THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 163 



Some corn had been taken out of a sack for the horses, and a 

 few grains lying scattered on the ground, Baker tried the beau- 

 tiful metaphor of St. Paul as an example of a future state. 

 Making a small hole with his finger in the ground, he placed a 

 grain within it; "That," he said, "represents you when you 

 die." Covering it with earth, he continued, "That grain will 

 decay, but from it will rise the plant that will produce a reap- 

 pearance of the original form." 



" Exactly so ; that I understand. But the original grain does 

 not rise again ; it rots like the dead man, and is ended ; the fruit 

 produced is not the same grain that we buried, but the production 

 of that grain: so it is with man, I die, and decay, and am 

 ended ; but my children grow up like the fruit of the grain. 

 Some men have no children, and some grains perish without 

 fruit ; then all are ended. 



Baker saw it was useless to argue further, and frankly says : 

 " I was obliged to change the subject of conversation. In this 

 wild, naked savage there was not even a superstition upon which 

 to found a religious feeling ; there was a belief in matter ; and 

 to his understanding everything was material. It was extraor- 

 dinary to find so much clearness of perception combined with 

 such complete obtuseness to anything ideal." 



ELEPHANT HUNTING. 



BAKER remained at Latooka two weeks or more, waiting the 

 return of Ibrahim from Gondokoro, whither he had gone for a 

 new supply of ammunition ; and to better employ the time of his 

 detention, on the 15th of April, just as the rainy season was 

 setting in, he resolved upon a hunt for large game, traces of 

 which were numerous within five miles of Latooka. Accordingly, 

 with a good guide and several servants to carry the guns, he set 

 out, and coming to a plain covered with long rich grasses, he 

 was suddenly startled by a rhinoceros bolting out of a copse close 

 to his horse's head, and plunging into another before he could 

 seize his gun. He would have followed had not his attention 

 been called away from the rhinoceros by a shout from his servants, 



