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If you have no belief in a future state, WHY SHOULD A MAN BE GOOD? Why should he not be bad, if he can prosper by wickedness?" Commoro. "Most people are bad; if they are strong they take from the weak. The good people are all weak; they are good because they are not strong enough to be bad."
"These Turks are delightful neighbours; they will create a row, and I shall be dragged into it in self-defence, as the natives will distinguish no difference in a scrimmage, although they draw favourable comparisons between me and the Turks in times of peace. Not a native came to work at the huts today; I therefore sent for the two chiefs, Commoro and Moy, and had a long talk with them.
The two chiefs, Moy and Commoro, found themselves in a dilemma, as they had allied themselves with the Turks in the attack upon the neighbouring town, depending upon them for future support; they were now left in the lurch, and felt themselves hardly a match for their enemies. A few extracts from my journal will close our sojourn at Latooka: "June 18th.
There were two chiefs, brothers; Moy was the greater in point of rank, but his brother, Commoro, had more actual authority with the people. I was glad that the latter appeared. I sent to request an interpreter from the Turks, and upon his arrival I asked Commoro why the women and children had been removed.
The two chiefs, Moy and Commoro, feeling themselves compromised by having brought the man into such danger unwittingly, threw themselves before him, and declared that no harm should befall him, as he belonged to them. Tearing them away by the combined force of many men, the prisoner was immediately bound, and led forth by his bloodthirsty murderers to death.
Commoro "Some men are not so clever as an ox. Men must sow corn to obtain food, but the ox and wild animals can procure it without sowing." "Do you not know that there is a spirit within you different from flesh? Do you not dream and wander in thought to distant places in your sleep? Nevertheless your body rests in one spot. How do you account for this?"
Commoro. "I am afraid of elephants and other animals when in the jungle at night; but of nothing else." "Then you believe in nothing neither in a good nor evil spirit! And you believe that when you die it will be the end of body and spirit; that you are like other animals; and that there is no distinction between man and beast; both disappear, and end at death?" Commoro. "Of course they do."
In reply to my inquiries, Commoro pointed to the south, from which he said they arrived in his country, but he had no idea from whence they came. The direction was sufficient to prove that they must be sent from the east coast, as Speke and Grant had followed the Zanzibar traders as far as Karagwe, the 2 degrees S. lat.
On the following day we arrived at Latooka, where I found everything in good order at the depot, and the European vegetables that I had sown were all above ground. Commoro and a number of people came to meet us.
The chiefs, Moy and Commoro, brought him to the Turks' camp, merely to prove that he had no evil intention. No sooner was it announced that he was a native of Kayala than the Turks declared he was a spy, and condemned him to be shot.
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