278 LIVINGSTONE'S MAGIC LANTERN. 



and that 1 would prefer this child to remain and carry- 

 water for her own mother, he thought I was dissatisfied 

 with her size, and sent for one a head taller ; after many- 

 explanations of our abhorrence of slavery, and how dis- 

 pleasing it must be to God to see his children selling one 

 another, and giving each other so much grief as this 

 child's mother must feel, I declined her also. If I could 

 have taken her into my family for the purpose of instruc- 

 tion, and then returned her as a free woman, according 

 to a promise I should have made to the parents, I might 

 have done so ; but to take her away, and probably never 

 be able to secure her return, would have produced no 

 good effect on the minds of the Balonda ; they would 

 not then have seen evidence of our hatred to slavery, 

 and the kind attentions of my friends would, as it almost 

 always does in similar cases, have turned the poor thing's 

 head. The difference in position between them and us 

 is as great as between the lowest and highest in England, 

 and we know the effects of sudden elevation on wiser 

 heads than hers, whose owners have not been born to it. 



Shinte was most anxious to see the pictures of the magic 

 lantern, but fever had so weakening an effect, and I had 

 such violent action of the heart, with buzzing in the ears, 

 that I could not go for several days ; when I did go for 

 the purpose, he had his principal men and the same 

 crowd of court beauties near him as at the reception. The 

 first picture exhibited was Abraham about to slaughter 

 his son Isaac ; it was shown as large as life, and the up- 

 lifted knife was in the act of striking the lad ; the Balonda 

 men remarked that the picture was much more like a 

 god than the things of wood or clay they worshipped. 

 I explained that this man was the first of a race to whom 

 God had given the Bible we now hexd, and that among 

 his children our Saviour appeared. The ladies listened 

 with silent awe ; but, when I moved the slide, the uplifted 

 dagger moving towards them, they thought it was to be 

 sheathed in their bodies instead of Isaac's. " Mother ! 

 mother ! " all shouted at once, and off they rushed helter- 

 skelter, tumbling pell-mell over each other, and over the 

 little idol-huts and tobacco-bushes ; we could not get one 

 of them back again. Shinte, however, sat bravely through 

 the whole, and afterwards examined the instrument with 

 interest. An explanation was always added after each 

 time of showing its powers, so that no one should imagine 





