XVA LITTLE SCHOLAR
The following letter, with some slight omissions and alterations, was written on board the English steamerVoltato a little circle of friends in America:
S. S. “Volta,” Aug. 7, 1900.
It is three months since I left Gaboon for a health-change on the sea, and I am just now returning. I had supposed that I would be away only a few weeks; but the time was prolonged by the sickness and death of an African boy whom I called my little scholar, of whom it is the purpose of this letter to give you some account.
Since the regretted resignation of Mr. Boppell on account of ill-health, I have had charge of the Gaboon Church at Baraka, with the work among the Mpongwe, besides my work among the Fang. You will remember that the Mpongwe is a coast tribe, among whom our church has had a mission-work for many years, while the Fang is the interior tribe (now, however, extending to the coast), among whom the work is quite new. The strain of so much additional work in such a climate greatly overtaxed me, and after four months it became necessary either to take a furlough home, or a health-change on the sea. The furlough was out of the question, for there was no one to take my place. Accordingly on the 16th of May I left Gaboon on this steamer expecting to go north as far as Fernando Po and return on the next south-bound steamer, which would give me a vacation of a month.
Being in miserable health, I took along with me one of my Fang schoolboys, Ndong Mba, the smallest and brightest of his class. I thought I needed him to wait on me. And besides I intended to improve the idle hours in talking Fang with him. But a week after we had left Gaboon Ndong Mba was the patient and I was the nurse. The weeks and months that have intervened, instead of being a period of rest and pleasure, have been the most trying in all my African experience.
Ndong Mba was born in a town not far from Angom. While he was yet a mere baby his father and mother died leaving him to the care of their relations. However willing such relations may be to assume parental authority over a child, they are not so willing to assume responsibility for his care, for the parental love is absent. Moreover, Ndong was very frail; and such a child is not attractive to the African woman, except his own mother. He was therefore heartlessly neglected, until my predecessor, Rev. Arthur W. Marling, finding him hungry and crying, and knowing his miserable plight, took pity on him and carried him in his arms to the mission. Ndong often told me about the kindness of the missionaries. But there was a long interval when Mr. Marling was away on furlough; and then he was dependent upon distant relations who made him thoroughly acquainted with hunger and hard work. He continued frail and was very small, appearing, when I afterwards knew him, several years younger than he was really was.
He attended the school at Angom which was well kept and well taught under Mr. Marling’s administration; and at an age when most children do not know their letters he could read. I, who did not know him until the beginning of this present year, have regarded him as an intellectual prodigy. His knowledge of the Scripture and his understanding of it was astonishing in one so young.The whole Gospel of Matthew, the only one which has been translated into the Fang, he knew almost by heart, besides a considerable acquaintance with the other Scriptures through the Mpongwe translations; for he knew Mpongwe almost as well as Fang. He was baptized and received into the church at a younger age perhaps than any other child has ever been received in our mission; and through the years that have since passed, amidst degrading surroundings of which you in the homeland can scarcely conceive, this little boy kept the faith which he then professed, and grew up pure, truthful, unselfish and affectionate.
Mr. Marling died in the fall of 1896, Ndong Mba being then, probably, seven or eight years old. Long before this, however, the people of his town had moved far away, leaving him behind, and were quite lost sight of. He was now without friends, white or black, at the age of eight. In a distant bush-town there was a woman who had formerly lived in Ndong’s town: he made his way to her and begged her to take him in. There, in a town remote from missionary influence, in which there was not one person related to him, the poor little stranger lived for three years, during which no missionary either saw him or heard of him. His position in the town was not much better than that of everybody’s slave. His frailty, instead of insuring greater kindness, only made him contemptible. Whenever he spoke of those three years it was always of his sufferings there, and his back was injured by the heavy loads that had been put upon him. He was the only Christian in the town; but there is no doubt that through those hard and lonely years the little Christian was constant and faithful in profession and practice;—as strange, upon its human side, as that a lighted candle should withstand a winter’s storm.
