I Really Hope For The Sake Of
Fan Morals At Large, That I Did Engage The Three Worst Villains In
M'fetta, And That M'fetta Is The Worst Town In All Fan Land,
Inconvenient As This Arrangement Was To Me Personally.
Anyhow, I
felt sure my Pappenheimers would take a lot of beating for good
solid crime, among any tribe anywhere.
Moreover, the Ajumba wanted
meat, and the Fans, they said, offered them human. I saw no human
meat at Egaja, but the Ajumba seem to think the Fans eat nothing
else, which is a silly prejudice of theirs, because the Fans do. I
think in this case the Ajumba thought a lot of smoked flesh offered
was human. It may have been; it was in neat pieces; and again, as
the Captain of the late s.s. Sparrow would say, "it mayn't." But
the Ajumba have a horror of cannibalism, and I honestly believe
never practise it, even for fetish affairs, which is a rare thing in
a West African tribe where sacrificial and ceremonial cannibalism is
nearly universal. Anyhow the Ajumba loudly declared the Fans were
"bad men too much," which was impolitic under existing
circumstances, and inexcusable, because it by no means arose from a
courageous defiance of them; but the West African! Well! "'E's a
devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan child in one."
The chief was very anxious for me to stay and rest, but as his
mother was doing wonderfully well, and the other women seemed quite
to understand my directions regarding her, I did not feel inclined
to risk it.
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