Chapter I: Front Matter

[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text is surrounded by _underscores_.]

Our Little African Cousin

THE

Little Cousin Series

(TRADE MARK)

Each volume illustrated with six or more full-page plates in
tint. Cloth, 12mo, with decorative cover,
per volume, 60 cents

LIST OF TITLES

BY MARY HAZELTON WADE

(unless otherwise indicated)

=Our Little African Cousin=
=Our Little Alaskan Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Arabian Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Armenian Cousin=
=Our Little Australian Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Brazilian Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Brown Cousin=
=Our Little Canadian Cousin=
By Elizabeth R. MacDonald
=Our Little Chinese Cousin=
By Isaac Taylor Headland
=Our Little Cuban Cousin=
=Our Little Dutch Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Egyptian Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little English Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Eskimo Cousin=
=Our Little French Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little German Cousin=
=Our Little Greek Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Hawaiian Cousin=
=Our Little Hindu Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Hungarian Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Indian Cousin=
=Our Little Irish Cousin=
=Our Little Italian Cousin=
=Our Little Japanese Cousin=
=Our Little Jewish Cousin=
=Our Little Korean Cousin=
By H. Lee M. Pike
=Our Little Mexican Cousin=
By Edward C. Butler
=Our Little Norwegian Cousin=
=Our Little Panama Cousin=
By H. Lee M. Pike
=Our Little Persian Cousin=
By E. C. Shedd
=Our Little Philippine Cousin=
=Our Little Porto Rican Cousin=
=Our Little Russian Cousin=
=Our Little Scotch Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Siamese Cousin=
=Our Little Spanish Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Swedish Cousin=
By Claire M. Coburn
=Our Little Swiss Cousin=
=Our Little Turkish Cousin=

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
New England Building, Boston, Mass.

MPUKE
Our Little African Cousin

By
Mary Hazelton Wade

_Illustrated by_
L. J. Bridgman

Boston
L. C. Page & Company
Publishers

_Copyright, 1902_

By L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

(INCORPORATED)

_All rights reserved_

Published, June, 1902
Sixth Impression, August, 1908
Seventh Impression, October, 1909

Preface

FAR away, toward the other side of the round earth, far to the east and south of America, lies the great continent of Africa. There live many people strange to us, with their black skins, kinky, woolly hair, flat noses, and thick lips. These black people we call Africans or negroes, and it is a little child among them that we are going to visit by and by.

Different as these African people of the negro race are from us, who belong to the white race, they yet belong to the same great family, as we say. Like all the peoples of all the races of men on this big earth, they belong to the human family, or the family of mankind. So we shall call the little black child whom we are going to visit our little black cousin.

We need not go so far away from home, indeed, to see little black children with woolly, kinky hair and flat noses like the little African. In the sunny South of our own land are many negro children as like the little negro cousin in Africa as one pea is like another. Years and years ago slave-ships brought to this country negroes, stolen from their own African homes to be the slaves and servants of the white people here. Now the children and great-grandchildren of these negro slaves are growing up in our country, knowing no other home than this. The home of the great negro race, however, is the wide continent of Africa, with its deserts of hot sand, its parching winds and its tropical forests.

So, as we wish to see a little African cousin in his own African home, we are going to visit little black Mpuke instead of little black Topsy or Sammy, whom we might see nearer by.

It's away, then, to Africa!

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BOY 9
II. BLACKSMITH AND DENTIST 17
III. WORK AND PLAY 23
IV. THE ELEPHANT HUNT 28
V. SONG AND STORY 35
VI. THE BATTLE FEAST 46
VII. THE AFRICAN MEDICINE-MAN 53
VIII. THE GORILLA 60
IX. THE GORILLA HUNT 70
X. THE RACE OF DWARFS 76
XI. HOW THE DWARFS LIVE 79
XII. SPIDERS 85
XIII. LAND-CRABS 93

List of Illustrations

PAGE

MPUKE _Frontispiece_
THE VILLAGE 21
HUNTING ELEPHANTS 29
"HIS FOLLOWERS LOOK UPON HIM WITH THE GREATEST ADMIRATION" 47
"HE SAT DOWN ON HIS HAUNCHES" 74
"AFTERWARD THE WHOLE ROOF IS COVERED WITH LEAVES" 80

Our Little African Cousin