CHAPTER XVIII.
I make a perambulator--Meeting with whites--A dreadful habit--The miracle of Moses--Preparing a demonstration--An expectant audience--Yamba growing feeble--One tie snapped--Yamba's pathetic efforts--Vain hopes--Yamba dying--Nearing the end--My sole desire--A mass of gold--I seek trousers and shirt--An interesting greeting--A startling question--Towards Mount Margaret--The French Consul--I reach London.
I always felt instinctively that any attempt at missionary enterprise on my part would be dangerous, and might besides afford jealous medicine-men and other possible enemies an excellent opportunity of undermining my influence.
Sometimes, however, when all the tribe was gathered together, I would bring up the subject of cannibalism, and tell them that the Great Spirit they feared so much had left with me a written message forbidding all feasting off the bodies of human beings.

The "written message" I referred to on these occasions was my old Bible.

Of course the blacks failed to understand its purport as a book, having no written language of their own; but my manner and words served to impress them.
My natives seemed ever to manifest the keenest interest in the accounts I gave them of the wonderful resources of civilisation; but experience showed that I must adapt my descriptions to the intellect of my hearers.
For example, I used to tell them that in the great cities ("camps" I called them) there was never any real darkness if men chose, because there were other lights at command which could be turned off and on at will.

The most effective analogy in this respect was the twinkling of the stars in the heavens; but my hearers were greatly amazed to think that such lights could be under the command of man.
The blacks had long since put me down as a great spirit come to visit them, and they even located by common consent a certain star in the heavens which they decided was at one time my home, and to which I should eventually return.

Every time I made a false step, I had to devise some new "miracle" by way of counterblast.
On one occasion I actually made a perambulator for the conveyance of children! It was the very first time that these primitive savages had seen the principle of the wheel applied to locomotion, and it passed their comprehension altogether.