"In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learned a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details as cutting a hanged man from the tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate."

“A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle.”

“After such treatment it would think twice before coming again, unless it was one of the stubborn ones who returned, carrying the stamp of their mutilation--a missing finger or perhaps a dark line where the medicine man's razor had cut them.”

“Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.”

“The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors. There was coming and going between them, especially at festivals and also when an old man died, because an old man was very close to the ancestors. A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.”

“When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.”

“Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death. Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory." They offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take. And to their great amazement the missionaries thanked them and burst into song.”