. The Balégga, like the
Bambarré people, trust chiefly to plantains and ground-nuts; to play
with parrots is their great amusement.

_13th November, 1870._--The men sent over to Lohombo, about thirty miles
off, got two and a half loads of dura for a small goat, but the people
were unwilling to trade. "If we encourage Arabs to trade, they will come
and kill us with their guns," so they said, and it is true: the slaves