Chap. XV. NATIVE DESIRE TO PLEASE. 309 



The natives of Africa have an amiable desire to please, and 

 often tell what they imagine will be gratifying, rather than 

 the uninteresting naked truth. Let a native from the 

 interior be questioned by a thirsty geographer, whether the 

 mountains round his youthful home are high ; from a dim 

 recollection of something of the sort, combined with a desire 

 to please, the answer will be in the affirmative. And so it 

 will be if the subject of inquiry be gold or unicorns, or men 

 with tails. English sportsmen, though first-rate shots at 

 home, are notorious for the number of their misses on first 

 trying to shoot in Africa. Everything is on such a large 

 scale, and there is such a glare of bright sunlight, that some 

 time is required to enable them to judge of distances. " Is 

 it wounded ? " inquired a gentleman, of his dark attendant, 

 after firing at an antelope, " Yes ! the ball went right 

 into his heart." These mortal wounds never proving 

 fatal, he asked a friend, who understood the language, to 

 explain to the man, that he preferred the truth in every 

 case. " He is my father," replied the native, " and I thought 

 he would be displeased if I told him that he never hits at all." 

 But great as this failing is among the free, it is much more 

 annoying among the slaves. One can scarcely induce a 

 slave to translate anything truly : he is so intent on 

 thinking of what will please. By far the greatest wonder 

 of Captain Speke and Grant's journey was, that they accom- 

 plished it with slaves. 



We had now an opportunity of seeing more of the Batoka, 

 than we had on the highland route to our north. They did 

 not wait till the evening before offering food to the strangers. 

 The aged wife of the headman of a hamlet, where we rested 

 at midday, at once kindled a fire, and put on the cooking- 

 pot to make porridge. Both men and women are to be 

 distinguished by greater roundness of feature than the other 



