Although, As I Have Laid Down, The Bush Factory At Its Best Is A
Place, As Mr. Tracey Tupman Would
Say, more fitted for a wounded
heart than for one still able to feast on social joys, it is a
Luxurious situation for a black trader compared to the other form of
trading he deals with - that of travelling among the native villages
in the bush. This has one hundred times the danger, and a thousand
times the discomfort, and is a thoroughly unhealthy pursuit. The
journeys these bush traders make are often remarkable, and they
deserve great credit for the courage and enterprise they display.
Certainly they run less risk of death from fever than a white man
would; but, on the other hand, their colour gives them no
protection; and their chance of getting murdered is distinctly
greater, the white governmental powers cannot revenge their death,
in the way they would the death of a white man, for these murders
usually take place away in some forest region, in a district no
white man has ever penetrated.
You will naturally ask how it is that so many of these men do
survive "to lead a life of sin" as a missionary described to me
their Coast town life to be. This question struck me as requiring
explanation. The result of my investigations, and the answers I
have received from the men themselves, show that there is a reason
why the natives do not succumb every time to the temptation to kill
the trader, and take his goods, and this is twofold:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 329 of 705
Words from 91245 to 91507
of 194943
