Shinte Was Most Anxious To See The Pictures Of The Magic Lantern; But Fever
Had So Weakening An Effect, And
I had such violent action of the heart,
with buzzing in the ears, that I could not go for several
Days; when I did go
for the purpose, he had his principal men and the same crowd of court beauties
near him as at the reception. The first picture exhibited was Abraham
about to slaughter his son Isaac; it was shown as large as life,
and the uplifted knife was in the act of striking the lad;
the Balonda men remarked that the picture was much more like a god
than the things of wood or clay they worshiped. I explained that this man
was the first of a race to whom God had given the Bible we now held,
and that among his children our Savior appeared. The ladies listened
with silent awe; but, when I moved the slide, the uplifted dagger
moving toward them, they thought it was to be sheathed in their bodies
instead of Isaac's. "Mother! mother!" all shouted at once,
and off they rushed helter-skelter, tumbling pell-mell over each other,
and over the little idol-huts and tobacco-bushes: we could not get
one of them back again. Shinte, however, sat bravely through the whole,
and afterward examined the instrument with interest. An explanation
was always added after each time of showing its powers,
so that no one should imagine there was aught supernatural in it;
and had Mr. Murray, who kindly brought it from England, seen its popularity
among both Makololo and Balonda, he would have been gratified with
the direction his generosity then took.
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