368 LIFE OF DA YID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



occasion to be brought into contact with just such practices in Moosa, head- 

 man for the nonce, as would stand him in good stead, supposing desertion, 

 pillage, and a plausible tale should ever suggest themselves to him as a way- 

 out of a difficulty. He had served under me for a year on the river Shire, 

 and the tropical growth of rascality during an idle six months there (as 

 witnessed in him and his followers) was marked, but certainly not amusing. 

 The first canon in their creed was to lie ; the second made stealing an honest 

 transaction towards their Christian neighbours. With consciences thus 

 pretty well fortified, these two laws were rigorously exercised amongst bead 

 sacks, calico bales, bundles of brass wire, rice bags, and beef casks, on 

 every available opportunity when my back was turned. It was no use 

 stopping their grog — that stern preventative measure with the ordinary Jack- 

 tar — for they drank none. A religion which winks at the above practices, 

 sneezes if the air brings upon it a whiff of anything so unlawful and unclean 

 as rum ! At my wits' end, I hit upon two expedients. Distance from their 

 home lent no aid to disenchant the visions of spotless purity in which the 

 faithful must indulge. If rum were loss of houris, pork was simply destruc- 

 tion to all ideas of peace of mind. Now it so happened a pig was brought 

 to us one day at Ma Titti, where the Pioneer and her motley crew were lying 

 for six months. A fathom or two of cloth transferred to my possession a 

 nondescript beast, with bristles like cocoa-nut fibre brushed different ways, 

 and with teeth, legs, tail, and ears, tending to defy ought but the merest 

 semblance of things swine-like. 



" Great was the dismay of Moosa and his companions when they saw a 

 small cabin fitted up in the bows, with a packing case or two, and some 

 handy spars, for our new acquisition. To stay in the same ship was 

 simply impossible to the followers of the Prophet. However, a compromise, 

 with a view to further business, was eventually come to. Piggy was on no 

 account to be suffered out of his sty, except at such times as the faithful 

 were safely on shore ; as long as they worked well so did the arrangement. 

 But things soon lapsed. Less work and more lying and stealing took the 

 place of the wholesome dread of being run up against by the unclean. 



" Necessity is the mother of invention. So after the unusually success- 

 ful result in seeing how not to do things, one day I had eight bells struck, 

 and, as usual, the Johanna men got ready to dine on shore. What was their 

 dismay to hear the clatter of trotters, and in a moment the 'defiled' was 

 amongst the faithful ! Sauve qui pent was the order of the day. Piteous 

 appeals, to which hunger lent its zest at the accustomed dinner hour, was 

 showered down upon me from the rigging. ' Ah Misser Young, 'spose you 

 catch 'em porco, 'spose we work plenty.' 



" On these conditions at last I relented, and for a time a mere glance of 

 my eye towards ' porco's ' sty was enougli to get quite a paroxysm of work 



