think Mistrust opened them and
none of us enjoyed much slumber in the end.

Early the next morning we continued our course and reached the group of
cabins dignified by the name of village. Here the same thing took place
as on the previous day. In spite of my being in the company of three of
their own people, which I thought would have reassured them, at my
appearance the huts were rapidly deserted amidst cries of terror.

My three guides, however, managed to get into communication with their
brethren and after a while led them to me without their making any
resistance.

I got their consent to let me settle down near them on the condition
that I did not seek to enter their huts. The reason of this interdiction
I learnt later on. It had been a prescription of the Ala, a sort of
sorcerer, who believed, or made believe that my presence would have an
evil effect upon a sick mother and her new-born babe.

The Sakais, stimulated by my presents, built me a solid and pretty
comfortable cabin near a rivulet and not far from them, and I installed
myself there forthwith.

The first day of our acquaintance it happened that I accidentally called
them Sakais. They changed face and some of them protested angrily:

"You are not good, because you insult us and call us bad names!".

It was a dangerous slip of the tongue and I hastened to make my peace by
explaining that I had heard the term used by the other people but that I
knew they were really May Darats whose kindness and gentleness had
often been abused by their neighbours, and in the future I meant to save
them from being cheated and deceived by their former aggressors.

This declaration calmed their resentment and I was able to begin a
quiet, tranquil life amongst those simple, sincere beings, a life so
calm and undisturbed that I have never had cause, then or now, to regret
the civilized society from which I had voluntarily withdrawn myself,
persuaded that if my character and habits incapacitated me for the
dubious and not always straightforward transactions of the commercial
world, the same moral qualities which impeded me from becoming a
business man might find good ground for bringing forth fruit in the pure
hearts and minds of a primitive people, who knew neither fraud, nor
hypocrisy.

CHAPTER IV.

New friends--Gold--An English official--The purchase of my future
treasure--Administrative simplicity--England teaches!--The "sla
pui"--Bitter disappointmen