298 
MAGIC LANTEEN. 
Chap. XVI. 
motlier, 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 displeasing it must be to God to see liis 
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 v/ould, 
as it almost always does in similar cases, have turned the poor 
thing’s head. Tiie difference in position between them and us 
is as great as between the lo^vest and highest in England, and 
we know the effects of sudden elevation on mser heads than 
hers, whose owners have not been born to it. 
Shinto 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 tlie same crowd of court beauties near 
liini as at the reception. The first picture exhibited was Abra¬ 
ham about to slaughter his son Isaac; it was shown as large as 
life, and the uplifted knife was in the act of striking the lad; 
the Balonda men remarked that the picture was much more like 
a god than the tilings 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 held, 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. Sliinte, 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 sliould imagine there 
