idea of the wealth and power of the Europeans, I am afraid that the
Mohammedan converts among them think but very lightly of our
superior attainments in religious knowledge. The white traders in
the maritime districts take no pains to counteract this unhappy
prejudice, always performing their own devotions in secret, and
seldom condescending to converse with the negroes in a friendly and
instructive manner. To me, therefore, it was not so much the
subject of wonder as matter of regret to observe that, while the
superstition of Mohammed has in this manner scattered a few faint
beams of learning among these poor people, the precious light of
Christianity is altogether excluded. I could not but lament that,
although the coast of Africa has now been known and frequented by
the Europeans for more than two hundred years, yet the negroes still
remain entire strangers to the doctrines of our holy religion. We
are anxious to draw from obscurity the opinions and records of
antiquity, the beauties of Arabian and Asiatic literature, etc.; but
while our libraries are thus stored with the learning of various
countries, we distribute with a parsimonious hand the blessings of
religious truth to the benighted nations of the earth. The natives
of Asia derive but little advantage in this respect from an
intercourse with us; and even the poor Africans, whom we affect to
consider as barbarians, look upon us, I fear, as little better than
a race of formidable but ignorant heathens. When I produced
Richardson's Arabic Grammar to some slatees on the Gambia, they were
astonished to think that any European should understand and write
the sacred language of their religion. At first they suspected that
it might have been written by some of the slaves carried from the
coast, but on a closer examination they were satisfied that no
bushreen could write such beautiful Arabic, and one of them offered
to give me an ass and sixteen bars of goods if I would part with the