Chap. XIX. TETTE SLAYERS. 397 



starvation, not for grain, but cloth, of which there was no 

 great lack, was so very unnatural, that at first we felt as if no 

 mortal men, except blacks, could be guilty of such cruelty ; 

 and began to speculate how the idea of property in human kind 

 could ever enter into beings possessing reasonable minds like 

 our own. We remembered, however, having seen a man who 

 was reputed humane, and in whose veins no black blood flowed, 

 parting for the sum of twenty dollars, or about 41, with a 

 good-looking girl, who stood in a closer relationship to him, 

 than this boy did to the man who excited our ire ; and, she 

 being the nurse of his son besides, both son and nurse made 

 such a pitiable wail for an entire day, that even the half- 

 caste who had bought her relented, and offered to return her 

 to the white man, but in vain. Community in suffering 

 does not always beget sympathy, though we naturally 

 expect it should. This was proved in the case of the wreck 

 of the French transport ship Medusa, on the West Coast, 

 and may not be peculiar to black men. 



The Tette slavers subsequently brought over corn (mapira) 

 and therewith bought many slaves. This might be con- 

 sidered in one sense humane, as it actually kept many 

 poor creatures from death by starvation ; but, as in the 

 case of the "removal to kind masters" scheme, the saviours 

 of lives are actually the destroyers of all the lives that are 

 lost. 



A number of elephants were standing near the spot where 

 we left the boat, and one of the herd was engaged in the 

 elephantine amusement of breaking down trees ; he did not 

 eat any part of them, but simply rejoicing in his strength 

 was knocking them over for the mere fun of the thing. 

 Three Enfield and other rifle balls in the head sent him 

 rushing through the thick bush with apparently as much ease, 

 as if it were only grass : an immense number of trees are 



