with it, and I made a wry face at that. The next
day I gave him a piece of kid's flesh, which I had hung by a string in
front of the fire to roast. My plan was to put two poles, one on each
side of the fire, and a stick, on the top of them to hold the string.
When my slave came to taste the flesh, he took the best means to let me
know how good he thought it.

The next day I set him to beat out and sift some corn. I let him see me
make the bread, and he soon did all the work. I felt quite a love for
his true, warm heart, and he soon learnt to talk to me. One day I said,
"Do the men of your tribe win in fight?" He told me, with a smile, that
they did. "Well, then," said I, "How came they to let their foes take
you?"

"They run one, two, three, and make go in the boat that time."

"Well, and what do the men do with those they take?"

"Eat them all up."

This was not good news for me, but I went on, and said, "Where do they
take them?"

"Go to next place where they think."

"Do they come here?"

"Yes, yes, they come here, come else place too."

"Have you been here with them twice?"

"Yes, come there."

He meant the North West side of the isle, so to this spot I took him the
next day. He knew the place, and told me he was there once with a score
of men. To let me know this, he put a score of stones all of a row, and
made me count them.

"Are not the boats lost on your shore now and then?" He said that there
was no fear, and that no boats were lost. He told me that up a great way
by the moon--that is where the moon then came up--there dwelt a tribe
of white men like me, with beards. I felt sure that they must have come
from Spain, to work the gold mines. I put this to him: "Could I go from
this isle and join those men?"

"Yes, yes, you may go in two boats."

It was hard to see how one man could go in two boats, but what he meant
was, a boat twice as large as my own.

One day I said to my slave, "Do you know who made you?"

But he could not tell at all what these words meant. So I said, "Do you
know who made the sea, the ground we tread on, the hills, and woods?" He
said it was Beek, whose home was a great way off, and that he was so old
that the sea and the land were not so old as he.

"If this old man has made all things, why do not all things bow down to
him?"

My slave gave a grave look, and said, "All things say 'O' to him."

"Where do the men in your land go when they die?"

"All go to Beek."