slave, for which I had given him my bill upon Dr. Laidley before we
departed from Kamalia; for in case of my death on the road I was
unwilling that my benefactor should be a loser. But this good
creature had continued to manifest towards me so much kindness that
I thought I made him but an inadequate recompense when I told him
that he was now to receive double the sum I had originally promised;
and Dr. Laidley assured him that he was ready to deliver the goods
to that amount whenever he thought proper to send for them. Karfa
was overpowered by this unexpected token of my gratitude, and still
more so when he heard that I intended to send a handsome present to
the good old schoolmaster, Fankooma, at Malacotta. He promised to
carry up the goods along with his own; and Dr. Laidley assured him
that he would exert himself in assisting him to dispose of his
slaves to the best advantage the moment a slave vessel should
arrive. These and other instances of attention and kindness shown
him by Dr. Laidley were not lost upon Karfa. He would often say to
me, "My journey has indeed been prosperous!" But observing the
improved state of our manufactures and our manifest superiority in
the arts of civilised life, he would sometimes appear pensive, and
exclaim, with an involuntary sigh, Fato fing inta feng ("Black men
are nothing")! At other times he would ask me, with great
seriousness, what could possibly have induced me, who was no trader,
to think of exploring so miserable a country as Africa. He meant by
this to signify that, after what I must have witnessed in my own
country, nothing in Africa could in his opinion deserve a moment's
attention. I have preserved these little traits of character in
this worthy negro, not only from regard to the man, but also because
they appear to me to demonstrate that he possessed a mind ABOVE HIS
CONDITION. And to such of my readers as love to contemplate human
nature in all its varieties, and to trace its progress from rudeness