XVIIISAINTS AMONG SAVAGES

Carlyle remarks: “If there are depths in man as deep as hell, there are also heights as high as heaven; are not both heaven and hell made out of him?”

The final argument and the best apologetic for missions in Africa is the native Christian. He is not much on exhibition but he is there. The traveller does not find him; for his voice is not heard in the streets. Many a white resident in Africa is unaware of him and is incredulous when he is pointed out; even as the people of Nazareth did not know that there was any essential difference between themselves and Jesus though He had lived thirty years in their midst. But the spiritual eye of John the Baptist discerned in Him one who had no need of repentance. And the “seeing eye” will easily discover the native Christian in Africa; and it is really worth while, for at his best he is as much like his Master as any that can be found anywhere, and particularly in that gentleness that would not break the bruised reed.

The first elder of the Fang Church was Mba Obam (shortened to Mb’Obam), chief of Makweña, and uncle of Ndong Koni. He was tall, good looking, very quiet and of strong personality.

On one occasion when I was staying in his town over night it happened that there was a great celebration. A month before this a big man of the town, more important than popular, had died; and having mourned for himevery night for a whole month, the people thought they had done their full duty. It remained only to give him a good “send-off” in a great dance and feast, which released all his friends and relations from further obligation of mourning. All the men from the neighbouring towns had been invited and there was a great crowd and infinite noise. In the midst of the furious dancing of the men some untoward incident occurred that precipitated a general row, in which every man drew his sword, and they instantly divided, according to their tribal relationships, into two lines of glaring, dangerous savages. Before I had fully comprehended the situation Mb’Obam, who had taken no part in the celebration, came from his house down the street in long strides, every inch a chief, as much so as the last of the Mohicans, but carrying no sword. At the extreme risk of his life, as it seemed to me, he pushed into the middle, between the lines of thrusting and parrying swords, and commanded silence. To my surprise, they obeyed him and became quiet, the sudden silence contrasting strangely with the former uproar and confusion.

Mb’Obam, with the gentleness of a father, reminded them that they were no longer savages, but brothers, and that if they should hastily shed each other’s blood they would be sure to regret it afterwards. There was no more quarrelling that night.

Mb’Obam and his wife, Sara, had lived at Angom in the time of Mr. Marling and had there become Christians. After Mr. Marling’s death they had moved down the river to Makweña. Ndong Koni and Mb’Obam built a beautiful chapel at Makweña. I have already told how that Ndong Koni paid for the windows and doors by working in the yard at Baraka. In this chapel Mb’Obam held a service every Sunday, besides early morning prayers each day, at which all the people assembled beforegoing away to their gardens and their various occupations of work or pleasure.

I have told elsewhere how that, when Mb’Obam was dying, he called the people around him and begged them to be good to his wife, Sara, and not to accuse her of bewitching him when he was gone. He also reminded them how in late years he had protected the women against whom this charge was made. They promised, of course, and they meant it; for they revered him; but as soon as he was dead old beliefs prevailed and old customs asserted tyrannous authority. They charged Sara with having caused Mb’Obam’s death by witchcraft. They dared not kill her; for they were in the vicinity of the French government. But they drove her on her hands and knees up and down the street with two men sitting on her back. From this cruelty I rescued her one day with a stout stick which I used somewhat freely; otherwise it might have ended in her death. When Sara was sufficiently recovered I said to her: “Sara, what can I do to protect you against further cruelty?”

She replied: “Mr. Milligan, I think you had better find me a husband.”

It wasn’t entirely out of my line—if there’s any such thing as alinein a missionary’s work—for, as an essential part of my pastoral duty, I found it necessary to run a kind of matrimonial bureau. Well, we found a husband for Sara, which was not difficult, for they all knew that she was a good woman. A Christian man married her and I hope they may still be living happily together.

One night Mb’Obam came to an Mpongwe prayer-meeting in Gaboon and brought a number of his Fang friends. The Mpongwe being a coast tribe, all but the Christians among them despise the Fang. The meeting was in an Mpongwe village and there were many present who were not Christians. It happened that I was conducting themeeting; and after telling the Mpongwe who Mb’Obam was I asked him to address them, which he did in their own language. In the course of his talk he referred to the ark that “Adam” built. Ndong Koni was sitting not far from him, and when Mb’Obam referred a second time to “Adam’s ark,” before these better-informed Mpongwe, Ndong Koni quietly said to him: “Father, you mean Noah.”

