On The North We Have Mountains Appearing
Above The Horizon, Which Are Said To Be On The Banks Of The Kafue.
The chief Monze came to us on Sunday morning, wrapped in a large cloth,
and rolled himself about in
The dust, screaming "Kina bomba," as they all do.
The sight of great naked men wallowing on the ground, though intended
to do me honor, was always very painful; it made me feel thankful
that my lot had been cast in such different circumstances
from that of so many of my fellow-men. One of his wives accompanied him;
she would have been comely if her teeth had been spared;
she had a little battle-axe in her hand, and helped her husband to scream.
She was much excited, for she had never seen a white man before.
We rather liked Monze, for he soon felt at home among us,
and kept up conversation during much of the day. One head man of a village
after another arrived, and each of them supplied us liberally
with maize, ground-nuts, and corn. Monze gave us a goat and a fowl,
and appeared highly satisfied with a present of some handkerchiefs
I had got in my supplies left at the island. Being of printed cotton,
they excited great admiration; and when I put a gaudy-colored one
as a shawl about his child, he said that he would send for all his people
to make a dance about it. In telling them that my object
was to open up a path whereby they might, by getting merchandise for ivory,
avoid the guilt of selling their children, I asked Monze,
with about 150 of his men, if they would like a white man
to live among them and teach them. All expressed high satisfaction
at the prospect of the white man and his path: they would protect
both him and his property. I asked the question, because it would be
of great importance to have stations in this healthy region, whither agents
oppressed by sickness might retire, and which would serve, moreover,
as part of a chain of communication between the interior and the coast.
The answer does not mean much more than what I know, by other means,
to be the case - that a white man OF GOOD SENSE would be welcome and safe
in all these parts. By uprightness, and laying himself out
for the good of the people, he would be known all over the country
as a BENEFACTOR of the race. None desire Christian instruction,
for of it they have no idea. But the people are now humbled
by the scourgings they have received, and seem to be in a favorable state
for the reception of the Gospel. The gradual restoration of their former
prosperity in cattle, simultaneously with instruction,
would operate beneficially upon their minds. The language is
a dialect of the other negro languages in the great valley;
and as many of the Batoka living under the Makololo understand
both it and the Sichuana, missionaries could soon acquire it
through that medium.
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