Religion & morality > David Livingstone

Amid the Great Waters.
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feasting or other purposes; by him is the royal palace
kept clean and the fire burning, and by him, when
a public execution takes place, is the body dragged
away and put out of sight. What would our royal
heralds, or even our town-criers, think of some of these
duties ? Fancy this remarkable functionary, who had,
among other things, to welcome distinguished visitors,
rising up from his crouching attitude before the kotla
of his chief, leaping and gesticulating, as if he were a
lunatic, and shouting at the top of his voice in a kind
of measured chant,
“ Don’t I see the white man ?
Don’t I see the comrade of Sebituanc ?
Don’t I see the father of Sekeletu ?
We want sleep,
Give your son sleep, my lord.”
Sebituane had heard that the white man had a pot,
that is, a cannon, which would destroy any party
attacking its possessor, and being desirous of ending
his days in peace, which he thought this would enable
him to do, he greatly wished to obtain it. The herald,
who was an old man, and had filled the office when
he died, was cognisant of this wish, and embodied it
in his song of welcome.
The congregations who attended at the summons
of the herald were sometimes very numerous—from
five to seven hundred. They were not kept long at
their devotions ; there was just a reading of the Bible,
followed by a short explanatory address and a prayer,
in kneeling down to which many of the mothers, who
had brought their children, bent over and hurt, or