Mb’Obam, without the least embarrassment, replied: “Was it Noah? Thank you, my son. I thought it was Adam that built the ark; but it does not affect what I was going to say.”

The simplicity of it was so beautiful that we scarcely thought of its being amusing. Then he went on and made a most fitting and touching comparison between his own life and that of Noah, preaching through all those years the while he was preparing the ark, a lonely believer in the midst of unbelief and ridicule and wickedness that rends a believer’s heart. “Yet Noah’s words came to pass because they were God’s words; so God will in His own time justify us. Meanwhile we will go on preaching; and may we be faithful and uncomplaining.”

He made a profound impression on the Mpongwe Christians; and often afterwards when I returned from my journeys some of them would ask me if I had been to Mb’Obam’s town and if he was well. When I heard that he was very sick I sent a boat and brought him to Baraka. I took him to the French hospital for a few days. But nothing could save his life. It was only at his death that I realized how much he was loved and respected. He himself never knew.

Another man, Angona, had been an important man in his town, having had several wives, and a great variety of powerful and well-tried fetishes. Angona, on one occasionstaying over night at Gaboon, took the opportunity of spending the evening at Baraka and advising with me on certain matters, moral and religions. He told me how that recently he had nearly lost his life by his refusal to observe a certain Fang custom which I venture to mention. Angona had been visiting a friend in another town and had refused to assume the marital relations of his host, according to their friendly custom. The friend was angry, suspecting that something was lacking in his friendship, and not liking to see an old custom discarded. His anger subsided however at Angona’s explanation that he was a Christian. But not so the woman’s anger. She tried to kill him by putting poison in his food.

Angona at the time of his conversion put away all of his wives but one. He had paid a very large dowry for each of them; so that in putting them away he had also put away his wealth and to a large extent had surrendered influence and social position. But the surrender of his famous collection of fetishes, which he had gathered among many tribes, to which no doubt he owed his success and his possessions, occasioned greater surprise than anything else. By the virtue of one of these fetishes he had been successful in matrimony, and by the virtue of another his wife had not deserted him; one fetish had procured him success in trade, another had made him successful in war; by means of one he had recovered from a dangerous illness, and by another his gardens had prospered; by the virtue of one he could cause an aggressive enemy to “swell up and burst,” and by another build an invisible fire around himself when he slept, through which no witch could pass. And most powerful of all was the sacred skull of his father. All the people of the town stood by and stared as Angona delivered to me all these fetishes; but at last when he went to fetch the skull the women were warnedto flee lest by any mischance the casket might open and they should see what was inside and die. Angona by this renunciation gained the reputation of being a particular fool. But he at once began preaching to the people and before many months there was a class of sixteen Christians in that town.

As soon as I received this report of Angona’s work I visited the town. After a brief service at which all the people were present, I asked whether there were any sick people in the town, and they directed me to the house of a woman who was recovering from a long illness. While I was talking to her another woman, one of the Christians, came in and setting a pot on the ground beside the sick woman, said: “The pot is yours. I am a Christian. The palaver is finished.”

Another woman arose, and going over to the woman who had brought the pot, put her arm around her in a half embrace and said:

“Yes, you are a Christian indeed.”

The sick woman had been cared for by the other woman during her illness and had given her this pot for her kindness. Afterwards, when she was nearly well she repented and asked for the pot. When it was refused she gave free rein to a very sharp tongue and roundly cursed the other woman. The whole community had evidently become involved in the quarrel, which was becoming more bitter, when this Christian woman suddenly brought it to an end, as I have told.

A few weeks after this one of my catechists, Amvama, visited Angona’s town. While there it was recalled by the heathen people of the town that a party belonging to Amvama’s town, in the days of cannibalism, and many years before Amvama was born, had killed a man of their tribe and had devoured him. In Africa, it is considered a great insult to a man to eat him, an insult alsoto his friends, such an insult as may never be forgotten until it is avenged. During the night, while Amvama was sleeping in Angona’s house, the people, having surrounded the house, called Angona out and told him they were going to kill Amvama. It would have been a great loss to the work and a grief to me if they killed him, for Amvama was one of the best boys in all Africa. The handful of Christians and their sympathizers, with Angona at their head, replied that they would lay down their lives in defense of him. The heathen probably did not expect any such thing; for it is seldom that a town is divided thus. They usually act as if by one impulse; but Christianity draws new lines, makes new friends and new foes. The Christian’s friends are sometimes those of a hostile tribe, while his foes are “they of his own household.” The Christians, with Angona at their head, gathered close around Amvama and soon showed that they meant what they had said. They were few of course as compared with with the heathen; but the latter were not willing to kill their own people. Before they had time to plan for action the Christians had escorted Amvama to a canoe and got him away in safety. The next time I visited that town I had a “war palaver” with those people. But I was greatly elated over the conduct of Angona and the handful of Christians whom he had taught.

