Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1896-08-12
THE AFRICAN
Re Has . Ssass of Honor and Justice and
 Is Not Cr1si.

Re Has . Ssass of Honor and Justice and
 Is Not Crasl.
 No one is more convinced than I am that the African races are infe- rior to the English, French, German and Latin races. l do not place him bslCw the other colored races; pos sibly because l have never lived among nor attempted tO understand the eastsrn races and possibly be- cause 1 have lived among and at tempted to understand the Africans. Certainly the socaIled Hamitio races have never produced an even four eeenth rate sculpture, picture, ma chine, tool, piece of cloth or pottery i; neither have they ever risen to the level of picture writing, let alone a written character, and am person ally acquainted, to the point of exas- peration, with thsir cryptic, OOmpli- oassd ways of communicating ideas with strings of eowries and pieces of leaf ands Only the other day had to steer Q course with a chart nsdeof bits of plantain leaf of differ enStreAdthS, denoting the sizs of the villages I was to pass through, and placed ct intervals that denoted the distance between the villages
 Ido not say did we'll with that chart, but l have done quite ss bad iy with the bast admiralty one. But thesc tngeniousdevioes do not equal tAe1ock writing of theSouth Amer 3canz, the piOeures the rcd Indian paints on 6 raw elk hide, and arc in- 6nitafy below those spirited sport ing sketches of mammoth hunts, esc., left us by the cave men
 In mental and moral affairs the African is by no means 30 striking ly inferior as hs is in hGndicrafts Be hAs both a sense of justice and honor, not much worn by daily usa and very easily eliminated by a oOurse0f Christian teaching. But it ts there. and if you know the way, you csn rouse it and make it work In rheeor1o he exoels. and for good esmper and patience he compares 4AvorEhly with any set of human bstngA- The worst of his personal strs Is ahoth. ThiSohieAy arises from his not having anything to do in 8 a.a-sk. -. A, eSr,o ruax- for ho Aa happy and industrious when under good whfte direction. No ono who has bean on the coast can fail to have noticed the Kroo boys singing and dan0ingand lAughingOver their often heavy work The cooper and the carpenter and their fellow ooun- tryman from Ao~A the cook, are far happier than the Africans in the buEh-Yea, even the cook, whose conscience should be 8 burden to him on account of the mAnsisugh- ters he has committed with his abiding greasiness
 Of couSe you will point out their customs butI must ssy, in spite of what have heard and sean, that l do not oonAder the west African oEuel. One must remember that in their culturo3here-are no prisons or hospitals or warehouses, no regular police force. etc. In the matter of their sscriaaial rites, I think one should try and understand the un- derlyInR ideas before one thinks hArshly. Thafeeling, for example regart.ng t6s Importance of 'buriAl TttB is quite Greek in.its intensity. Given 6 dulyeducsted native of the Niger delta, l am sure he would gasp<hs true tnwardness ofshis AL oestis far and away better than any living European can
 To provide 6 proper burial for a daAd relative means to thsm'provid- ing for that relative happy after life, and so to do is the surviving negro's greatsstduty. Its only rival in his mind is the desire to avoid having Q funeral for himself, and evan this passion goes under in the mind of . good negro, and he will risk his own life to carry out what he considers his duty to the dead, even when he is well aware that the Killing of slaves will mean hanging for him when them big consul" knows of it
 The greatest horrors on the coast arise out of the belief in witohcraft. Toleration means indifference with all msn, believe, and the Degro and Baneu are not indifferent about their sub1eots. Mary Kingsley in London Observer.