“Well, then, give me some idea--of what is killing them?” “I cannot tell you, master; may be it is their fate to be thus.” “Bah! God has done His best for you. He has given you eyes, hands to feel, feet to walk, a good stomach to digest your food, and a sense to pilot your path through the world. Don’t say that God made strong men to wither them away in this manner. I must and will find the reason of this out. “Now, you Salim, the son of Rashid, speak to me. The son of a wise father should know a few wise things. There is Death among you, and I want to find out why. Say, how you and your comrades living in camp for a year can lose more lives than we did during all our journey, through this big forest, despite all the hunger and hard work we met?” Salim thus urged, replied modestly: “I am not wise, and all the world knows it. I am but a youth, and a porter, who for a little wage has come to gather a little money by carrying my load through Pagan lands. What strength I have I give freely to the owner of the caravan. Bitter things have happened to us while you were away. I have lost a brother since I came here. You must know, sir, that dry manioc and water is not good for a son of Adam. If our friends and relatives have sickened, and died--it must surely be that the manioc has had something to do with it. Thank God, I am well, and still strong, but I have seen the days when I would willingly have sold my freedom for a full meal. Whatsoever tended to fill the void of the stomach I have sought out and have continued to live on day after day, until, praise be to God and the Prophet--you have come back to us. But, sir, all men are not the same--the sense of all men is not equal, and it may be that white men differ one from the other as much as we blacks; for I see that some of them are rich, and some are poor, some attend the engines down in the belly of the ship, and some walk the quarter deck and command.” “Aye, Salim has the gift of speech,” murmured the crowd. This encouraged Salim, who, clearing his throat, resumed: “There is no doubt that the main fault lies in the manioc. It is a most bitter kind, and the effects of eating it we all know. We know the sickness, the retching, the quaking of the legs, the softening of the muscles, the pain in the head as if it were bound with iron and the earth swimming round the place whereon we stand, and the fall into a deadly faint. I say we have felt all this, and have seen it in others. Some of us have picked up the knack of making it eatable; but there are others who are already too feeble or too lazy to try, or try to care how to live.