CRUELTY AND INSENSIBILITY TO PAIN 213 



when the meat was cut from the living ox, was 

 probably true, as was the statement that a steak 

 would be cut from an ox, the skin stitched over 

 the wound, and the animal driven on for another's 

 day's dinner. 



This want of feeling for animals is possibly 

 due to the negro's own extraordinary insensibility 

 to pain. I have seen a man who had badly injured 

 one hand in an accident, trying to cut off a portion 

 of the injured member amid the jeers of his mates, 

 and hurrying off soon after to grab a share of the 

 meat of a buck which had just been carried into 

 camp. 



This insensibility to pain may make the negro 

 unsympathetic to others, yet these very carriers 

 who had laughed at the injured man w r ould have 

 shared their last meal with him. On occasions 

 when ill myself I have found both kindness and 

 neglect from my men ; once when very ill on a 

 long journey I was much neglected and nearly 

 died in consequence ; on other occasions when 

 less ill I have been carefully looked after. Of 

 course fear and respect are much stronger motives 

 in the black than affection or gratitude, and it is 

 probable that I lost attention in the first instance 

 because I was too weak to enforce it. 



It is certainly difficult and hardly fair to judge 

 an African's character from a European stand- 

 point or by such a standard. The nature of this 

 primitive man, brought up in ignorance and fear, 

 is as childlike in its unconscious cruelty as his 

 untruthfulness is transparent and his deceit 

 infantile. 



