THE AFRICAN TRAVELLERS.
HAS civilization a more childish interest in barbarism or
barbarism in ? It is hard to say. We doubt very much whether in any of the four negro kingdoms visited by Captains Speke and Grant there was so much or so unreasonable a curiosity about their personal and visible presence, as was mani- fested by the audience which crushed, and shouted, and, at last, actually smashed one of the windows last Monday night at Bur- lington House for the sake of a single glimpse of those equatorial discoverers, or a single word from their mouths. Every seat almost had been, it was said, filled up in some illicit fashion before the doors were opened ; and then, an hour before the time, such a rush took place, that when the present writer pushed his way in, half an hour before the time named, standing on tip-toe was the only expedient by which a precarious glimpse of the platform could be obtained, and this only when the solid row of backs on the back seats of the amphitheatre was broken for a moment so as to admit a direct ray from the platform to his opera-glass. When the African travellers at last screwed themselves in, by help of the compressing force which the moral pressure of their names exerted on a crowd so closely packed that even this "thin end of the wedge" was by no means easily inserted, the shouts of the back rows to the more fortunate spectators to take off their hats and sit down were vociferous. Sir Roderick Murchison was interrupted by screams of "the lady in the white bonnet" whose enthusiasm had induced her to stand up, and whose bonnet, though translucent, was by no means transparent. Even after the speaking had begun, the crowd raged furiously and imagined very vain things on the circumference of the room, and at a practicable breach which was made by an open window. Indeed, a chronic contest was waged at this window throughout the evening between the world within and without, and at last it fell a victim to external fury. There was an evident impression, which we confess to partially sharing, that by personally inspecting Captains Speke and Grant the spec- tator was put into a sort of " rapport " with the sources of the Nile and the negro kingdoms. When Captain Speke at length actually mounted the table, and his tall form came out in full relief against the big map of Africa which hung behind him, a thrill of conviction ran through the crowd that the Lake Victoria Nyanza, and the
gentlemanly King of Karagwe, and the royal harem of Uganda, and the brutal people of Unger°, and all the other African details we had read about in Sir Roderick Murchison's .sunneary ut the journals, were actually true; and they inspected Cap- tains Speke and Grant with an avidity that seemed half to expect those gontlemen's figures and faces to yield direct evi- dence of the institutions of the negro. Not, however, to much purpose. Captain Spoke's long head, tenacious chin, and wiry frame, as they stood exposed in strong relief for near two hours on the table of the Geographical Society, told a story, certainly, but rather the story of that pertinacity of purpose which rcsiged outward influences than of the receptive nature which accepts and is moulded by them. The man who has completed for us the task of Herodotus was evidently as different in constitution from the wide-eyed wondering Greek, as one human traveller of exploring mind could be from another. The zooe of "strength and triple bras-" around his heart, which enabled the Englishman to press on for near two years through difficulties which no Europeau had ever before faced, is probably even of truer mettle than the courage of the inquisitive and lively Greek. But in all other respects Captain Spoke is probably little fitted for successful travel—fitted rather to clear the way for other less strong-hearted men of quicker eyes and easier speech, than to record himself the novelties he sees. We saw more of his characteristic qualities in the pluck with which for two hours the slow-tongued man stood bolt upright on his table, and struggled inarticulately to recount his adventures (while some ineffectual person swung dan- gerously in the air a mighty pointer, which looked something like the axis of the earth, and revolved feebly round an imaginary pole in the ceiling of the building when it was supposed to be pointing to the spot on the map of Africa which Captain Speke had last named), than in anything he said, or told us that he had done. He amused his audience once by informing them that when the King of Uganda had been seated by him in silence for half an hour, he uttered the question, "have you seen me?" and then, after sitting by him silently in another tent for another half-hour, articulated "Have you seen me?" again in the same tone. But if Captain Speke had merely followed that royal prece- dent at intervals during his long exposure on his table, we doubt if the audience would have gained much less than they did. The present writer, at least, went away with the question still ringing in his ears, and not fully satisfied as to die true answer. In one sense, certainly, for two hours his full-length form had been painted on the retina, but how far we had seen the far-travelled weather-beaten man himself, or got in any respect nearer to him than Sir Roderick Murchison had previously enabled us to attain, except in witnessing his moral courage and endurance, it would not have been easy to say. In fact, Captain Speke's experiences seemed to have run off his mind like rain from an umbrella, leaving his British intellect almost unimpressed, and it was not a little pain- ful to see him slowly recalling his adventures in miscellaneous scraps, such as a juggler produces one by one out of a magical hat.
