No, He Would Not Take So Small A
Present; He Wanted A Double-Barrelled Rifle - One Of Dixon's Best.
"We
Are friends, you know; we are all friends together." But
although we were willing to admit that, we could not
Give him our
best rifle, so he went off in high dudgeon. Early next morning, as
we were commencing Divine service, Pangola returned, sober. We
explained to him that we wished to worship God, and invited him to
remain; he seemed frightened, and retired: but after service he
again importuned us for the rifle. It was of no use telling him that
we had a long journey before us, and needed it to kill game for
ourselves. - "He too must obtain meat for himself and people, for they
sometimes suffered from hunger." He then got sulky, and his people
refused to sell food except at extravagant prices. Knowing that we
had nothing to eat, they felt sure of starving us into compliance.
But two of our young men, having gone off at sunrise, shot a fine
water-buck, and down came the provision market to the lower figure;
they even became eager to sell, but our men were angry with them for
trying compulsion, and would not buy. Black greed had outwitted
itself, as happens often with white cupidity; and not only here did
the traits of Africans remind us of Anglo-Saxons elsewhere: the
notoriously ready world-wide disposition to take an unfair advantage
of a man's necessities shows that the same mean motives are pretty
widely diffused among all races.
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