20 
MISSIONARY LIFE 
the mouth with the hand. They also take drink 
out of the hand, hut sometimes they have gourds 
for that purpose. 
Knives, forks, spoons, and water-cups are only 
used by those who have learned their use from 
traders or missionaries. 
They eat but twice a day, and generally between 
nine and ten o’clock a. m. and five and six o’clock 
p. M. 
They are the most gluttonous eaters I have ever 
seen or heard of ; and to ofiset this, they can go an 
unusually long time without food, and still per- 
form ordinary labor. 
I have known workmen in the employ of the 
mission to refuse their ration of rice — which is a 
quart per day — and labor all day without tasting 
food, for the 'pleasure of having what they call a 
good fulf or two quarts to eat the next day ! 
Boatmen will eat one and a half quarts at one 
meal, which is three quarts when boiled. It af- 
fords an African no little pleasure to eat his fill. 
An old head-man who had ten wives laughed most 
heartily at me once on seeing me leave a plate of 
rice, after eating about one fourth of it. He then 
turned to the company, and said, White man eat 
but little^ little (mincing with his mouth as he 
spoke) ; and no wonder he can have but one wife, 
and must soon die in black man’s country; but 
