MAJOR A. G. LEONARD has all his life been deeply interested
in comparative religion, and having paid especial attention to
Aryan and Hindu mythology, as well as to natives of parts
of Asia and Africa, he had prepared himself for the detailed
study of a particular people. The opportunity came when he
went to West Africa, and for ten years he patiently studied
native life and thought, never losing a chance of getting into
touch with the natives, even at the risk of his life, for some
of the tribes he visited were not then amenable to British
rule.

But knowledge acquired elsewhere and opportunity for
research are of little avail unless an investigator be endowed
with sympathy, the master-key that unlocks all hearts. An
inevitable gulf separates the culture and thought of the black
man from the culture and thought of the white man, nor is
this lessened when the latter acts the part of ruler over the
former, for then other considerations come into play, and mis-
conception and prejudice accentuate the differences between
barbarism and civilisation.From the first, Major Leonard
determined to attempt, as far as in him lay, to remove this
misconception, but there was only one way to accomplish this
effectually, and that was to study the natives first hand and to
endeavour to see everything from theii point of view in other
words, to "think black," as Miss Kingsley tersely put it.