In the course of a war between two villages, in which I knew nearly all the people, a young man named _Minkoa_, a bright and rather manly young fellow, was one day out in the forest hunting when he was shot to death by a party who were in hiding near the path. Minkoa’s sister was married to the very man who first shot him, and they had been intimate friends, like brothers in each other’s regard, and had visited much together; but the man did not know that it was Minkoa when he fired the shot in the dark forest. Having wounded him, and seeing him fall to the ground, he sprang forward to complete the work, and instantly recognized his friend Minkoa. The savage heart is never wholly savage. With a cry of grief he fell beside the wounded man and with his own body would have saved him from further injury; but the rest of the party having come up, they dragged him back, flung him aside with a curse, and standing over Minkoa, fairly riddled his body with bullets. Compassion, or even natural affection, under such circumstances, is a weakness and must be suppressed as incompatible with what they regard as manly courage. All heathendom suffers for want of a perfect human ideal. The first result is a variety of ideal and type in different nations and different religions. Not only does the Confucian type, the Mohammedan type, the Buddhist type, differ from the Christian type, but they also differ essentially from each other. In each, some one virtue, parental authority, for instance, or courage, occupies almost the entire foreground, while other virtues recede in the perspective of character. In Africa virtue is almost identified with courage, and power is worshipped. Woman, therefore, who in all lands represents the gentler virtues—compassion, devotion, patience—is contemptible; and the child also; for where power is worshipped feebleness can have no claim. Woman, thus relegated to a place of inferiority and contempt, sinks to a lower level of degradation than the man. Cruelty is the characteristic of the men; licentiousness, of the women. But notwithstanding the imperfection of his ideal the African is essentially moral. He knows the difference between right and wrong; he knows that it is wrong to lie and to steal. Sometimes I was disposed to doubt it; when he told me lies for no possible advantage, or when he committed wanton wickedness.