FRIENDLY FEELINGS TOWARD EUROPEANS. 349 



them supplied us liberally with maize, groundnuts, and 

 corn. Monze gave us a goat and a fowl, and appeared 

 highly satisfied with a present of some handkerchiefs I had 

 got in my supplies left at the island. Being of printed 

 cotton, they excited great admiration ; and, when I put a 

 gaudy-colored one as a shawl about his child, he said that 

 he would send for all his people to make a dance about it. 

 In telling them that my object was to open up a path 

 whereby they might, by getting merchandise for ivory, 

 avoid the guilt of selling their children, I asked IVIonze, 

 with about one hundred and fifty of his men, if they would 

 like a white man to live among them and teach them. All 

 expi-essed high satisfaction at the prospect of the white 

 man and his path: they would protect both him and his 

 property. I asked the question, because it would be of 

 great importance to have stations in this healthy region, 

 whither agents oppressed by sickness might retire, and 

 which would serve, moreover, as part of a chain of com- 

 munication between the interior and the coast. The 

 answer does not mean much more than what I know, by 

 other means, to be the case, — that a white man of good sense 

 would be welcome and safe in all these parts. By upright- 

 ness, and laying himself out for the good of the people, he 

 would be known all over the country as a benefactor of the 

 race. None desire Christian instruction, for of it they 

 nave no idea. But the people are now humbled by the 

 scourgings they have received, and seem to be in a favor- 

 able state for the reception of the gospel. The gradual 

 restoration of their former prosperity in cattle, simul- 

 taneously with instruction, would operate beneficially upon 

 their minds. The language is a dialect of the other negro 

 languages in the great valley; and, as many of the Batoka 

 living under the Makololo understand both it and the 

 Sichuana, missionaries could soon acquire it through tnat 

 medium. 



ilonze had never been visited by any white man, but 

 had seen black native traders, who, he said, came for ivory, 



30 