At the end of this time a long-wished-for opportunitycame; he joined a company of travellers and again reached Angom, hoping to find a missionary there. There was no missionary there at the time and he found the station closed; but, in a town close by, a woman was visiting who years before had lived in Ndong’s town. She was probably a Christian woman, for she was compassionate. Her heart was touched and she took him with her to her home near the coast. It was only a few weeks after this that I met him, at the beginning of this year.
I was gathering a class of Fang boys who had already received a primary education in the school at Angom, hoping that with time and training they might become teachers, and later on, in the providence of God, perhaps preachers. I heard of this boy, and immediately I visited the town where he was staying. The name of the town was typical,Ebol Nzok:Rotten Elephant. It seems that when the people of this town still lived in the interior bush they sent a delegation down the river to choose a site for a new town near the coast. The delegation selected a beautiful site, where the river broadens out into the great estuary. They returned and reported their success, and the whole large town at once prepared to move. As they approached the chosen site, and while they were still at a distance, they found the atmosphere of the new country pervaded with a most disagreeable smell which grew worse and worse,—a horrible stench which made them hold their noses, a breath from Gehenna, almost palpable. They forced a passage through it and went on until they reached the middle of the chosen site, where they found the huge carcass of an elephant in an acute stage of decomposition. They thought it proper to commemorate this historical incident in the name of their town, which they calledRotten Elephant:Ebol Nzok.
When I visited Ebol Nzok and asked for Ndong Mbathey told me he was away in the distant gardens at work; so I left word that I would like to see him at Baraka as soon as he could come. One morning, not long after, a tiny little boy came into my study and stood before me, his body thin and frail, but unusually clean, and with extraordinary eyes, dark and sparkling beneath long black lashes. Looking up eagerly into my face and very much excited, he said: “I’m Ndong Mba; I’ve come; and I’m so glad you sent for me. I have not seen a missionary since Mr. Marling died; and I’ve not been to church, and I’ve not been to school, and I thought the missionaries had thrown me away. And there were no Christians where I live. I was alone; and I prayed and prayed all the time to come back to the mission; and now I’m here; and I’m so glad; and I will do anything you ask if you let me stay here; for I can work, and you won’t be sorry if you let me be your boy.” Thus he went on with his pathetic appeal. And this was really Ndong Mba, of whom I had so often heard!
The unusual intelligence of the eyes that looked into mine, eyes in which the tears were now quivering, the faded rag—but very clean—which was the sum of his clothing, and other marks of neglect and suffering, moved me deeply. Drawing the poor little waif close to me I said: “I am glad to see you, Ndong Mba,” which he accepted as a sufficient answer.
I took him into my class and also assigned him certain work for which I said I would pay him, so that he could buy the little clothing and other things that he needed. He replied: “Little boys don’t need money; I only want a father to take care of me, and I’ll work for him all the time.” I thought best, however, to insist upon paying him, but at the same time I told him that I would take care of him as long as we were together. All that day, throughout its duties and its noise, those wonderful appealingeyes seemed still to be looking up into mine. I felt that God had given into my charge one of His little ones, that I might help to fit him for a great service to his people in years to come. Through all the weeks and months that followed, during which he was continually with me, he fully justified my first impression of him.
This is the little boy that I took with me from Gaboon in May. The second day he had what seemed to be a light attack of malarial fever. The ship’s doctor said that he had only caught cold, and assured me that he would be better next day. But the next day he was worse, and the next still worse. One of our missionary physicians came on board at Batanga, going home on furlough. He found Ndong Mba very sick indeed. He had pneumonia—a very severe attack—and pleurisy with it, causing him great pain; this, together with a hard fever. The situation was distressing. I was sick myself and scarcely able to be out of bed, and had brought Ndong along to wait on me. But now he was worse than myself and I was waiting on him.
