One Day The People Would Examine The Books, At
Another Throw Them Aside, Say Their Stomachs Were Empty, And Run
Away To Look For Food.
The Bari people at Gondokoro were
described as being more tractable than those of Kich, being of a
braver and more noble nature; but they were all half-starved - not
because the country was too poor to produce, but because they
were too lazy to cultivate.
What little corn they grew they
consumed before it was fully ripe, and then either sought for
fish in the river or fed on tortoises in the interior, as they
feared they might never reap what they sowed.
The missionaries never had occasion to complain of these blacks,
and to this day they would doubtless have been kindly inclined to
Europeans, had the White Nile traders not brought the devil
amongst them. Mr Moorlan remembers the time when they brought
food for sale; but now, instead, they turn their backs upon all
foreigners, and even abuse the missionaries for having been the
precursors of such dire calamities. The shell of the brick
church at Gondokoro, and the cross on the top of a native-built
hut in Kich, are all that will remain to bear testimony of these
Christian exertions to improve the condition of these heathens.
Want of employment, I heard was the chief operative cause in
killing the poor missionaries; for, with no other resource left
them to kill time, they spent their days eating, drinking,
smoking, and sleeping, till they broke down their constitutions
by living too fast.
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