who will
teach reading to others better than they can, and teach you also much
that the liberated never know. A cloth and some beads occasionally will
satisfy them, while neither the food, the wages, nor the work will
please those who, being brought from a distance, naturally consider
themselves missionaries. Slaves also have undergone a process which has
spoiled them for life; though liberated young, everything of childhood
and opening life possesses an indescribable charm. It is so with our own
offspring, and nothing effaces the fairy scenes then printed on the
memory. Some of my liberados eagerly bought green calabashes and
tasteless squash, with fine fat beef, because this trash was their early
food; and an ounce of meat never entered their mouths. It seems
indispensable that each Mission should raise its own native agency. A
couple of Europeans beginning, and carrying on a Mission without a staff
of foreign attendants, implies coarse country fare, it is true, but this
would be nothing to those who, at home amuse themselves with fastings,
vigils, &c. A great deal of power is thus lost in the Church. Fastings
and vigils, without a special object in view, are time run to waste.
They are made to minister to a sort of self-gratification, instead of
being turned to account for the good of others. They are like groaning
in sickness. Some people amuse themselves when ill with continuous
moaning. The forty days of Lent might be annually spent in visiting
adjacent tribes, and bearing unavoidable hunger and thirst with a good
grace. Considering the greatness of the object to be attained, men
might go without sugar, coffee, tea, &c. I went from September 1866 to
December 1868 without either. A trader, at Casembe's, gave me a dish
cooked with honey, and it nauseated from its horrible sweetness, but at
100 miles inland, supplies could be easily obtained.

The expenses need not be large. Intelligent Arabs inform me that, in
going from Zanzibar to Casembe's, only 3000 dollars' worth are required
by a trader, say between 600_l._ or 700_l._, and he may be away three or
more years; paying his way, giving presents to the chiefs, and filling
200 or 300 mouths. He has paid for, say fifty muskets, ammunition,
flints, and may return with 4000 lbs. of ivory, and a number of slaves
for sale; all at an outlay of 600_l._ or 700_l._ With the experience I
have gained now, I could do all I shall do in this expedition for a like
sum, or at least