The kindness of such a boy as Ndong Koni is only appreciated when contrasted with the awful cruelty which is the outstanding feature of all heathenism. And the cruelty of anger or fear is not so revolting as that of their deliberate practice and ordinary customs, dissociated from passion. In a certain town at which we anchored the _Evangeline_ one day while we waited for the turn of the tide, we found a woman sick and evidently dying, whose wasted form suggested long suffering. Ndong Koni knew her history and repeated it to me. She did not belong to the town, but had been a prisoner there for five years. A petty war had taken place between this town and the one to which she had belonged. A woman, I believe, had been stolen, and then some killing followed. At the close of the war the people of her town had to pay a dowry and they agreed to send a woman as hostage until it should be paid. This poor woman who had nothing whatever to do with the palaver, was taken from her family and given as a prisoner to the other town, while the guilty man and woman enjoyed themselves and paid no penalty. Her husband had probably married other wives and had ceased to care for her, and he was willing that she should be sent. They never ransomed her, but left her there, a prisoner and slave in the town, with no protection and no rights, until at the end of five years she died. To many such have I tried to tell the story of the Son of Man, who came to give His life “a ransom for many.” One day we visited a certain town which was not far away. Expecting that we would return that evening I took no extra clothing. On the way we were caught in a storm and my clothes were drenched with rain. I could hot spend the afternoon in these wet clothes, and the town possessed no clothes that I could wear. But the chief had a table and a table-cloth. He kindly loaned me the latter and a pair of shoes that had perhaps been discarded by some white man. I did not preach in a table-cloth and a pair of shoes, but I sat and visited with the people.