They tenderly open the chest and take out the heart
and viscera. These they, with a poetic and pathetic sense of fitness,
reserve for his beloved Africa. The heart that for thirty-three years had
beat for her welfare must be buried in her bosom. And so one of the Nassik
boys, Jacob Wainright, read the simple service of burial, and under the
moula-tree at Ilala that heart was deposited, and that tree, carved with a
simple inscription, became his monument. Then the body was prepared for its
long journey; the cavity was filled with salt, brandy poured into the
mouth, and the corpse laid out in the sun for fourteen days, and so was
reduced to the condition of a mummy, Afterward it was thrust into a hollow
cylinder of bark. Over this was sewed a covering of canvas. The whole
package was securely lashed to a pole, and so at last was ready to be borne
between two men upon their shoulders.
As yet the enterprise was scarcely begun, and the most difficult part of
their task was before them. The sea was far away, and the path lay through
a territory where nearly every fifty miles would bring them to a new tribe,
to face new difficulties.
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