beads satisfies, but is not asked: I give it invariably as
acknowledgment for lodgings. The headman of our next stage hid himself
in fear, as we were near to the scene of Bin Juma's unprovoked slaughter
of five men, for tusks that were not stolen, but thrown down. Our path
lay through dense forest, and again, on 5th, our march was in the same
dense jungle of lofty trees and vegetation that touch our arms on each
side. We came to some villages among beautiful tree-covered hills,
called Basilañgé or Mobasilangé. The villages are very pretty, standing
on slopes. The main street generally lies east and west, to allow the
bright sun to stream his clear hot rays from one end to the other, and
lick up quickly the moisture from the frequent showers which is not
drained off by the slopes. A little verandah is often made in front of
the door, and here at dawn the family gathers round a fire, and, while
enjoying the heat needed in the cold that always accompanies the first
darting of the light or sun's rays across the atmosphere, inhale the
delicious air, and talk over their little domestic affairs. The various
shaped leaves of the forest all around their village and near their
nestlings are bespangled with myriads of dewdrops. The cocks crow
vigorously, and strut and ogle; the kids gambol and leap on the backs of
their dams quietly chewing the cud; other goats make believe fighting.
Thrifty wives often bake their new clay pots in a fire, made by lighting
a heap of grass roots: the next morning they extract salt from the
ashes, and so two birds are killed with one stone. The beauty of this
morning scene of peaceful enjoyment is indescribable. Infancy gilds the
fairy picture with its own lines, and it is probably never forgotten,
for the young, taken up from slavers, and treated with all philanthropic
missionary care and kindness, still revert to the period of infancy as
the finest and fairest they have known. They would go back to freedom
and enjoyment as fast as would our own sons of the soil, and be heedless
to the charms of hard work and no play which we think so much better