Yet Captain Speke's odds and ends of information are not entirely without a general drift. He seems to have become acquainted with one or two half-civilized negro kingdoms, such as we have never before heard of in Africa, the part civilization of which he attributes chiefly to a mixture of Abyssinian blood. These negroes he regards as more distinguished for intelligent curiosity than any African tribe he had ever met with. He called the natives of Uganda the French of Negro- land for their sharpness and comparative delicacy of social usage. Of the existence of a soul they have no notion— was that French, too ?—yet they punish untidiness of dress as a capital crime, unless the offender has wealth enough to pay a heavy fine ; and presents for the King had to be wrapped up in chintz, as it was considered an impropriety for the King to see anything naked—au idea, by the way, not wholly extinct among English shopkeepers, who obviously regard a customer as indecent who is inclined to take away a purchase, even a book, through the streets without having it wrapped up in paper. Again, we are told they had attained great proficiency in music. The people of Karagwe and Uganda seem, in short, to have realizA the stage of conventionality in civilization, without any of the enterprise of either civilization or barbarism; We should call the American Indians leas civilized, but certainly far more enterprising; for they have the enterprise and the elevated barbaric notions which seem proper to the migratory state. Moving tribea like the Arabs have almost always had a faith, sometimes the highest form of faith; only those of the stationary tribes have one whose intellec- tual and moral enterprise make up for the close atmosphere of an insulated life. Almost all the barbarous nations of Africa are sta- tionary, and, therefore, doubly unprogressive. But here we have nations, which owing, perhaps, as Captain Speke thinks, to a great southward pressure of the Abyssinians, have risen into a somewhat higher grade of civilization, but seem to have stuck there, without any instinct for further movement. And yet, as the African explorers testify, their curiosity is keen and intelligent. Why is it that the curiosity of barbarism, even in its higher forms, so seldom pushes out into communication with civilization ? that civilization has so far more keen a desire to get at the secret of an unknown corner of the world, than that unknown corner has to get at the secrets of the' whole world beyond itself ? Captain Speke has evidently learned very little that is of any permanent value to himself by his journey, but his impulse to explore these regions was far greater than that of the people of Uganda, who had so much more to learn, to return the visit, it is impossible not to ask oneself why barbarism, even when it does make ac- quaintance with civilization, has so much less eager an interest in it, than civilization has in making acquaintance with new forms of barbarism. And the interest of Captain Spoke's stray anecdotes consisted to us in their suggesting an answer to the query. When you look at the sort of questions which barbarism puts to civilization, when once it comes face to face with it, you wonder no longer. Captain Speke was asked, for instance, by the King of Karagwe, what becomes of the old suns,—why the moons make faces at the earth,—whether the English could blow up Africa with gunpowder, and so forth. This absolutely random character of the guesses of " intel- ligent " barbarians,—their ignorance of any sort of limits within which Nature might be expected to remain un- changed,—the absence of any notion of common conditions under which all men live, must necessarily take away from, instead of adding to, the force of curiosity as a motive power. The pleasure in the new experience which travel gives depends greatly on the extremely narrow limits within which there is any possi- bility of change. If civilization had not got a fast hold of the truth that, go where we may, most of the conditions of life will be the same, and only a few of them different, civilization would have no more motive impulse than barbarism. You see in Herodotus, credulous as he is in a simple way, how all the keenness and point of his curiosity arises from the deep inkling of natural science and insight into the laws of nature which he had somehow attained. His clever hypotheses to account for the swelling of the Nile at seasons when the snow would not be melting are a very good instance of this. The sharp edge of curiosity is, after all, given by knowledge fading into ignorance. If you have not got the clue somehow in your hand or head you do not care to wander about in the labyrinth. Mere guessing is open-mouthed, pointless work, which would never take any man on his travels. It is because civilization knows that it will find amongst barbarians the great common facts of human and natural life in new forms, and barbarism does not know this concerning civilization, that the one always seeks and the other is always sought. A shadow only of civilization, but nothing progressive, can possibly be reached till, either through a common faith, or a common science, or both, this con- viction has attained a working force in the minds of the barbarians. And hence the desire to travel wiil always remain a sort of mission- ary impulse, which must proceed from that higher stage of civili- zation which needs it less, to the lower, which needs it more. The small equatorial boys whom Captain Speke exhibits may possibly, if they are sent back educated, tend to inspire in their countrymen the conviction that England, after all, cannot blow up Africa, and has no access to the stock of used-up suns. At all events, they will tell them that English curiosity about Africa is keener than African curiosity about England, and that an audience at Burling- ton House scarcely behaves even as well as a crowd at King Mtesi's Ugandan Court.
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