It comes into the world in large
quantities and looks upon it with its great sad eyes as if it were
weighing carefully the question whether or no it is a fit place for
a respectable soul to abide in.
Four times in ten it decides that
it is not, and dies. If, however, it decides to stay, it passes
between two and three years in a grim and profound study -
occasionally emitting howls which end suddenly in a sob - whine it
never does. At the end of this period it takes to spoon food, walks
about and makes itself handy to its mother or goes into the mission
school. If it remains in the native state it has no toys of a
frivolous nature, a little hoe or a little calabash are considered
better training; if it goes into the school, it picks up, with
astonishing rapidity, the lessons taught it there - giving rise to
hopes for its future which are only too frequently disappointed in a
few years' time. It is not until he reaches years of indiscretion
that the African becomes joyful; but, when he attains this age he
always does cheer up considerably, and then, whatever his previous
training may have been, he takes to what Mr. Kipling calls "boot"
with great avidity - and of this he consumes an enormous quantity.
For the next sixteen years, barring accidents, he "rips"; he rips
carefully, terrified by his many fetish restrictions, if he is a
pagan; but if he is in that partially converted state you usually
find him in when trouble has been taken with his soul - then he rips
unrestrained.
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