36 
MORMONISM IN' AFRICA. 
“ elders” at Cape Town they had paid him a visit, wishing 
him, as the American consul, (they themselves being 
Americans, who had been sent from the Great Salt Lake 
to “preach the word,”) to back them up with his counte- 
nance through the colony, and that he had been forced 
to politely deny their request. lie did not tell me, how- 
ever, that he had said to them, “’Well, gentlemen, your 
request is rather a singular one; but if you will return to- 
mori-ow you shall have an answer.” And he further 
nesrlectcd to tell me what that answ’cr was. “I have 
thought seriously over your very singular request, Messrs. 
Mormons,” he said, “and I think itahumhug, (your reli- 
gion, I mean;) and, as the representative of the great 
American people, I can't su]}pori a Jmmbuy. Good-movn- 
ing, gentlemen !” 
And this last interpretation of the affair I got from a 
married friend of his, who seemed to think that Mrs. II. 
had had something to say about the Mormons and their 
institutions during the night which followed their first 
interview with him. So much for the commencement of 
Mormonism in Africa. 
