I/O FAILURE OF THE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT, [chap. vi. 
Commoro. — “ Exactly so ; that I understand. But 
the original grain does not rise again ; it rots like the 
dead man, and is ended; the fruit produced is not the 
same grain that we buried, but the production of that 
grain : so it is with man,—-I die, and decay, and am 
ended; but my children grow up like the fruit of the 
grain. Some men have no children, and some grains 
perish without fruit; then all are ended/' 
I was obliged to change the subject of conversation. 
In this wild naked savage there was not even a super¬ 
stition upon which to found a religious feeling; there 
was a belief in matter; and to his understanding 
everything was material. It was extraordinary to 
find so much clearness of perception combined with 
such complete obtuseness to anything ideal. 
Giving up the religious argument as a failure, I 
resolved upon more practical inquiries. 
The Turks had only arrived in the Latooka country 
in the preceding year. They had not introduced the 
cowrie shell; but I observed that every helmet was 
ornamented with this species; it therefore occurred to 
me that they must find their way into the country 
from Zanzibar. 
In reply to my inquiries, Commoro pointed to the 
south, from which he said they arrived in his country, 
but he had no idea from whence they came. The 
direction was sufficient to prove that they must be 
sent from the east coast, as Speke and Grant had 
followed the Zanzibar traders as far as Karagwe, the 
2° S. lat. 
Commoro could not possibly understand my object 
in visiting the Latooka country; it was in vain that 
I attempted to explain the intention of my journey. 
He said, “ Suppose you get to the great lake, what will 
you do with it ? What will be the good of it ? If 
you find that the large river does flow from it, what 
then ? What's the good of it ?" 
I could only assure him, that in England we had an 
intimate knowledge of the whole world, except the 