When we reached Fernando Po, where I had expected to land and to wait for the south-bound steamer, there was scarcely a hope that he would live; and whatever small hope there was would have been cut off by moving him and taking him away from the doctor’s care. I had therefore no choice but to remain on board; and I went on to Teneriffe, where I waited three weeks, until the return of this same steamer from England. Indeed, on my own account it would not have been advisible to land at Fernando Po. For I had been attending Ndong almost day and night, and my health-change had thus far been only a change for the worse. Others on board, fellow missionaries, had been kind in trying to relieve me; but as Ndong suffered more, and the fever raged, they could not control him; and after a few minutes they would beobliged to call me. But they remarked that when I came I had only to speak his name, and he was quiet; and the brave little man even tried not to let me see how sick he was.
I greatly regretted the necessity of going on to Teneriffe; for I had expected to be away from my work only one month and had arranged it accordingly, and this extension of my trip would keep me away three months and the consequences to the work distressed me. I no more enjoyed the trip than if I had been a prisoner in irons. Besides, there was difficulty in regard to my accommodations on board, a difficulty that was increasing at each port as we took on more passengers. I had engaged only a deck-passage for Ndong; but Captain Button whose kindness I can never forget, had told me to take him into my cabin. Thus far I had occupied the cabin alone, but I could not expect that favour to continue longer, as other passengers were coming onboard, and already there were two persons in each of the other cabins. The full price of the cabin for myself and Ndong to Teneriffe and return would have been about five hundred dollars. It was therefore a considerable favour that I was accepting from the captain, and it was now at the cost of possible discomfort to others. But this difficulty, I thought, would not last long, for it did not seem that Ndong would live more than a few days. The captain told me not to think of the matter of accommodations at all; that he would leave me that cabin as long as he possibly could, and if it should become impossible, he actually said that I should bring Ndong up to his own cabin and occupy it. One would need to have been on the coast to have any just appreciation of such extraordinary kindness towards a little black boy. Moreover, almost every morning the captain came to my cabin door and asked for the boy.
Again the unexpected happened. Ndong, one mightalmost say, neither died nor lived. He simply lingered, and lingered on, through weary weeks. After a while the worst of his suffering was past, but in his extreme weakness he required almost as much attention as ever. He was quite unable to walk and could only leave his bed as some one carried him, but it was no difficult matter to carry him for he had rapidly wasted away until he was no heavier than a baby. I need not relate the history of those weeks; there were few incidents to recount; but I wish that you might have witnessed the patience of the poor little sufferer.
He had his moments of doubt too. One day when he was talking to me, as I lay in the adjoining berth, I told him that we must try to sleep because that we both were sick. “You sick?” he asked. “You sick, too?”
He partly rose in his bed, and leaning his head on his hand, looked long and wistfully at me. After a while I asked him what he was thinking of.
“I am wondering,” he replied slowly, “why we two should be sick. We are both Christians and you are a minister, and there are so many on board who do not try to do right. I hear them cursing God all the time as they pass up and down the gangway. And they are all well. I have often thought of it; but I do not understand.” A little boy from the depths of the African jungle struggles with the same question which sorely tried an ancient sufferer, and to which his friends gave but vain answers.
There was among the deck-passengers a woman whose language Ndong knew, although it was not his own. Before his sickness reached the worst I sometimes asked this woman to sit with him while I sat on deck. One day he said to me: “Mr. Milligan, we must pray for that woman. She is in great darkness. She talked about things she ought not to mention; and I told her about Jesus.”
We called at many ports along the way; but I did notleave the ship. On the fourth Sunday we reached Sierra Leone, usually the last African port for these ships of the southwest coast. In this splendid and beautiful harbour with its amphitheatre of hills, there were more vessels together than I had seen in years. But the most interesting of all was a British man-of-war. I heard the singing at the “divine service” which is held every Sunday morning on all British war-ships. All the passengers excepting myself had gone ashore, and I was alone on the deck, and not only alone, but lonely and tired. Ndong was sleeping in a chair beside me. It was then that the first hymn from the war-ship rang clear across the still water, sung in perfect time by that large chorus of strong men’s voices, the harbour forming a perfect acoustic chamber. The tune was the old classic, “St. Anne.” The words were those usually sung to this tune in our own churches, “Our God, our help in the ages past!” I have never heard anything more beautiful and impressive; and after my long exile in the jungle my mind was susceptive to the influence of its power and beauty. The hymn, both words and music, had always been a favourite, answering, as it seemed to me, to something fundamental in our nature; but from this time it becamethefavourite. And since that time, whenever I ask choirs and congregations to sing it I am always hearing within and beyond their voices, the music of that chorus of men in the far off African harbour. I cannot forbear to quote the words.
