aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

THE CITY OF CAIP.O. — EGYPT. 275
" If I had believed a tenth of what I heard from traders, I might never
have entered the country. . . . But fortunately I was never frightened in
infancy with ' bogie,' and am 'not liable to ' bogiephobia ; ' for such persons
in paroxysms believe every thing horrible, if only it be ascribed to the
possessor of a black skin." *
After speaking of the insight and practical good sense of
the Bushmen, Livingstone remarks, —
" We all liked our guide Shobo, a fine specimen of that wonderful
people, the Bushmen." f
Referring to the race of Makololos, he observes, — ,
" Their chief Sebituane came a hundred miles to meet me, and welcome
me to his country."
This is an intelligent, kind-hearted race, having no fear of
death, because believing in immortality.
" When I asked the
Bechualias to part with some of their relics, thej replied,
'
Oh, no ! ' thus showing their belief in a future state of
existence. The chief boatman often referred to departed
spirits who called a Placho." | Treating of the Bakwains, a
large inland tribe of Africans, Livingstone says, —
"Though rather stupid in matters that had not come under their
observations, yet in other things they showed more intelligence than is to
be met with in our own uneducated peasantry. . . . They are well up in
the maxims which embody their ideas of political wisdom." §
Mentioning the keenness of perception manifest among
the tribes north of the Zambesi, he says, —
" They all believe that the souls of the departed still mingle among the
living, and partake in some way of the food they consume. . . . They
fancy themselves completely in the power of disembodied spirits."
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* Livingstone's Africa, p. 642. f Ibid., p. 47. J Ibid., p. 121.
§ Ibid. ,
p. 21. Ibid., 283-287.
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