Over almost the entire African Continent we find a sort of wandering minstrel, a person whose vocation is the glorification of the mighty chief in whose service he may be, and to demonstrate for the spreading of his fame the inexhaustible power and beauty of art. This is remarkable, as art, or at any rate music, is a popular festival in which every one takes part, not merely as one of the audience but as a performer. So it cannot be said that art is indebted to these professional artists for its origin, and they, for their posts, to the graciousness and munificence of the chief. On the contrary, what is achieved in this way is throughout a lower kind of art, and, it appears to me, a product of later—although still a very primitive—state of culture.

These singers are, in Africa, a sort of sycophants. Each chief keeps two or three of them who have to accompany strangers by way of state, and to sing songs in praise of the white man and of the king. It is, too, their duty to praise the “wit and genius” of any great man into whose service they may for a short time be taken. If the expected presents are not given they go to the villages round about and retract all that they have previously said in praise of their “protectors”. They are renowned for their great wealth,and their wives possess more “blue-stones and crystals than does the chief's wife”.