Scotland/Scots > Last years of Livingstone

THE LAST YEARS OF LIVINGSTONE.
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the Lualaba, are very light coloured and lovely. It was
common to hear the Zanzibar slaves—whose faces resemble
the features of London door-knockers, which some atrocious
ironfounder thought were like those of lions—say to each
other, “ Oh, if we had Manyuema wives, what pretty
children we should get! ”
Manyuema men and women were all vastly superior to
the slaves, who evidently felt the inferiority they had ac¬
quired by wallt^ving in the mire of bondage. Many of the
men were tall, strapping fellows, with but little of what
we think distinctive of the negro about them. If one re¬
lied on the teachings of phrenology, the Manyuema men
would take a high place in the human family. They felt
their superiority, and often said truly, “ Were it not for
fire-arms, not one of the strangers would ever leave our
country.”
If a comparison were instituted, and Manyuema, taken
at random, placed opposite, say, the members of the An¬
thropological Society of London, clad like them in kilts
of grass cloth, I should like to take my place along¬
side the Manyuema, on the principle of preferring the
company of my betters ; the philosophers would look woe¬
fully scraggy. But though the “inferior race,” as we com¬
passionately call them, have finely-formed heads, and of¬
ten handsome features, they are undoubtedly cannibals.
It was more difficult to ascertain this than may be ima¬
gined. Some think that they can detect the gnawings of
our cannibal ancestry on fossil bones, though the canine
teeth of dogs are pretty much like the human,