“Fatimata heard the songs of the Griot.  She heard, too, the deeds which the Toubab had accomplished.  She sighed, and covered her head with her robe.  Then she turned to her young lover, and she said, ’Go to the wars; let the flying ball kill thee:  for Fatimata loves thee no longer.  The white man fills her thoughts.’”

The most beautiful nursery song ever sung by any mother, in any language, may be heard in the Balengi county, in Central Africa.  There is wonderful tenderness in it,—­tenderness that would melt the coldest heart.  It reveals a bright spot in the heart-life of this people.[98]

    “Why dost than weep, my child? 
    The sky is bright; the sun is shining:  why dost than weep? 
    Go to thy father:  he loves thee; go, tell him why thou weepest. 
    What! thou weepest still!  Thy father loves thee; I caress thee: 
        yet still thou art sad. 
    Tell me then, my child, why dost thou weep?”

It is not so very remarkable, when we give the matter thought, that the African mother should be so affectionate and devoted in her relations to her children.  The diabolical system of polygamy has but this one feeble apology to offer in Africa.  The wives of one man may quarrel, but the children always find loving maternal arms ready to shelter their heads against the wrath of an indifferent and cruel father.  The mother settles all the disputes of the children, and cares for them with a zeal and tenderness that would be real beautiful in many American mothers; and, in return, the children are very noble in their relations to their mothers.  “Curse me, but do not speak ill of my mother,” is a saying in vogue throughout nearly all Africa.  The old are venerated, and when they become sick they are abandoned to die alone.

It is not our purpose to describe the religions and superstitions of Africa.[99] To do this would occupy a book.  The world knows that this poor people are idolatrous,—­“bow down to wood and stone.”  They do not worship the true God, nor conform their lives unto the teachings of the Saviour.  They worship snakes, the sun, moon, and stars, trees, and water-courses.  But the bloody human sacrifice which they make is the most revolting feature of their spiritual degradation.  Dr. Prichard has gone into this subject more thoroughly than our time or space will allow.

“Nowhere can the ancient African religion be studied better than in the kingdom of Congo.  Christianity in Abyssinia, and Mohammedanism in Northern Guinea, have become so mingled with pagan rites as to render it extremely difficult to distinguish between them.

“The inhabitants of Congo, whom I take as a true type of the tribes of Southern Guinea generally, and of Southern Central Africa, believe in a supreme Creator, and in a host of lesser divinities.  These last they represent by images; each has its temple, its priests, and its days of sacrifice, as among the Greeks and Romans."[100]

The false religions of Africa are but the lonely and feeble reaching out of the human soul after the true God.