ts for
their subsistence. They wore palm-leaf aprons, as the robbers had
stripped them of their clothing and ornaments. Dead bodies floated past
us daily, and in the mornings the paddles had to be cleared of corpses,
caught by the floats during the night. For scores of miles the entire
population of the valley was swept away by this scourge Mariano, who is
again, as he was before, the great Portuguese slave-agent. It made the
heart ache to see the widespread desolation; the river-banks, once so
populous, all silent; the villages burned down, and an oppressive
stillness reigning where formerly crowds of eager sellers appeared with
the various products of their industry. Here and there might be seen on
the bank a small dreary deserted shed, where had sat, day after day, a
starving fisherman, until the rising waters drove the fish from their
wonted haunts, and left him to die. Tingane had been defeated; his
people had been killed, kidnapped, and forced to flee from their
villages. There were a few wretched survivors in a village above the
Ruo; but the majority of the population was dead. The sight and smell of
dead bodies was everywhere. Many skeletons lay beside the path, where in
their weakness they had fallen and expired. Ghastly living forms of boys
and girls, with dull dead eyes, were crouching beside some of the huts. A
few more miserable days of their terrible hunger, and they would be with
the dead.

Oppressed with the shocking scenes around, we visited the Bishop's grave;
and though it matters little where a good Christian's ashes rest, yet it
was with sadness that we thought over the hopes which had clustered
around him, as he left the classic grounds of Cambridge, all now buried
in this wild place. How it would have torn his kindly heart to witness
the sights we now were forced to see!

In giving vent to the natural feelings of regret, that a man so eminently
endowed and learned, as was Bishop Mackenzie, should have been so soon
cut off, some have expressed an opinion that it was wrong to use an
instrument so valuable _merely_ to convert the heathen. If the attempt
is to be made at all, it is "penny wise and pound foolish" to employ any
but the very best men, and those who are specially educated for the work.
An ordinary clergyman, however well suited for a parish, will not,
without special training, make a Missionary; and as to their comparative
usefulness, it is like that of the man who builds an