This boy Amvama, who was rescued from savage bloodthirst in Angona’s town, was the very first of those African boys whom I gathered around me in the French Congo and was also with me the day that I left Africa, nearly six years afterwards. In that time he grew from a small boy to a young man of probably eighteen years. I used to say that he was the best-loved boy in Africa.

Amvama never was a heathen. He was born close to Angom, and in his childhood never even saw the worstforms of heathenism. He was received into the church by Mr. Marling while he was still a child; altogether too young, some thought; but the years fully justified Mr. Marling’s judgment. Among the most impulsive people in the world, Amvama was peculiarly deliberate and thoughtful. I have seen him in many trying situations, but I never saw him angry. Among a people who live in the realm of emotion, Amvama’s distinguishing characteristic was common sense. In school he was not as quick to learn as many others, but such was his faithfulness and persistence that in the end he surpassed them all, and he had a saving sense of humour that always added gaiety to any company. On one occasion, on a journey up the river, when I was accompanied by a white man with an extremely bald head—the first that the crew had ever seen—Amvama caused the natives and one white man to smile by comparing it to a fresh-laid egg—a comparison that was quite new in Africa.

In the early days before theDorothy, Amvama was my “boy,” or personal attendant, when I travelled about in theEvangeline. He was always a cleanly boy, according to Fang ideals, but the Fang ideal leaves something to be desired. One day, in theEvangeline, the crew, after a long pull at the oars, were eating oranges, of which I had brought a supply from the orchard at Baraka. I gave them my table-knife to cut their oranges. While they were still eating I helped myself to an orange and asked for the knife. It was passed to Amvama who handed it to me; but, observing that it was dripping with the orange juice, he wiped it carefully on his bare leg. A short time before I left Africa I told Amvama of this incident, which he had forgotten. Looking at me in astonishment he said: “I? Did I do that?”

It seemed incredible to him. In after years he would no more have done any such thing than a white man.

However sincere the African Christian may be, the knowledge of Christian morality in minute particulars is a long, slow growth. One day, out on the bay in theEvangelineand running before a fair wind, we sighted the sails of a schooner coming towards the harbour but still far out at sea. Amvama and Captain Makuba disputed as to the name of the schooner. Makuba became impatient and said to me: “Mr. Milligan, I wish you would tell Amvama that he must not contradict me; for he is a small boy and I am an old man.” I had always thought that Makuba was a very young man.

Finally, these two, both of them Christians, and perfectly sincere, decided to bet on the name of the schooner. The bet was a franc cash and they asked me to hold the money; whereupon I delivered my sermon on gambling.

I had hoped that Amvama would be the first ordained minister among the Fang; but when he was about sixteen the need of catechists became imperative and I felt compelled to cut off his further education and send him out into the whitening field of the harvest. This was a great disappointment. For although he proved himself a faithful and invaluable worker, he could never be as efficient as if he had had adequate training, and could never be entirely independent of the missionary’s supervision.

I placed Amvama in a large town, calledNdumentanga, where there were a number of newly-professed Christians who were eager to be taught. The work was difficult and trying and he was a young boy and inexperienced; and, as I have said, had never seen the worst of African heathenism. It was with strange feelings that I left him in the street of that town one very dark night when the rain was pouring down,—left him to prove himself. For four months I did not see him; but I had the fullest report of his work, and it was most satisfactory. He conducted a daily class for religious instruction, teachinghymns and catechism and on each question of the latter giving explanations and practical talks. He also held a service on Sunday; and, besides, taught a day-school each morning in which all who desired might learn to read the Bible. He also regularly visited other towns that were not too far away. It was on one of these latter visits that he had the narrow escape in Angona’s town.

