On our markets a great amount of time is wasted by haggling over prices--the seller asking a ridiculous sum at first, and gradually bringing it down to a half or third of the original demand. But I noticed that the white man looked keenly at the article for sale, asked the price, carefully considered for a few moments and then stated the amount he would give, and the vender either assented to it at once, or picked up his goods and left.
There was one man, a stranger, who had a goat for sale. The white man examined it.
“How much?” he asked.
“Twenty-four fathoms of cloth,” replied the man.
The white man whistled, smiled, and said: “I will give you nine fathoms for it, and that is a fair price.”
“Give me twenty fathoms. I can get that on the market,” avowed the man.
“Take it to the market, then,” advised the white man. “Let me see,” he continued, “to-day is Nkenge market. You will not have far to go.” And with that he walked on to the next.
A man standing by said to the goat-seller: "If you stay here all day he won’t change his price. He has only ‘one mouth.’ On the market you may get seven fathoms for the goat, but not more. You should accept the offer."
He wisely acted on the advice, received his nine fathoms, and went away with a truer conception of white men’s knowledge of the prices of native goods, and delighted that he had sold his goat before the sun was very high in the sky.
Just now I heard the big bell ring, and shortly after it was again rung loudly, and the boys on the station and others from various parts of the town went hurrying by into the school-house--a long building of mats, posts, and thatch, built along one side of the courtyard. There were about sixty boys of various ages present when the white man entered. He led them in the singing of a hymn, talked to them a short time about God’s palaver, and then they all bowed their heads in prayer.