SEKELETU'S PRESENT. 207 



mentioned, Sekeletu at first declined ; after some weeks, however, 

 Motibe, his father-in-law, and some others, determined to brave 

 the mysterious book. To all who have not acquired it, the knowl- 

 edge of letters is quite unfathomable; there is naught like it 

 within the compass of their observation ; and we have no com- 

 parison with any thing except pictures, to aid them in compre- 

 hending the idea of signs of words. It seems to them super- 

 natural that we see in a book things taking place, or having 

 occurred at a distance. No amount of explanation conveys the 

 idea unless they learn to read. Machinery is equally inexplica- 

 ble, and money nearly as much so until they see it in actual use. 

 They are familiar with barter alone ; and in the centre of the 

 country, where gold is totally unknown, if a button and sovereign 

 were left to their choice, they would prefer the former on account 

 of its having an eye. 



In beginning to learn, Motibe seemed to himself in the posi- 

 tion of the doctor, who was obliged to drink his potion before the 

 patient, to show that it contained nothing detrimental ; after he 

 had mastered the alphabet, and reported the thing so far safe, 

 Sekeletu and his young companions came forward to try for them- 

 selves. He must have resolved to watch the effects of the book 

 against his views on polygamy, and abstain whenever he perceived 

 any tendency, in reading it, toward enforcing him to put his wives 

 away. A number of men learned the alphabet in a short time 

 and were set to teach others, but before much progress could be 

 made I was on my way to Loanda. 



As I had declined to name any thing as a present from 

 Sekeletu, except a canoe to take me up the river, he brought 

 ten fine elephants' tusks and laid them down beside my wagon. 

 He would take no denial, though I told him I should prefer to 

 see him trading with Fleming, a man of color from the West In- 

 dies, who had come for the purpose. I had, during the eleven 

 years of my previous course, invariably abstained from taking 

 presents of ivory, from an idea that a religious instructor degraded 

 himself by accepting gifts from those whose spiritual welfare he 

 professed to seek. My precedence of all traders in the line of 

 discovery put me often in the way of very handsome offers, but 

 I always advised the donors to sell their ivory to traders, who 

 would be sure to follow, and when at some future time they had 



