Some corn had been taken out of a sack for the horses, and a few grains lying scattered on the ground, I tried the beautiful metaphor of St. Paul as an example of a future state. Making a small hole with my finger in the ground, I placed a grain within it: "That," I said, "represents you when you die." Covering it with earth, I continued, "That grain will decay, but from it will rise the plant that will produce a reappearance of the original form."
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 superstition 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 degrees 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 interior of Africa, and that our object in exploring was to benefit the hitherto unknown countries by instituting legitimate trade, and introducing manufactures from England in exchange for ivory and other productions. He replied that the Turks would never trade fairly; that they were extremely bad people, and that they would not purchase ivory in any other way than by bartering cattle, which they stole from one tribe to sell to another.
Our conversation was suddenly terminated by one of my men running in to the tent with the bad news that one of the camels had dropped down and was dying. The report was too true. He was poisoned by a well-known plant that he had been caught in the act of eating. In a few hours he died. There is no more stupid animal than the camel. Nature has implanted in most animals an instinctive knowledge of the plants suitable for food, and they generally avoid those that are poisonous: but the camel will eat indiscriminately anything that is green; and if in a country where the plant exists that is well known by the Arabs as the "camel poison," watchers must always accompany the animals while grazing. The most fatal plant is a creeper, very succulent, and so beautifully green that its dense foliage is most attractive to the stupid victim. The stomach of the camel is very subject to inflammation, which is rapidly fatal. I have frequently seen them, after several days of sharp desert marching, arrive in good pasture, and die, within a few hours, of inflammation caused by repletion. It is extraordinary how they can exist upon the driest and apparently most innutritious food. When other animals are starving, the camel manages to pick up a subsistence, eating the ends of barren, leafless twigs, the dried sticks of certain shrubs, and the tough dry paper-like substance of the dome palm, about as succulent a breakfast as would be a green umbrella and a Times newspaper. With intense greediness the camel, although a hermit in simplicity of fare in hard times, feeds voraciously when in abundant pasture, always seeking the greenest shrubs. The poison-bush becomes a fatal bait.
The camel is by no means well understood in Europe. Far from being the docile and patient animal generally described, it is quite the reverse, and the males are frequently dangerous. They are exceedingly perverse; and are, as before described, excessively stupid. For the great deserts they are wonderfully adapted, and without them it would be impossible to cross certain tracts of country for want of water.