Travels in West Africa

Book Excerpt: ...must go, and you're as obstinate as a mule, just bring me--" and then followed a list of commissions from here to New York, any one of which--but I only found that out afterwards.All my informants referred me to the missionaries. "There were," they said, in an airy way, "lots of them down there, and had been for many years." So to missionary literature I addressed myself with great ardour; alas only to find that these good people wrote their reports not to tell you how the country they resided in was, but how it was getting on towards being what it ought to be, and how necessary it was that their readers should subscribe more freely, and not get any foolishness into their heads about obtaining an inadequate supply of souls for their money. I also found fearful confirmation of my medical friends' statements about its unhealthiness, and various details of the distribution of cotton shirts over which I did not linger.From the missionaries it was, however, that I got my first idea about the social con...