Chap. IV. CHIBISA'S LOST CHILD. 103 



skirt the edge of the cliff. They leave early in the morning, 

 often before snnrise, for their feeding-places, coming and 

 going in pairs. They are evidently of a loving disposition, 

 and strongly attached to each other, the male always nest- 

 ling close beside his mate. A fine male fell to the ground, 

 from fear, at the report of Dr. Kirk's gun ; it was caught and 

 kept on board; the female did not go off in the mornings 

 to feed with the others, but flew round the ship, anxiously 

 trying, by her plaintive calls, to induce her beloved one to 

 follow her : she came again in the evenings to repeat the in- 

 vitations. The poor disconsolate captive soon refused to eat, 

 and in five days died of grief, because he could not have her 

 company. No internal injury could be detected after death. 

 Chibisa and his wife, with a natural show of parental feel- 

 ing, had told the Doctor, on his previous visit, that a few 

 years before some of Chisaka's men had kidnapped and sold 

 their little daughter, and that she was now a slave to the 

 padre at Tette. On his return to Tette, the Doctor tried 

 hard to ransom and restore the girl to her parents, and offered 

 twice the value of a slave ; the padre seemed willing, but 

 she could not be found. This' padre was better than the 

 average men of the country; and, being always civil and 

 obliging, w T ould probably have restored her gratuitously, but 

 she had been sold, it might be, to the distant tribe' Bazizulu, 

 or he could not tell where. Custom had rendered his feel- 

 ings callous, and Chibisa had to be told that his child would 

 never return. It is this callous state of mind which leads 

 some of our own blood to quote Scripture in support of 

 slavery. If we could afford to take a backward step in 

 civilization, we might find men among ourselves who would 

 in like manner prove Mormonism or any other enormity to 

 be divine. 



