The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-07-29

high seas. In now trying to make the
Eastern African slave trade better known
to the Americans | indulge the hope / am
aiding, though in small degree, the good
time coming when slavery, as well as pr
racy, will be chased from the world.
Many have but faint idea of the evils
that trading in slaves inf1icts upon the VIC
Tins and authors of its atrocities. Most
people imagine that the negroes, after being
brutalized by long course of servitude,
with but few of the ameliorating influences
that elevate the more favored race. are fair
average specimens of the African man.
Our ideas are derived from the slaves of the
west coast, who have for ages been subject
to domestic bondage and all the depressing
agencies of an unhealthy climate. These
have told most injuriously on their physi-
cal frames, while fraud and the rum trade
have ruined their moral natures SO as moi
to discriminate the difference of monstrous
injustice against their color.
Here follows description of the negroes
as Livingstone found them, contrasted
with those with whom the Americans are
familiar, coming from the west coast OF
Africa. An ancient Egyptian. with his large,
round black eyes, full, luscious lips, and
somewhat depressed nose, is far nearer q
typical negro than the west coast African
who has been debased by the unhealthy
land he lives in. .e'.ssgE Ak
Slaves generally, and especially those on
the west coast, at Zanzibar and elsewhere,
are extremely ugly. have no prejudice
against their color. Indeed, any one who
lives long among them forgets that they are
black, and feels that they are just fellow
men; but the low, retreating forehead,
prognathus jaws, lark heels, and other
physical peculiarities common among the
slaves and West African negroes always
awaken some feelings of aversion. would
not utter syllable calculated to press
down either class more deeply in the mire
in which it has already sunk, but | wish to
point out that these are not typical Afri-
cans, any more than typical Englishmen,
and that the natives on nearly all the high
lands of the interior of the continent, are,
as a rule, fair average specimens of human
ity.
| happened to be present when all the
head men of the great chief Usama, who
lives west of the south end Of Tangyamiji-
ka, had come together to make peace with
certain Arabs who had burned their chief
town, and | am certain one could not see
more fnely-formed> intellectual heads in
any assembly in London or Paris; and the
faces and forms corresponded finely with
the shaped heads. Usama himself had
been sort of Napoleon for fighting and
conquering in his younger days. He was
exactly like the ancient Assyrians sculp-
tured on Nineveh marbles, as Nimrod and
others, and he showed himself to be one of
us by habitually indulging in copious pota-
tons Of beer called ponsbe. Many of the
women are very pretty, and like all ladies',
would have been much pretter if they
would only let themselves alone. They are
not black, but of light brown color. They
have brown eyes, beautiful foreheads, nicely
rounded limbs, well shaped forms, and
small hands and feet, but adorn themselves
by filing their splendid teeth to a point
like cat teeth, and tattooing their bodies,
and sticking pieces Of glass through their
noses. Case Embez, Queen Moar Nyombe,
would be esteemed real beauty either in
London, Paris, or New York, and yet she
had hole through the cartilage, near the
tip of her slightly aqueline nose; but she
had only filed one side of two of the front
of her snow-white teeth. And then what
laugh she had. She was carried to her
farm in pony ph@ton, which is sort Of
throne fastened on two very long poles and
carried by twelve stalwart citizens.
Towards the close of his letter, DR.. Liv-
ingstone states that he will remain at I'm
yanycmbe until he receives fifty men and
fresh supplies from the coast, when he will
proceed to the great watershed described
in yesterdays letter, and complete his ex-
plorations of what he believes to be the
great valley of the Nile.