"There must be something in the appearance of white men, frightfully repulsive to the unsophisticated natives of Africa; for, on entering villages previously unvisited by Europeans, if we met a child coming quietly and unsuspectingly towards us, the moment he raised his eyes, and saw the men in 'bags,' he would take to his heels in an agony of terror, such as we might feel if we met a live Egyptian mummy at the door of the British Museum. Alarmed by the child's wild cries, the mother rushes out of her hut, but darts back again at the first glimpse of the same fearful apparition . Dogs turn tail, and scour off in dismay; hens, abandoning their chickens, fly screaming to the tops of the houses. The so lately peaceful village becomes a scene of confusion and hubbub, until calmed by the laughing assurance of our men, that white people do not eat black folks; a joke having often times greater influence in Africa than solemn assertion."
P.152, "Chicova," NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE ZAMBESI by David and Charles Livingstone (1865)
"There must be something in the appearance of white men, frightfully repulsive to the unsophisticated natives of Africa; for, on entering villages previously unvisited by Europeans, if we met a child coming quietly and unsuspectingly towards us, the moment he raised his eyes, and saw the men in 'bags,' he would take to his heels in an agony of terror, such as we might feel if we met a live Egyptian mummy at the door of the British Museum. Alarmed by the child's wild cries, the mother rushes out of her hut, but darts back again at the first glimpse of the same fearful apparition . Dogs turn tail, and scour off in dismay; hens, abandoning their chickens, fly screaming to the tops of the houses. The so lately peaceful village becomes a scene of confusion and hubbub, until calmed by the laughing assurance of our men, that white people do not eat black folks; a joke having often times greater influence in Africa than solemn assertion."
P.152, "Chicova," NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE ZAMBESI by David and Charles Livingstone (1865)
