Niger

It is a controversy now long smothered over in the
dust of years. Biographers of Mungo were to find
many excuses for him, holding that he had refrained
from condemning slavery and left the evidence to
speak for itself; holding that but for his friendship
with the slaver Karfa he would have made a
whole-hearted denunciation of it ; holding many
opinions that now seem quite unwarrantable to the
unprejudiced eye. They attempt to make of
Mungo what he most certainly never was, a
humanitarian or even a sociologist. There can be
little doubt but that he accepted slavery as a divine
institution. Such was the temper and twist of his
mind, so commonplace but for his one over-riding
passion, that had he himself been perpetually
enslaved he might have pitied himself (as he pities
others), hated his master, attempted to escape, but
never would have hated the system and led a slave-
revolt. His was perhaps the stuff of an Msop ;
certainly never of a Spartacus.
The Government had twice offered to employ
Mungo in a survey of New South Wales. Twice he
refused the offer, resolute of a far more definite
reward forthcoming. He had lost something of his
cold simplicity the dyspepsia that gnawed at him,
haunting memory of horrific meals by many an
African stream and under many a bentang tree,
had given him a cold arrogance of demeanour.
He haughtily awaited honours which never came.
For, though the sales mounted and the African
Association made him a generous gratuity in return
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