We ran to the side just in time to see the boat borne down by the first breaker, whirled around and capsized, the boys struggling for their lives, not only with a furious sea, but with heavy boxes and casks and the boat itself, all tossed to and fro in the surging waters. They escaped without serious injury; but no white man could have escaped. About the same time, a few miles up the coast, a steamer had one of its strong surf-boats flung upon the beach with such violence that it was broken in two across the middle. Another steamer had two boys killed. One day our boys went ashore early in the morning, leaving the ship at half-past five. They were expecting to make the first trip before breakfast, as usual, and therefore had nothing to eat before starting. They had landed the cargo safely at the trading-house; but the sea was so bad that they could not get off to the ship all that day. They made several unsuccessful attempts, and it was almost night when at last they succeeded. Meanwhile, the swell had become so heavy that we had steamed far out for safety, and were anchored seven miles from the shore. The boys reached the ship after dark, and we then learned that the white trader ashore had given them nothing to eat; although the ship would have repaid him. Those boys had battled with the sea weak with hunger, not having had a taste of food all that day. It is only fair to say that on the steamers they are well fed. There are but very few English traders who would do as that man did; though there are many such men of other nationalities. Only a short time afterwards, one evening at the table, an officer who had been ashore told us a story that was intended to prove the cruelty of the native. A white trader, he said, had caught a young elephant. He went away on a journey to the bush, leaving the care of it to his native workmen. Upon his return, after several months, he found the elephant in very poor health; and a few weeks later it died. There was no doubt that the natives had neglected to feed it in his absence, and this was the cause of its death. Horrible cruelty of the beastly native! Pungent remarks, appropriate to the occasion, were contributed all around the table. For myself—I was thinking of those starved and tired boys battling with a raging sea. But I said not a word. What would be the use? We need not be sentimental about the native’s wrongs. Though a victim, he is not necessarily innocent. He would do unto others as others do unto him; and his life is perhaps not rendered more miserable by the white man than it was before. But, then, they are _savages_ and we are supposed to be civilized; and the most wretched excuse that the white man can give for his cruelty is that he is only imitating the natives themselves. The white man is always calling the native a devil, and always expecting him to act like an angel, while he himself, so far from being angelic, sets an infernal example.