“Our God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come;Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home!“Under the shadow of Thy throne,Thy saints have dwelt secure;Sufficient is Thine arm alone,And our defense is sure.“Before the hills in order stood,Or earth received her frame,From everlasting Thou art God,To endless years the same.“Time, like an ever-rolling stream,Bears all its sons away;They fly, forgotten, as a dreamDies at the opening day.“Our God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Be Thou our Guard while troubles last,And our eternal home.”
“Our God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come;Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home!“Under the shadow of Thy throne,Thy saints have dwelt secure;Sufficient is Thine arm alone,And our defense is sure.“Before the hills in order stood,Or earth received her frame,From everlasting Thou art God,To endless years the same.“Time, like an ever-rolling stream,Bears all its sons away;They fly, forgotten, as a dreamDies at the opening day.“Our God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Be Thou our Guard while troubles last,And our eternal home.”
“Our God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come;Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home!
“Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home!
“Under the shadow of Thy throne,Thy saints have dwelt secure;Sufficient is Thine arm alone,And our defense is sure.
“Under the shadow of Thy throne,
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
“Before the hills in order stood,Or earth received her frame,From everlasting Thou art God,To endless years the same.
“Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
“Time, like an ever-rolling stream,Bears all its sons away;They fly, forgotten, as a dreamDies at the opening day.
“Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
“Our God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Be Thou our Guard while troubles last,And our eternal home.”
“Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our Guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.”
At the end of five weeks we reached Teneriffe Island, where I waited three weeks for the return of theVoltafrom Liverpool. As we approached the harbour of Santa Cruz the captain called me to the bridge to see an American flag which waved from a mast among the flags of all nations. “Come,” said he, “and feast your eyes on your American gridiron.”
It did not take me long to get to the bridge. “Don’t point it out,” said I, “let me find it myself.”
Those who have wandered much in foreign lands are more deeply imbued with the sentiment of the flag. But to feel it to the full one must have lived for years in an uncivilized land, where liberty is not yet born. The sight of the flag to me that day was like hearing Madam Patti singHome Sweet Home.
I landed at Santa Cruz and remained there four days—days of unpleasant recollection. It was thought best to keep Ndong as much as possible in the open air. Though very weak he could walk, and I led him by the hand. One would think that these Spaniards of Santa Cruz had never seen a black skin before; the poor emaciated form added greatly to their curiosity; and above all, thenovelty of a white man caring for one who to them was only a “little black nigger.” I no sooner appeared with the child than a crowd gathered around me, and I found myself the centre of a dirty procession of all ages and genders, that followed me round and round the block in increasing numbers; large girls walking backwards in front of me; women with baskets of clothes on their heads going out of their way to walk by my side and staring with open mouth,—all of them staring. The slightest betrayal of irritation on my part would have served only to increase the crowd, and I tried to look perfectly composed and good-natured. But now and then there was an inward rise of unsaintly feeling that resembled that of the two she-bears of Holy Scripture that rudely scattered a crowd of young Spaniards following hard upon the heels of an ancient prophet.
Ndong was at first exasperated by this unwelcome publicity; but later his feelings were relieved by an inadvertent remark. Before reaching Teneriffe, two missionary ladies, to whom I am grateful for many kindnesses, had made a little suit for him out of some of their own clothes. This suit was far beyond anything he had ever hoped to possess. And in addition to this I bought him a pair of shoes at Santa Cruz—little canvas shoes with hemp soles, for which I paid a peseta. When he protested against the rude staring of the Spaniards, and was about to cry, I remarked that perhaps these poor Spanish children were only admiring his fine clothes. He took me more literally than I had expected, and from that time made no more complaint.
