e
cunning creature had ingratiated himself with our leading religious
societies, especially with the more evangelical among them. Whatever
doubt there might be about his sincerity, there was none about his
colour, and a coloured convert in those days was more than Exeter Hall
could resist. Chowbok saw that there was no room for him and for my
father, and declared my poor father's story to be almost wholly false. It
was true, he said, that he and my father had explored the head-waters of
the river described in his book, but he denied that my father had gone on
without him, and he named the river as one distant by many thousands of
miles from the one it really was. He said that after about a fortnight
he had returned in company with my father, who by that time had become
incapacitated for further travel. At this point he would shrug his
shoulders, look mysterious, and thus say "alcoholic poisoning" even more
effectively than if he had uttered the words themselves. For a man's
tongue lies often in his shoulders.

Readers of my father's book will remember that Chowbok had given a very
different version when he had returned to his employer's station; but
Time and Distance afford cover under which falsehood can often do truth
to death securely.

I never understood why my father did not bring my mother forward to
confirm his story. He may have done so while I was too young to know
anything about it. But when people have made up their minds, they are
impatient of further evidence; my mother, moreover, was of a very
retiring disposition. The Italians say:-

"Chi lontano va ammogliare
Sara ingannato, o vorra ingannare."

"If a man goes far afield for a wife, he will be deceived--or means
deceiving." The proverb is as true for women as for men, and my mother
was never quite happy in her new surroundings. Wilfully deceived she
assuredly was not, but she could not accustom herself to English modes of
thought; indeed she never even nearly mastered our language; my father
always talked with her in Erewhonian, and so did I, for as a child she
had taught me to do so, and I was as fluent with her language as with my
father's. In this respect she often told me I could pass myself off
anywhere in Erewhon as a native; I shared also her personal appearance,
for though not wholly unlike my father, I had taken more closely after my
mother. In mind, if I may venture to say so, I believe I was more like
my father.

I ma