A Pathetic Story Which
Bears On This Feeling Was Told Me Some Time Ago By Miss Slessor When
She Was Stationed At Creek Town.
An old blind slave woman was found
in the bush, and brought into the mission.
She was in a deplorable
state, utterly neglected and starving, her feet torn by thorns and
full of jiggers, and so on. Every care was taken of her and she
soon revived and began to crawl about, but her whole mind was set on
one thing with a passion that had made her alike indifferent to her
past sufferings and to her present advantages. What she wanted was
a bit, only a little bit, of white cloth. Now, I may remark, white
cloth is anathema to the Missions, for it is used for ju-ju
offerings, and a rule has to be made against its being given to the
unconverted, or the missionary becomes an accessory before the fact
to pagan practices, so white cloth the old woman was told she could
not have, she had been given plenty of garments for her own use and
that was enough. The old woman, however, kept on pleading and
saying the spirit of her dead mistress kept coming to her asking and
crying for white cloth, and white cloth she must get for her, and so
at last, finding it was not to be got at the Mission station, she
stole away one day, unobserved, and wandered off into the bush, from
which she never again reappeared, doubtless falling a victim to the
many leopards that haunted hereabouts.
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