Mental Solitude 
tellectual congeniality between us. Mentally we 
were thousands of years apart, and this sense of 
loneliness was like being thirsty in the midst of a 
briny deep. 1 have no doubt this sense of deso¬ 
lation in the midst of teeming thousands, has 
overwhelmed many missionaries in the midst of 
careers of much usefulness. It is a cross that 
crushes mortality to the earth. 
Once after I had formed a kind of intimacy 
with a man who seemed to be reasonably kind- 
hearted, some of his ideas so shocked me that I 
was always afraid of him afterward. It is a cus¬ 
tom with these people to make the bale of any 
compound in which an insolvent debtor dies pay 
the debts of the deceased. When any insolvent 
debtor, therefore, is found to be very ill he is 
taken out and thrown into the bushes to miser¬ 
ably perish. They know that this is very cruel 
for the worst curse used among them is, “May 
you die in the bushes.” (Okoogbeh.) On one 
occasion a man who was a renegade convert, 
was brought in a dying condition into our mis¬ 
sion yard. He was an insolvent debtor and the 
bale was about to have him thrown out, when 
he begged to be brought to us. We received 
him of course. This act of humanity greatly dis¬ 
gusted my native friend. 
123 