After four days I left Santa Cruz by a stage-coach, travelling directly across the middle of the island to Orotava, a small port on the other side. Orotava is situated at the base of the great Teneriffe Peak, one of the greatest in the world, which rises to a height of12,500 feet above the sea and is supposed to be the Mt. Atlas of ancient fable. Above the town the broad landscape, on which the quaint hut of the toiling peasant contrasts with stately English homes, rises at first slowly and then more rapidly, until at last it sweeps upward far above the clouds. On a hill three miles from the town towards the Peak stands the magnificent English hotel, where I stayed, surrounded with many acres of the loveliest flowers in terraced gardens. It is a perfect fairy-land. The hotel is immense in size, and in winter it is filled with English guests; but I was there in summer and I was the only guest.
The hotel commands the finest view of the Peak. It is usually hidden behind the clouds by day, and is visible in the evening. As one sees it first, in the late afternoon, a white cloud is stretched across its middle height, concealing the mountain all but the very summit which appears like a celestial island floating upon radiant clouds in the high heavens. It is fifteen miles to the summit. There is a good road and one can make the ascent on a donkey, all but the last three miles, which most people prefer to walk. Near the summit the ground is hot a few inches below the surface, which is usually the only evidence that it is still an active volcano. But two years ago there issued from the crater for several mouths a volume of smoke which at the distance of the hotel, fifteen miles, appeared as large as the funnel of an ocean steamer.
The distance from Santa Cruz to Orotava is twenty-six miles; and the road of course passes up and down the mountain grades, in some places very steep. We were nine hours on the way. The old coach, a relic of bygone ages, was so “romantic” that I doubted whether it would ever reach its destination. It was drawn by three scraggy horses, a little older than the coach, at whom the drivernever ceased shouting, as he cracked his long-lashed whip about their heads. The harness was of sundry materials, leather straps, ropes and chains, tied and knotted any place and everywhere. And they were continually parting, especially in critical ascents of the road, at which the driver would spring from his seat in a panic, as if such a casualty had never happened before, notwithstanding the evidence of many previous knots. Then seeing the excitement of the passengers, who were trying to scramble out, but in such disorder that they jammed together and each one prevented the others, he would block the coach and proceed to repair the harness, in which art he ought to have been an expert, if practice makes perfect. No sooner did we reach the next ascent, however, than as if by the spell of some malignant sprite all the knots untied at the same moment, and again the passengers were thrown into a state of panic.—But one gets used to being killed. We had two relays of horses on the way.
The coach was apparently intended for four persons, but for a considerable part of the distance was occupied by seven, four of whom smoked cheap cigars, although the windows were closed much of the time. For we ascended the mountain to a great height, and night coming on at the same time, it was very cold, much more so than I had prepared for, and being fresh from the equator, I suffered as if I had been thrust into the Arctic zone. Ndong had a high fever, and I had to wrap my travelling-rug around him. The result was that for the next ten days I had one of the severest colds I have ever had in my life. The coach was so crowded that I could only save Ndong from being crushed or sat upon by holding him on my knee, but he was very much exhausted by the journey.
Before reaching Orotava I left the coach which did notpass the Grand Hotel, to which I was bound. I took a carriage, which carried some of the mails from that point, and which passed the hotel. The driver was told to leave me at the hotel. But he forgot and took me on down the steep grade, a mile further towards the town. Then, recalling the order he had received he suddenly stopped, and pointing to the lights of the hotel up the steep height behind us invited me to get out. I kept my seat and requested him to drive me back to the hotel. A “palaver” ensued in which neither of us understood in particular what the other was saying. For he spoke only Spanish, of which I did not know a sentence. I had no money accessible before reaching the hotel. I tried to tell him that I would pay him; but he probably did not understand. Then I thought that the matter might as well be cut short; so pointing to the hotel I gave him a peremptory order in the English language, but the accent was universal. In reply he whipped his horses and drove straight on to the town. Reaching his destination, on the main street, he jumped down and with violent gesticulation proceeded to throw all my baggage into the street, which was a sufficient inducement for me to follow; and I found myself, at eleven o’clock at night, miserably cold, with a sick child in my arms, and with all my baggage, in the street of a foreign town where there was no person with whom I could speak a word.
