OCR Text |
Show 78 PICTURE OF AFRICA AT HOME. Mr. Park remarks, that he here recoveree! from hi• tormenting fever, which kept him in .a li~1gering precarious condition for five weeks ; tl.mt h1s bcn~volent lan~lord in the meantime, came dmly to enqmre after h1s health ; and that the benevolent and simple manners if the negroes, and the perusal if Karfa's lzttle volume, greatly contributed to his conva!rscence." He proceeds : " Many of ~he Slatees who reside~ at Kamalia, havmg spent all thetr money, anc~ b.ecome m a great measure dependent on Karfa's hospttahtJ:, .beheld tne with an eye of envy, and 1~wented many ndiculo'!s and trifling stories to lessen me m Karfa's ~steem, and_ m the beginning of December, a Ser:t· Woolh Slatee, With five slaves, arrived from Sego; thts .man too, spread a number of malicious reports conccrmng me, but Karfa paid no attention to them, and continued to shew me !he same kindness as formeriy. As I was one clay conversmg with the slaves which this Slatee brought, one of them begged of me to give him some victuals, I told him I was a stranger and had none to give. He replied, " I gave you victuals when you was hungry. Have you forgot the man who brought you milk at Karrankalla? But, added he with a sigh, the irons W£ re 7!01 then upon my legs." I immediately recollected him, and begged some ground-nuts from Karfa to give him as a return for h1s former kindness. He told me that he had been taken by the Bambarrans, the day after the battle at !aka, and sent to Sego, where he had been purchased. by hts present master, who was carrying him down to KaJaaga., Mr. Park obsrrves, that his residence at Kamalia, af.. forded him " an opportunity not to be neglected," of extending his observations on the climate and the productions of the country ; and of acquiring a more perfect knowledge of the natives, &c. and proceeds to .lay J;><:fore his readers, the result of his researches and mqmncs ; from which the following sketches of the national c~taracter and morals of the more sable inlwbitants of Afnca, are copied: l'ICTURE OF AFRICA AT HOME. 79 " All the Negro nations that fell under my observation, thou.~ di~idcd into a number of petty i~dependent ~tates, subs.i'St clucfly by the same means, hve nearly Hl the same temperature, and possess a wonderful similarity of disposition. The Mandingoes, in particular, are a very gentle rae~, cheerful in their disposition, inquisitive, ere. dulous, stmple, and fond of flattery. Perhaps the most prominent defect in their character, was that insunnount. able propensity, which the reader Il\USt have observed to prevail in all classes of them, to steal from me the few effects I was possessed of. For this part of their conduct no complete justification can be offered, becau,e, theft is a crime in their own estimation ; and it must be observed, that they are not habitually and generally guilty of it towards each other. This, however, is an important circumstancl'i' in mitigation; and before we pronounce them a more de. praved people than any other, it were well to consider, whether the lower order of P';OI'le in ?ny part of Europe would have acted, under Similar Circumstances, with greater honesty towards a stranger, than the Negroes acted towards me. It must not be forgotten that the laws of the country afforded me no protection; that every one was permitted to rob me with impunity; ancl finallv that so.me part of my effects were of as great value, ii1 the csttmatwn of the Negroes, as pearls and diamonds would have been in the eyes of an European. Let us suppose a black merchant of Hindostan had found his way into England with a box of jewels at his back and the laws of the kingdom afforded him no security; 'in such a case the wonder wou!d ~e, not that the stranger was robbed of any part of Ins nches, but that any part was left ~or ~ second deprcdotor. Such, on sober reflection, is the J~dgment I have Formed, concerning the pilfering disposi. t10n of the Mandmgo Negroes towards myself. Notwithstanding I was so great a sufferer by it, I do not consider th~t their I}atural sense of justice was perverted or extingmshcd; 1t was overpo~vered ?nil:" for the moment, by the strength of a temptatiOn winch tt required no common ·virtue to resist.* * 1\-_lr. ~ark here offers to the contemplation oi' gover·nments and mankmd m general, a most beautiful illustration of a truth dr the |