THE TEACHING OF NATURE. 353 



Livingstone was informed that shortly after his departure for 

 Kebrabasa, a little rise having occurred in the river, and the 

 waters becoming turbid, a native Portuguese gentleman came 

 to the commander, and with a grave countenance expressed his 

 fear that " that Englishman was doing something to the river." 

 And while he was at Tete a captain of infantry was sent a pris- 

 oner to Mozambique for administering the muave, or ordeal, 

 and for putting suspected persons to death on that evidence 

 alone. It was hardly surprising that under such influences the 

 natives who were in contact with white people seemed, as indeed 

 they were, more ignorant and degraded than those on whom no 

 ray from the civilized world had ever fallen. The amazing 

 fertility of the minds of these doubly unfortunate beings in super- 

 stitions was not only an occasion of sorrowful reflections and 

 anxious thought, and not only an almost insurmountable barrier 

 in the way of their conversion ; it demanded the most careful 

 vigilance on the part of strangers to their ideas, who desired to 

 avoid giving offence, as certain members of the expedition real- 

 ized when they found, on one occasion, that they had gravely 

 offended the great crocodile school of medicine by shooting one 

 of those huge reptiles as it lay basking in the sun on a sand- 

 bank near the village. [Nature alone has dealt kindly with 

 these degraded beings. God made nature ; it is the shadowy 

 expression of God. It does not teach distinctly, but it teaches 

 truly ; and nowhere is its language more beautiful than in 

 Africa ; and it is an inspiration for Christian zeal in the work of 

 giving the tribes of that unhappy land to know, that even in 

 the depths of their ignorance, and under the influence of the 

 most corrupting institutions, and the victims of most deliberate 

 cruelty, there are those among these tribes who are not insen- 

 sible to the charms of nature. There could hardly have been a 

 more beautiful answer given than that which one of the Bechu- 

 anas gave in explanation of the meaning of their word "boilse- 

 faho," " holiness." He said : " When copious showers have 

 descended in the night, and all the earth and leaves and cattle 

 are washed clean, and the sun rising shows a drop of dew on 

 every blade of grass, and the air breathes fresh, that is holiness." 

 The most charming season, if one may be preferred, is toward 

 the end of summer, when the rains are becoming frequent and 