For the next two years Amvama spent most of his time at Ndumentanga. Shortly after his first arrival, a man of the town, who had been visiting another town, returned home very sick. Amvama called on him, and finding that he and his wife had become Christians while away from home, he instructed them daily in their house, frequently calling all the Christians of the town to go with him, and sing and pray with the sick man. He was with him when he died, seeking to strengthen his faith; and the people, perhaps for the first time, saw a man die without fear. Then the heathen wished to open the body, in order to see whether the man had been bewitched. But Amvama with quiet authority took possession of the body until it should be given a Christian burial. I marvel that a young boy was able to hold out against them and induce them to forego all their heathen rites; but he had won the love and confidence of all these people. He held a brief service at the house; and when the body was placed in the grave he called upon the people to be quiet while he offered a prayer. They all stood by, some in mute astonishment at a Christian burial service, others laughing and falling against each other in that weak abandon everywhere characteristic of the very ignorant. What a scene for an artist! A young boy standing in the midst of a crowd of carnal and degraded men and women, some of them aged; holding fast to the things that are spiritual, contending for the reality of those things that are not seen!

For several years Amvama had been betrothed to a young girl, who died when he was about seventeen. The dowry, which included all that he had ever earned, had been paid and the girl was living with Amvama’s mother until she should be of marriageable age. It is the universal custom among the Fang that when a girl dies before reaching that age the dowry paid for her must be returned. So Amvama was entitled to the dowry which he had paid; and it was the more urgent because there was no dowry for him anywhere else within sight. But the girl’s people, probably taking advantage of the fact that Amvama was a Christian, refused to return the dowry. Such a refusal is always a matter of war.

One evening when he was back at Baraka for a few days, he came to see me desiring my advice on this matter of the dowry, wishing to know what he as a Christian ought to do, but not wishing to ask me directly.

Politeness among some African tribes is reduced to a fine art. One of its chief elements is indirection. I ask a boy whether he will work for me; and he replies: “Did I say I wouldn’t?”

Sometimes the third person is used instead of the first; one is occasionally reminded of the FrenchOn dit.

After an interval of silence Amvama remarked: “Those people ought to pay me back that dowry.”

I made no reply; and after a pause he said: “Those people are treating me very badly.”

Another pause, and then: “My people all want to go to war, and there are five or six towns of my people.”

Another pause, and he said: “I tell you there will be blood spilled!”

At this I spoke and said: “We don’t need the help of your people, Amvama; you and I will go, ourselves alone, and will kill all the people of that town. Upon our arrival in the town we will hold a service, and ofcourse everybody will come, and they will come unarmed. After singing one or two hymns I will ask you to offer a prayer; and while you are praying I’ll open fire on the congregation and we’ll make short work of them.”

He laughed and said: “I only wished to know what you thought.”

“Why, then, did you not ask me?” I said.

He replied: “I think I have been asking you ever since I came in.”

The people would not give back the dowry, and Amvama would not let it come to a clash of arms; so he surrendered it. But about a year later his brother (more likely a cousin) died, leaving two wives, who by the law of inheritance became Amvama’s property. Both of them were eager to marry him. One of the two was as good a woman as he could have found, and he afterwards married her. The other he gave, with her consent, to a cousin who was single.

In the examination of candidates for baptism I had to rely very much upon Amvama’s judgment in regard to those whom he had taught. In one of the towns where he had taught there was a young man who had been a Christian for more than two years and who had attended the classes faithfully; and yet Amvama did not recommend him for baptism. I asked him the reason, and he said that there was only one thing against him, and nothing else; he was lazy—so lazy that he was ridiculed in the whole town. Amvama said: “He will bring reproach on his religion. And I think that since his faith enables him to do other things that he did not do before, it ought also to enable him to do a little work.”

A few months before Amvama left Ndumentanga, war broke out between that town and a town of the Bifil people, a clan of the Fang who had come but recently from the far interior and were very savage. A Bifil man hadstolen a woman of Ndumentanga. The old chief, who was a bloodthirsty heathen, told the town to prepare for war. But he found a rival in Amvama who advised that they must first make every effort to get the woman back without shedding blood, which could probably be done through her father’s influence. Amvama also told them that the fetishes upon which they were depending for protection were useless.

The chief was disgusted at the suggestion of a peaceful settlement of the affair, and passionately cried for war; and the people eagerly responded. The most that Amvama could do was to hold the Christians firm to their duty. As the chief exhorted Amvama exhorted too, but without the least passion or excitement. The town was divided between these two: an old chief, the very embodiment of the heathenism of the past; and the young boy, representing the future—the authority of a Christ-enlightened conscience and the power of a Christian life. The heathen went to war; but the Christians refused to go and so broke with an immemorial custom.

They attacked the town of the Bifil, but the only result was that several of their own men were killed. The Bifil secured the body of one of them, and it was reported to me that they followed the interior custom and cut the body in pieces, sending a piece of it to each of their towns. If they did this it would be a call to arms. The pieces of the body would be boiled and eaten, and thus it would become a strong fetish protection against the enemy. The people of Ndumentanga returned home from the war with sore hearts and with less faith in their fetishes.