Several loafers who were still abroad gathered around, and recalling by mere chance the name of a Spanish hotel in the town, I directed them to carry my baggage and the child, and show me the way to it. Fortunately it was quite near. I remained there that night, and next day went to the Grand.
In the community there was a physician, whose services I requested, Dr. Ingram, a Scotchman, who was residing there for his health. He found that one ofNdong’s lungs was completely congested, and he advised that I should send him to a hospital three miles further up the mountainside and close to his home. Accordingly I took Ndong to the hospital where he remained for a week.
I went every day to see him, riding the six miles, to the hospital and back, on a donkey, which added another chapter of novel experience. The Canary Island donkey is a very diminutive quadruped, the colour of a mouse and as innocent looking as a lamb. Its ears are about as long as its legs. The price of the donkey’s hire includes the owner, who runs behind and shouts, and prods him with a stick. After two days’ experience I concluded that shouting and prodding were of no use whatever, and realizing that the moral man in me was rapidly degenerating, I decided on the third day to leave the driver at home and even pay a higher price if necessary for the donkey without a driver, intending myself to assume the management of this soft-eyed creature, who perhaps only needed a little petting, for those eyes bespoke a peaceful temper. The owner readily assented to the proposition and very wisely requested me to pay in advance.
In a few minutes I had experienced to the full the pain of misplaced confidence. My donkey was a facsimile of the immortalModestine. Having patted the donkey kindly and exchanged with her a long look of mutual regard, I mounted. She started off on an easy trot until the owner was out of sight. Then she stopped and stood still and declined to go on in spite of coaxing, kicking and whipping, until I seriously thought of building a fire under her to get her to move. While I was reflecting upon the adaptation of means to ends and for the time had ceased from all measures of coercion, she started as suddenly as she had stopped and with as little reason. She seemed to be clear outside the principle of causality that inheres in the universe. And having started, sheran anywhere and in every direction, evincing neither purpose nor method in her going except a marked predilection for hedges and brambles.
In less than two minutes, however, she reverted to her natural gait, which, like that ofModestine, was something as much slower than a walk as a walk is slower than a run. Under cruel and continuous beating I forced her to maintain a gait that I hoped would carry me to the hospital and back before night, six miles in an entire afternoon. Occasionally my spirit revolted from the ignoble occupation of so maltreating a poor dumb animal. But the moment I relaxed she turned aside from the road and began to browse. Each peasant that passed me threw back his head and laughed. An inward consciousness that I would have laughed myself if I had been in their place only added to my misery. “But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged in it!” Under the influence of their laughter and the perversity ofModestinehumanity died in my heart and I belaboured her with all the strength and vivacity that my health would allow, stopping only to get my breath and to mop the perspiration from my superheated brow. Of course, I might better have walked the rocky ascent; but in one thing I was as obstinate as the donkey—I would not give up my undertaking to ride her to the hospital and back. Besides, I kept hoping that, as she could not do worse, she might possibly do better; otherwise my arm should have failed me for despair. And to think that I was paying for all this disservice! By some strange fortuity of circumstances we actually reached the hospital, and afterwards the hotel, where I took final leave of her, a weary but a wiser man. At parting she again turned to me with an affectionate look of lamb-like innocence; but a deep sense of injury together with aching limbs rendered me insensible to her magnanimity.
The people of Teneriffe are so far behind modern times that the barbers are still the surgeons. Dr. Ingram blistered Ndong’s congested lung and the barber was afterwards called in daily to dress the wound. After six days I took Ndong back to the hotel. He seemed on the way to recovery, and was much stronger on his feet.
Under Mr. Marling’s teaching he had acquired a habit of prayer morning and evening to which he had ever been faithful. