The air which was so exhilarating to Europeans had an opposite effect on five men who had been born and reared in the malaria of the Delta of the Zambesi.  No sooner did they reach the edge of the plateau at Ndonda, than they lay down prostrate, and complained of pains all over them.  The temperature was not much lower than that on the shores of the Lake below, 76 degrees being the mean temperature of the day, 52 degrees the lowest, and 82 degrees the highest during the twenty-four hours; at the Lake it was about l0 degrees higher.  Of the symptoms they complained of—­pains everywhere—­nothing could be made.  And yet it was evident that they had good reason for saying that they were ill.  They scarified almost every part of their bodies as a remedial measure; medicines, administered on the supposition that their malady was the effect of a sudden chill, had no effect, and in two days one of them actually died in consequence of, as far as we could judge, a change from a malarious to a purer and more rarefied atmosphere.

As we were on the slave route, we found the people more churlish than usual.  On being expostulated with about it, they replied, “We have been made wary by those who come to buy slaves.”  The calamity of death having befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken their sympathies.  They pointed out their usual burying-place, lent us hoes, and helped to make the grave.  When we offered to pay all expenses, they showed that they had not done these friendly offices without fully appreciating their value; for they enumerated the use of the hut, the mat on which the deceased had lain, the hoes, the labour, and the medicine which they had scattered over the place to make him rest in peace.

The primitive African faith seems to be that there is one Almighty Maker of heaven and earth; that he has given the various plants of earth to man to be employed as mediators between him and the spirit world, where all who have ever been born and died continue to live; that sin consists in offences against their fellow-men, either here or among the departed, and that death is often a punishment of guilt, such as witchcraft.  Their idea of moral evil differs in no respect from ours, but they consider themselves amenable only to inferior beings, not to the Supreme.  Evil-speaking—­lying—­hatred—­disobedience to parents—­neglect of them—­are said by the intelligent to have been all known to be sin, as well as theft, murder, or adultery, before they knew aught of Europeans or their teaching.  The only new addition to their moral code is, that it is wrong to have more wives than one.  This, until the arrival of Europeans, never entered into their minds even as a doubt.