The war went on more desperately and it became unsafe for Amvama; so I went after him and brought him back to Baraka. But he returned from the field of his labours bringing his sheaves with him, in men and women rescued from degradation and sin, and in the love of many.

FANG CHRISTIANS.In the middle of the front row stands Amvama. Behind him, on his right, is Ndong Koni. The tall young man is Robert Boardman, the blind catechist.

When I left Africa I felt that I was leaving many friends behind me; humble friends but true, and I cherish the memory of their devotion. Some of them I loved because they were lovable, and others for the labour and anxiety expended upon them—the sweat of the brow, and the brain and the heart. But there were none whom I loved more, and there are none whom I more often long to see, than Amvama and Ndong Koni.

I cannot close these sketches without some reference to another who was an invaluable helper in the work among the Fang. He was totally blind. He bore an English name,Robert Boardman, and had no African name. The natives called himBobbie. He was not a Fang but an Mpongwe, and his mother was an American Negress. His father was educated at Baraka away back in the early days when the missionaries were allowed to use English, and he spoke English well. When he was a young man he came to America. In those days Africa, to Americans, was a romance rather than a reality. Any chief of a village or head of his own family coming here was called aprince. So young Boardman (Robert’s father) passed himself off as a prince, and probably without any intentional deception. He married a Negress of the South, who supposed that by her marriage she became a princess. She left family and friends all behind and went to Africa. The disillusionment was very hard and very bitter; and at last, inevitably, she sought relief in drink. She was evidently a woman of superior mind, if one might judge by her children, of whom there were five. One of these was poor Augustus Boardman, of whom I have written in another chapter, and whom drink brought to an early grave.

Robert was the youngest child. He was a very interesting boy, and intellectually far above the average. As a young man he lived the dissolute life that was generalamong the Mpongwe of Gaboon. His blindness was the last result of his dissipation, and was also the cure. He never walked alone again; a little boy led him by the hand. Blindness is a more terrible affliction in Africa, where the helpless are neglected, and where roads are rough and often infested with ants or snakes.

He was extremely unhappy after his blindness. There were times when it seemed that it would drive him mad. In his misery he made others miserable around him. Poor material, one would surely say, for the grace of God or any other moral influence to work upon—this physical and moral wreck. But, as I once heard a reclaimed outcast say, “Jesus loves to walk by the seashore where the wrecks come in.”

When I went to Gaboon I engaged Robert as my interpreter; for he knew Fang as well as he knew Mpongwe. Then, when I could speak Fang without him, I undertook the Mpongwe work and I used him as my interpreter to the Mpongwe; so he continued in my service. The first year, when I was itinerating among the Fang and travelling in theEvangeline, he went everywhere with me. I recall one evening when we were setting out from the beach in a very heavy sea and had got beyond the surf we saw Robert’s little attendant on the beach very much excited and waving to us to come back. He was yelling something to us which we could not hear distinctly across the roaring surf, but I thought he was trying to tell us something about “Bobbie’s wife.” Very reluctantly I told the crew to go back. We were already in the surf and were going ashore as if pulled by wild horses when at last we made out what the boy was saying, namely: “Bobbie has forgotten his pipe.”

The African has no mental perspective, according to our ideas; things great and small, the most momentous and the most trivial, appear upon a flat surface of equality.But it would scandalize an African to hear one speak of a pipe in this disrespectful way.

Robert had an unusual mind and was athirst for knowledge. His interpreting was a kind of education for him and he made the most of it. He was always alert for new words and their exact meaning, and he had an excellent memory. There was also a vein of poetry in him. I once heard him, in offering an evening prayer, ask God that Satan might not sow the tares of bad dreams in our sleep—the more appropriate because of the native regard for dreams and the habit of vivid dreaming.

But his chief love was music. He was passionately fond of it, and he had a good tenor voice. Shortly after I first knew him, when he was so unhappy, I began to give him some instruction on the organ each day after class. My only intention was to lighten his misery and relieve his solitude. I had not the least thought of any return in missionary service. The little organ which I used in itinerating I left with him between journeys. It was a new and delightful way of spending the hours, and he became more cheerful. In two years a very great change had taken place in him. He was both cheerful and devout. When the time of harvest came in the Fang field and I had need of catechists he was well equipped for the work and I sent him. He took the organ with him; for he played the Fang hymns and played them well. When a secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions afterwards visited Africa he found Robert Boardman among the Fang, preaching and singing, and he made special mention of him on his return to America.

