get over it
good-naturedly, get into the most shady spot of the village,
and leisurely look at all my admirers. When the first crowd
begins to go away, I go into my lodgings to take what food
may be prepared, as coffee, when I have it, or roasted maize
infusion when I have none. The door is shut, all save a space
to admit light. It is made of the inner bark of a gigantic
tree, not a quarter of an inch thick, and slides in a groove
behind a post on each side of the doorway. When partially
open it is supported by only one of the posts. Eager heads
sometimes crowd the open space, and crash goes the thin door,
landing a Manyuema beauty on the floor. 'It was not I,' she
gasps out, 'it was Bessie Bell and Jeanie Gray that shoved me
in, and--' as she scrambles out of the lion's den, 'see
they're laughing'; and; fairly out, she joins in the merry
giggle too. To avoid darkness or being half-smothered, I
often eat in public, draw a line on the ground, then 'toe the
line,' and keep them out of the circle. To see me eating with
knife, fork, and spoon is wonderful. 'See!--they don't touch
their food!--what oddities, to be sure.'...

"Many of the Manyuema women are very pretty; their hands,
feet, limbs, and form are perfect. The men are handsome.
Compared with them the Zanzibar slaves are like London
door-knockers, which some atrocious iron-founder thought were
like lions' faces. The way in which these same Zanzibar
Mohammedans murder the men and seize the women and children
makes me sick at heart. It is not slave-trade. It is
murdering free people to make slaves. It is perfectly
indescribable. Kirk has been working hard to get this
murdersome system put a stop to. Heaven prosper his noble
efforts! He says in one of his letters to me, 'It is
monstrous injustice to compare the free people in the
interior, living under their own chiefs and laws, with what
slaves at Zanzibar afterward become by the abominable system
which robs them of their manhood. I think it is like
comparing the anthropologists with their ancestral sokos.'...

"I am grieved to hear of the departure of good Lady
Murchison. Had I known that she kindly remembered me in her
prayers, it would have been great encouragement....

"The men sent by Dr. Kirk are Mohammedans, that i