HARD-HEARTEDKESS OF THE EAST AFRICAN. 329 



Africans are wilful, headstrong, and undisciplinable : 

 in point of stubbornness and restiveness they resemble 

 the lower animals. If they cannot obtain the very 

 article of barter upon which they have set their mind, 

 they will carry home things useless to them ; any 

 attempt at bargaining is settled by the seller turning 

 his back, and they ask according to their wants and 

 wishes, without regard to the value of goods. Grumbling 

 and dissatisfied, they never do business without a 

 grievance. Revenge is a ruling passion, as the many 

 rancorous fratricidal wars that have prevailed between 

 kindred clans, even for a generation, prove. Retaliation 

 and vengeance are, in fact, their great agents of moral 

 control. Judged by the test of death, the East African 

 is a hardhearted man, who seems to ignore all the 

 charities of father, son, and brother. A tear is rarely 

 shed, except by the women, for departed parent, relative, 

 or friend, and the voice of the mourner is seldom heard 

 in their abodes. It is most painful to witness the complete 

 inhumanity with which a porter seized with small- pox 

 is allowed by his friends, comrades, and brethren to fall 

 behind in the jungle, with several days' life in him. 

 No inducement — even beads — can persuade a soul to 

 attend him. Every village will drive him from its 

 doors ; no one will risk taking, at any price, death into 

 his bosom. If strong enough, the sufferer builds a little 

 bough-hut away from the camp, and, provided with his 

 rations — a pound of grain and a gourdful of water — he 

 quietly expects his doom, to feed the hyaena and the 

 raven of the wild. The people are remarkable for the 

 readiness with which they yield to fits of sudden fury ; 

 on these occasions they will, like children, vent their 

 rage upon any object, animate or inanimate, that pre- 

 sents itself. Their temper is characterised by a nervous, 



