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On Sunday I attend service in the chapel. A native from Sierra Leone reads a lesson from the Gospel of St. Matthew, which has been translated into Bangala and gives a short address on the subject afterwards. He is evidently much in earnest and talks with that kind of spirit of conviction frequently to be noticed in street preachers.
All I had remaining of my stock of beads could not replace those lost; and though we explained that we had no part in the guilt of the act, the traders replied that we had brought the thieves into the country; these were of the Bangala, who had been accustomed to plague the Portuguese in the most vexatious way.
Some of the most characteristic stories deal with the origin of death. Here is a Bangala tradition gathered by Grenfell and which runs as follows: The natives say that in the beginning men and women did not die. If they chose the smaller one they would continue to live, but if the larger one, they would for a time enjoy much greater wealth, but they would afterwards die.
After visiting this province, the traveller went to Bangala, the Bengal of the present day, which at this time, 1290, did not belong to Kublaï-Khan. The emperor's forces were then engaged in trying to conquer this fertile country, rich in cotton plants, in sugar-canes, &c., and whose magnificent oxen were like elephants in height.
Cypriano assisted us in making a more satisfactory arrangement with the ferrymen than parting with my blanket; and as soon as we reached the opposite bank we were in the territory of the Bangala, who are subjects of the Portuguese, and often spoken of as the Cassanges or Cassantse; and happily all our difficulties with the border tribes were at an end.
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