Money was something he had no knowledge of.

He wanted beads of a certain size and color; for two handfuls of them he expressed himself willing to be our friend for life.

We had to educate him about money, and Kazimoto assured him that the silver rupees Fred produced from a bag were so precious that governments went to war to get them away from other governments.
But the impression still prevailed that we were wasikini--poor men; and that is a fatal qualification in the savage mind.
"Why have you only one gun ?" In vain Kazimoto assured him that we had dozens of guns "at home"-- that Fred's landed possessions were so vast that two hundred strong men walking for a month would be unable to march across them--that Fred's wives (Fred seemed to live under a cloud of sexual scandal in those days) were so many in number they had to be counted twice a day to make sure none was missing.
The chief had eighteen wives of his own to show.

He could prove his matrimonial felicity.

Why had Fred left his behind?
How did he dare?
Who looked after them?
Had he left the guns behind to guard the women?
Why did such a rich man travel without food for his men?
The chief had seen us with his own eyes devour porridge as if we were starving.
To have told him the truth would have been worse than useless.