Then There Are Niggards Among Them Too.
Some Of Them Are Born Without Hearts!" One White Trader,
Having Presented An
OLD GUN to a chief, became a standing joke in the tribe:
"The white man who made a present of
A gun that was new
when his grandfather was sucking his great-grandmother."
When these tricks are repeated, the natives come to the conclusion
that people who show such a want of sense must be told their duty;
they therefore let them know what they ought to give,
and travelers then complain of being pestered with their "shameless begging".
I was troubled by importunity on the confines of civilization only,
and when I first came to Africa.
FEBRUARY 4TH. We were much detained by rains, a heavy shower without wind
falling every morning about daybreak; it often cleared up after that,
admitting of our moving on a few miles. A continuous rain of several hours
then set in. The wind up to this point was always from the east,
but both rain and wind now came so generally from the west,
or opposite direction to what we had been accustomed to in the interior,
that we were obliged to make our encampment face the east,
in order to have them in our backs. The country adjacent to the river
abounds in large trees; but the population is so numerous that,
those left being all green, it is difficult to get dry firewood.
On coming to some places, too, we were warned by the villagers
not to cut the trees growing in certain spots, as they contained
the graves of their ancestors.
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