592 THE COVENANT. 



sorted to the singular ceremony, widely prevalent among savage 

 tribes, known as mixing blood. In this ceremony a small inci- 

 sion was made in the forearm of each person, from which blood 

 was taken, and mixed, in the midst of declarations of undying 

 friendship. Moenembagg said, "Your people must not steal, 

 we never do." " No stealing of fowls or men," said Moenem- 

 goi. " Catch the thief and bring him to me ; one who steals a 

 person is a pig," said Mohamad, and so the compact was made. 

 But it could hardly be in the power of a few words or drops 6f 

 blood to compose the anxieties of a people so ignorant and 

 isolated, in the presence of those who seemed to them to have 

 dropped among them from some other world. And the bearing 

 of the Arab party, nowhere distinguished for any special regard 

 for their covenants, was not calculated to increase the confidence 

 which would at best have been slowly formed. The slaves 

 among them very soon began their light-fingered attentions to 

 the property of their neighbors, and themselves, in turn, became 

 more and more the victims of a terror, far worse than apprehen- 

 sions of losing a fowl or cloth ; they heard much of the man- 

 eating propensities of the Manyuema. According to his custom, 

 Dr. Livingstone had a house put up for himself at Bambarre. 

 The native huts, though built square, were very low, with very 

 low doorways, but, unlike many of the tribes nearer the coast, 

 the men assume the labor of erecting these homes, and the chief 

 labor of the fields ; expecting their women to do their part in 

 keeping them supplied with water and fuel. Among these rude 

 barbarians, now and then there appeared nobler specimens, 

 whose minds seemed engaged with graver problems than the 

 questions of present comfort which seemed to absorb their 

 fellows. 



Two fine young men came to visit the doctor, and after vari- 

 ous questions about his country, asked him whether people died 

 there, and where they went after death. "Who kills them?" 

 they asked, and " Have you no charm against death ? " Who 

 knows how many minds there are in untutored darkness, brood- 

 ing over the mystery of the grave, and wondering whether there 

 be really no brighter light beyond it than they have, minds 

 waiting for the story which so many, in the brightness of its 

 light, despise? It was sorrowful, indeed, to see the timid de- 



