530 KINDNESS OF THE PEOPLE. 



preserving us from all the clangers of strange tribes and disease. 

 We had a similar service in the afternoon. The men gave us two 

 fine oxen for slaughter, and the women supplied us abundantly 

 with milk, meal, and butter. It was all quite gratuitous, and I 

 felt ashamed that I could make no return. My men explained 

 the total expenditure of our means, and the Libontese answered 

 gracefully, " It does not matter ; you have opened a path for us, 

 and we shall have sleep." Strangers came flocking from a dis- 

 tance, and seldom empty-handed. Their presents I distributed 

 among my men. 



Our progress down the Barotse valley was just like this. Ev- 

 ery village gave us an ox, and sometimes two. The people were 

 wonderfully kind. I felt, and still feel, most deeply grateful, and 

 tried to benefit them in the only way I could, by imparting the 

 knowledge of that Savior who can comfort and supply them in the 

 time of need, and my prayer is that he may send his good Spirit 

 to instruct them and lead them into his kingdom. Even now I 

 earnestly long to return, and make some recompense to them for 

 their kindness. In passing them on our way to the north, their 

 liberality might have been supposed to be influenced by the hope 

 of repayment on our return, for the white man's land is imagined 

 to be the source of every ornament they prize most. But, though 

 we set out from Loanda with a considerable quantity of goods, 

 hoping both to pay our way through the stingy Chiboque, and to 

 make presents to the kind Balonda and still more generous Mako- 

 lolo, the many delays caused by sickness made us expend all my 

 stock, and all the goods my men procured by their own labor at 

 Loanda, and we returned to the Makololo as poor as when we set 

 out. Yet no distrust was shown, and my poverty did not lessen 

 my influence. They saw that I had been exerting myself for their 

 benefit alone, and even my men remarked, " Though we return as 

 poor as we went, we have not gone in vain." They began imme- 

 diately to collect tusks of hippopotami and other ivory for a sec- 

 ond journey. 



