e by the great river have taken the lesson,
which the end of this tribe has been to us, close to our hearts, and it
is this. Kings who insist that their wills should be followed, and
never care to take counsel with their people, are as little to be heeded
as children who babble of what they cannot know, and therefore in our
villages we have many elders who take all matters from the chief and
turn them over in their minds, and when they are agreed, they give the
doing of them to the chief, who can act only as the elders decree.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A HOSPITABLE GORILLA.

"Sir," said Baruti, after we had all gathered around the evening fire,
and were waiting expectant for the usual story, "Kassim's tale about the
City of the Elephants and the peace that was entered into between the
elephants and the Bungandu has reminded me of what happened between a
tribe living on the banks of the little Black River above the Basoko,
and a Gorilla."

"Wallahi, but these Basoko boys beat everybody for telling stories,"
exclaimed a Zanzibari. "I wonder, however, whether they invent them, or
they really have heard them from their old folk, as they say they did."

"We heard them, of course," replied Baruti, with an indignant look; "for
how could Kassim or I imagine such things? I heard something each day
almost from the elders, or the old women of the tribe. My mother also
told me some, and my big brother told me others. At our village
talk-house, scarcely a day passed but we heard of some strange thing
which had happened in old times. It is this custom of meeting around
the master's fire, and the legends that we hear, that reminds us of what
we formerly heard, and by thinking and thinking over them the words come
back anew to us."

"But do you think these things of which you talk are true?" the
Zanzibari asked.

"True!" he echoed. "Who am I that I should say, This thing is true, and
that is false! I but repeat what my betters said. I do not speak of
what I saw, but of what I heard, and the master's words to us were: `Try
and remember what was said to you in your villages by the ancients among
your people, and if you will tell it to me properly, I will give you a
nice cloth.' Well, when our old men were in good-humour, and smoked
their long pipes, and the pot of wine was by their side, and we asked
them to tell us somewhat about the days when they were young, they would
say, `Listen to this now,' and they would tell us