NYASALAND AND LOWER ZAMBESI 125 



in their own black skins only— he thought they 

 would be happier in his own raiment, so he gave 

 it to them. Ten thousand happy natives without 

 a religion, and he thought they would be better 

 for Christianity, so he taught it them — or tried to. 



He had been much shocked one day to learn 

 of the killing of the forty wives of the paramount 

 chief of the Awemba, when that estimable person's 

 soul had left his mud-walled hut. Horror and 

 pity had seized him at a later date when he 

 heard of the mutilations which were the punish- 

 ments in the stern moral code of that tribe. He 

 shuddered, as you and I would shudder, when 

 he heard that a woman had been deprived of 

 her left breast as the penance for adultery. 

 One day his travels brought him to a village 

 where there was a man without eyes, lips, nose, 

 ears or hands. He gasped in horror as you and 

 I would gasp at this awful, pitiful object. He 

 had stolen the chief's goats, they told him. 

 Such knowledge, such sights girded him with 

 further strength for his fight against heathen 

 darkness. 



He waged a crusade against such atrocities, 

 and then the Administration stepped in and 

 stamped out this great blot on the domain of 

 a Christian Power. And the missionary gave 

 these people crucifixes. Crucifixion was a 

 new form of torture and anguish to them, but 

 the noble mind of their pastor did not for a 

 moment dream of the misdirection of his act. 



When the far-distant Bishop of this Equatorial 

 See heard that his hermit priest had no clothes 

 to wear he sent him up white duck suits and a 

 clerical gown, for Godfrey Lazembe was no 

 fanatic. But the garments went the way of 

 his earlier raiments. Never was there more 



