Till all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved to sin no more.
“Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue,
Lies silent in the grave.”
NOTES TO PART I
1 Being only eleven inches long (page [1]).--Over a very large part of the Congo soft brass wire of 34 gauge is now, and has been for many years, the currency and the standard of value among the natives. This wire was probably, in the first instance, introduced and used for ornamental purposes, as binding round spears and knives, or beaten out into ribbons of brass for decorating the hafts of their best spears and paddles. At first the wire was bought in long lengths of so many fathoms, according to the needs of the buyer and the purchasing power of the article he offered the trader in exchange for it. Later they found it more easy of manipulation to have it in lengths of thirty inches, and these were shortened by those who had large numbers of them cutting off a half-inch from each one and melting the small pieces down for brass anklets, necklets, and bracelets, thus procuring their brass for nothing, i. e. cutting off short pieces from each rod and passing the rods again into currency at their normal value. So much of this was done that the thirty-inch rod was reduced to twenty-seven inches, and sellers of goods consequently demanded more rods of the shorter ones than of the longer lengths.
This process of snipping off little pieces has gone on for thirty years, and the result is that the brass rod has gradually decreased in length until now, on the Lower Congo, it is scarcely five inches, and among the Boloki of the Monsembe district it is only eleven inches, and if the introduction of money does not displace the rod it will become only four or five inches in that part also.
Of course, as the rod lessens in length the seller of an article demands more of them for his goods. Thus an article that once cost three rods of thirty-inch wire now costs thirty of the five-inch rods; for not only has the rod shortened in length, but through the introduction of so much brass wire into the country during the last quarter of a century it has decreased in value. I hope some day to take the Rod among those people who use an eleven-inch brass rod as their money.