TRAVEL: COMPETITION; LITERALLY LOST: 27

The following excerpt has been taken from a classic work of travel literature. Readers are invited to tell us: a) where is the action taking place? b) who is the author? Blackwell's Bookshops will supply pounds 30-worth of book tokens each week to the first correct answer out of the hat. Answers on a postcard to: Literally Lost, 'Independent on Sunday', 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL. Usual Newspaper Publishing competition rules apply. Entries to arrive by Thursday 9 April.

It is strange how British philanthropists, clerical and lay, persist in the delusion that the Africans can be satisfied with spiritual improvement only. They should endeavour to impress themselves with the undeniable fact that man, white, yellow, red or black, has also material wants which crave to be understood and supplied. A barbarous man is a pure materialist. He is full of cravings for possessing something that he cannot describe. He is like a child which has not yet acquired the faculty of articulation. The missionary discovers the barbarian almost stupefied with brutish ignorance, with the instincts of a man in him, but yet living the life of a beast. Instead of attempting to develop the qualities of this practical human being, he instantly attempts his transformation by expounding to him the dogmas of the Christian Faith, the doctrine of transubstantiation and other difficult subjects, before the barbarian has had time to articulate his necessities and to explain to him that he is a frail creature requiring to be fed with bread, and not with a stone.

My experience and study of pagans prove to me, however, that if the missionary can show the poor materialist that religion is allied with substantial benefits and improvement of his degraded condition, the task to which he is about to devote himself will be rendered comparatively easy. For the African once brought in contact with the European becomes docile enough; he is awed by a consciousness of his own immense inferiority, and imbued with a vague hope that he may also rise in time to the level of this superior being who has challenged his admiration. It is the story of Caliban and Stefano over again. He comes to him with a desire to be taught and, seized with an ambition to aspire to a higher life, becomes docile and tractable, but to his surprise he perceives himself mocked by this being who talks to him about matters that he despairs of ever understanding, and therefore with abashed face and a still deeper sense of his inferiority, he retires to his den, his cavern or hut with a dogged determination to be contented with the brutish life he was born in.

The winner for Literally Lost 26 will be announced in next week's issue.