Robert, through the agency of mymatrimonial bureau, married a Fang woman, Nze, who loved him devotedly. She was a remarkably good-looking woman—almost beautiful. Poor blind Robert never saw her; and one day, after he had been married for some time, I delighted him—andsaddened him too—by giving him a minute description of her. For a while after his marriage I placed him at Ayol, which was Nze’s town. After several months, when I was at Ayol, I decided to take him to another town. Then the heathen relations of Nze suddenly discovered that he had not given sufficient dowry, although he had given all they asked. It was never half so hard to get my African friends married as tokeepthem married.

The family of Nze secured her in a house while they talked the palaver with Robert, telling him that he had not paid what they had asked. The street was filled with people and there was the wildest excitement. The chief of the town was not there, and when I saw that my powers of persuasion were not adequate for the occasion, I told Robert that as it was now late in the night we would go without Nze, and that I myself would afterwards talk the palaver with the chief and would do all that I possibly could to get Nze back. He yielded, but he was almost broken-hearted.

We got into our canoe and started for theDorothy, which was anchored a little below the town. When we came alongside whom should we find in the launch but Nze! She had broken out of her prison-house when night came—but I can’t imagine how, unless some Christian woman helped her—and stealing through the dreadful mangrove swamp, had reached her canoe and had gone to the launch. At the very moment that I saw her we heard the wildest yelling behind us. The people of the town had just discovered her escape; and they, of course, thought that we had stolen her. I shouted to the crew to “stand by” for their lives. We sprang aboard, and while weighing the anchor put out all the lights. What if the anchor should be fouled, as it was last time, when it delayed us half an hour!

Our pursuers were rapidly drawing nearer and were almost upon us. They included, I presume, every heathen savage in the town, each of them yelling like ten, and perhaps engaged meanwhile in loading their guns with such deadly material as broken pots and barbed wire. At last, “All right,” shouted the mate; and we moved off just as the enemy in a fleet of canoes came round the last curve of the narrow river. I had made our party, including Nze, lie down flat in the bottom of the launch; only Ndong Koni at the wheel and myself at the engine remained standing. Despite rage and excitement I did not expect that they would fire upon us. But I very much feared that a stray shot, intended only to intimidate us, might do us as much damage as the “bow drawn at a venture” did to a certain king a long time ago. We were soon beyond their range; and then Robert’s gladness and the unbounded joy of Nze were a sufficient reward for us all. For my part, I was exceedingly glad that Nze’s husband was present; otherwise an elopement would have been credited to me.

A short time before I left Africa I was conducting a prayer-meeting in an Mpongwe town, at which Robert was present. He rose and told the people about his work among the Fang and what great changes were taking place through the preaching of the Gospel, which must surely be the power of God. Then in closing he told them something of the new joy that had come into his own life. He said that although at first he had been bitter and rebellious against the fate that had turned his day into night, yet he had lived to thank God for sending even this affliction; for, in his blindness, he had wearied of the “far country,” and like the prodigal had come home. In Christ he had found pardon and peace; and finally he had been permitted to go as a missionary tothe Fang, whom he had learned to love, and many of whom, he was sure, loved him.

“I know,” said he, “that I shall never see this world again, nor the faces of my friends; but I am walking in the light of heaven.”

In a deep undertone, full of wonder, full of sympathy, full of tears, they all responded: “A-y, Bobbie! A-y, Bobbie!”

BY THE SAME AUTHORThe Jungle Folk of AfricaIllustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50“A personal narrative, most realistic, most truthful, most fascinating—the author knows extremely well what he is writing about.”—Chicago Tribune.“As one reads, the mystery and terror of the jungle seem to penetrate his soul, yet he reads on reluctant to lay down a book so grimly fascinating.”—Presbyterian.“A book that is remarkable for its vitality, picturesqueness, candor and literary quality. Mr. Milligan saw a lot during his seven African years.”—N. Y. Times.

BY THE SAME AUTHORThe Jungle Folk of AfricaIllustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Jungle Folk of Africa

Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50

“A personal narrative, most realistic, most truthful, most fascinating—the author knows extremely well what he is writing about.”—Chicago Tribune.

“As one reads, the mystery and terror of the jungle seem to penetrate his soul, yet he reads on reluctant to lay down a book so grimly fascinating.”—Presbyterian.

“A book that is remarkable for its vitality, picturesqueness, candor and literary quality. Mr. Milligan saw a lot during his seven African years.”

—N. Y. Times.

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