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.
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