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THE NEW AFRICA 
execution, usually killing an elephant with two bullets if he got 
a fair chance at him. Couldn’t we send him some more 
expresses ? He was willing to pay liberally for them. One thing 
troubled him sorely: he had only the understanding of a black 
man, and he wished so much to be wise. His chiefs always told 
him that he was but a boy, and when he wanted to do anything 
on his own account they always checked him, and gave many 
reasons that he had to listen to because his people wished it, 
while all the time his desire was to do otherwise. Why was 
this ? Was it want of education ? Could we not show him how 
to be wise ? Stremboom had told him we were different from the 
white men he had hitherto seen, and his ears were wide open to 
listen, and our words would give him wisdom. 
Once a white missionary had visited him, and had told him 
and all the chiefs to come to the river, where he made them 
undress, and go up to their middles in the water, and had then 
sprinkled water all over them, and told them a lot of things, 
how to behave, etc.; amongst others, that they were not to have 
more than one wife. They had all gone into the water hoping 
to be made wise by the missionary, but he left again in a 
few days, leaving old Umkook behind, who taught his people to 
sing songs, and not to work on one day in the week. But 
Umkook was no wiser than he was, and the missionary was gone. 
All that this affair had done for him was to assist him to get rid 
of a lot of wives he did not like, but afterwards he felt no 
instinct holding him back from having another lot, so he took 
them; and as he chose them himself this time, and did not 
require to have all the women the chiefs had formerly given 
him, and whom he dared not refuse for fear of offending them, 
his new wives and he lived much more happily together than the 
old lot, and perhaps it was the influence of the missionary who 
had helped him to the change—this with a grin that showed 
he appreciated and enjoyed the humorous side of the position 
thoroughly ! 
The white people were a great race to make such good guns 
and such wonderful things as clocks and watches. How they 
