No Sooner Did They Reach The Edge Of The Plateau At
Ndonda, Than They Lay Down Prostrate, And Complained Of Pains All
Over Them.
The temperature was not much lower than that on the
shores of the Lake below, 76 degrees being the mean temperature of
the day, 52 degrees the lowest, and 82 degrees the highest during the
twenty-four hours; at the Lake it was about l0 degrees higher.
Of
the symptoms they complained of - pains everywhere - nothing could be
made. And yet it was evident that they had good reason for saying
that they were ill. They scarified almost every part of their bodies
as a remedial measure; medicines, administered on the supposition
that their malady was the effect of a sudden chill, had no effect,
and in two days one of them actually died in consequence of, as far
as we could judge, a change from a malarious to a purer and more
rarefied atmosphere.
As we were on the slave route, we found the people more churlish than
usual. On being expostulated with about it, they replied, "We have
been made wary by those who come to buy slaves." The calamity of
death having befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken their
sympathies. They pointed out their usual burying-place, lent us
hoes, and helped to make the grave. When we offered to pay all
expenses, they showed that they had not done these friendly offices
without fully appreciating their value; for they enumerated the use
of the hut, the mat on which the deceased had lain, the hoes, the
labour, and the medicine which they had scattered over the place to
make him rest in peace.
The primitive African faith seems to be that there is one Almighty
Maker of heaven and earth; that he has given the various plants of
earth to man to be employed as mediators between him and the spirit
world, where all who have ever been born and died continue to live;
that sin consists in offences against their fellow-men, either here
or among the departed, and that death is often a punishment of guilt,
such as witchcraft. Their idea of moral evil differs in no respect
from ours, but they consider themselves amenable only to inferior
beings, not to the Supreme. Evil-speaking - lying - hatred -
disobedience to parents - neglect of them - are said by the intelligent
to have been all known to be sin, as well as theft, murder, or
adultery, before they knew aught of Europeans or their teaching. The
only new addition to their moral code is, that it is wrong to have
more wives than one. This, until the arrival of Europeans, never
entered into their minds even as a doubt.
Everything not to be accounted for by common causes, whether of good
or evil, is ascribed to the Deity. Men are inseparably connected
with the spirits of the departed, and when one dies he is believed to
have joined the hosts of his ancestors.
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