Naturally that seemed strange to me—our people always want to get and not to give—“but then,” thought I, “there is no accounting for people who are such freaks as to have white skins; perhaps it is their way; and if so, what more?” They were always talking about one Jesus, who was very good and kind and loved us, and who they say died and rose again and is now alive. That was too much! Who ever saw a person rise from death, and if He were alive and really cared for us, why did He himself not come and see us? So we said, “When we see Him, we will believe.” Of course, it is only nsao (legend or fable). We went to see them, and took them an egg or a chicken, or perhaps a little manioca now and then, and listened to their words and heard them sing, and we always came away thinking what wonderful people they were, and how much wisdom they had. And then there came to our district another white man, and he built a house not far from the compound of these white men of God, and settled down there. At first we thought that he and the other white men were brothers: all had white faces and straight hair like monkeys; they seemed friendly and helped each other, and we never saw them fight or quarrel as we so often do. But after a while we saw that there was a difference, for the new white man called a palaver, and our chiefs gathered together from all the villages around the district, and, of course, many of us young men went with them to hear what it was all about. It was this: the new white man—we called him Bokakala—had come to live with us because he had heard that in our forest grew the rubber vine in abundance, and he wanted rubber—plenty of it. Not only so, but would pay for it—brass rods, beads, salt! Now would the chiefs get it for him? Would they be willing to send their young men into the forest to collect the rubber sap? And would the young men go? Oh, how we laughed! How we danced! Who ever heard of placing any value on the rubber plant except for the fruit to eat? Fancy getting salt—white man’s salt—just for bringing rubber! Of course we would go and get it. Could we not start at once? Then Bokakala got out some baskets to give us to put the rubber in, and there was such a scramble for those baskets—we almost fought as to who should get the first chance of possessing a rubber basket. The white man seemed pleased, and gave presents to the chiefs; and we were pleased, anxious to get off at once, at the first possible minute, to search for rubber, to obtain for ourselves some of that wonderful salt from Europe. We had already tasted it, and once tasted, there is nothing else that will satisfy the desire for it.