le when they sin, and that if the sinners leave off their evil ways
then they become well and happy again, and I said the same to these
people--and if they paid me ten shillings, why, do not the whites make
payments to their priests?"

I might add, in parenthesis, that the argument advanced did not find
favour with the magistrate on the bench who, like so many of his kind,
had little knowledge of Bantu lore and languages, and who therefore
could only perceive the letter of the law and not the human spirit
behind the acts that constituted a breach of the white man's statute.

The Natives, like most of the white people, prefer not to think overmuch
about death and whether there be life for us beyond the grave; like the
vast majority of Europeans they prefer to take the superstitions and
beliefs of their forefathers for granted. Vague notions about ancestral
and familiar spirits that emanate from the grave in the guise of snakes
or other animals are accepted in the same spirit or traditional mood in
which the doctrines and dogmas of the various religions of Europe are
accepted by the bulk of white believers.

I have found among the Bantu the same child-like faith in all that is
proclaimed by traditional authority about things supernatural, and I
have found also among them the same hesitation or inability to believe
without questioning in all that is laid down in the name of tradition
that we see among ourselves. The will to believe is temperamental and
general, but the unbeliever is found among the Bantu as well as
everywhere else.

I remember that I asked a raw Native once what he thought about the
after-life in which so many white and black people professed to believe.
He answered: "The white people are a clever race; they see many things
in their books; perhaps they can see even beyond death. I do not say
that they are liars, as some of our people sometimes say. They may know
these things, I do not. All I know is that when I die this breath that
is now in me so that I am able to think and speak will leave my body
which then must be put away in the ground: I think that will be the end
of me--but, not quite, for there,"--here he pointed to his infant son
who was toddling about in the strong sunlight--"there in him, my son,"
and his voice grew tender as he spoke, "I shall live on because he is
part of me, my life is in him; I cannot die altogether so long as he
lives, but if he should die and not leave a son to carry on