Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-03-16
NOT SO BAD AS PAINTED.

Capt. Hore Says Bloodthirstiness Is Not q
Special Characteristic of African Savages.
The various talks given by Capt. Edw. C.
Hore the African traveller and missionary.
during his stay in this city have reused a GER
tain amount of criticism to the effect that he
has in several instances contradicted the gener-
ally accepted beliefs regarding the dark con-
tnent, particularly those advanced by Stanley
Capt. Hore is not controversial, but he does
not hesitate to defend himself against the in
nuendoes of inaccuracy that have been cast at
him. 1t has been remarked that he had not
yet explained how he managed to talk to and
to understand the natives and Arabs of the
interior of Africa. who talk different languages,
and that therefore there was nothing on which
to base g belief of his statements about the
character of the natives and of their modes of
life. To STAR reporter he said yesterday:
las to the language l managed mostly as
other travellers have done. by picking up by
degrees words OF the local languages and by
Interpretation of reliable native helpers who
accompanied me. The Kiswahili or perfe. ted
east coast African language became CONVEX
SAINT III and taught in our schools. In the Ian
guage one can communicate fully with air East
African Arabs and their people and with chiefs
and leading people of most of the tribes at
least half way across the continent.
ITO say that my tale 'contradicts' the pic
ture drawn by Stanley is not exactly correct
BY that tale deny none of the facts stated in
Darkest Africa but my story does and is in
tended to contradict tie impression given by
Darkest Africa that in general the African
tribes are savage and bloodthirsty; and il does
and is intended to contradict very EN- phatically
the impression given by or the inference gath
cred from Darkest Africa that the slaughter
of Africans in their homes and the sacrifice of
auxiliary Africans in their progress through
the country as described and recorded in
Darkest Africa is either justifable or neees-
sary to the lawful purposes of European Wis
itors In Africa. My view Of this, moreover. is
no new one; it is contaiHDd in or implied by a
dozen books of travel your library shelves.
Il by no means intend to convey that the ma
tives are quite good class of people; what l
try to convey is that the good L describe of
them does exist and that savagery and blood
thirstiness, though it may exist in Africa as
well as in other countries, is not special char
acteristic by which we may differentiate them
from other people. A special characteristic for
purposes of differentiation can only be fairly
got ut by careful and quiet experience, and GER
tainly not in times Of desperate conflict. /
specially characterize these people as being
childlike--easily and sometimes foolishly
reused. but also easily pacified-very ignorant
remembering that childlike ignorance often
means innocence), easily influenced for evil,
but also for good.
'.What have stated Of these people is true,
and to make my account complete requires
much less OF added horror than the Darkest
Africa account requires Of good to make it
fair.
Between the lines of Darkest Africa read
in many cases a noble, patriotic courage in de-
Tense of their own against the apparent at
tack and encroachment of unintroduced and
aggressive strangers"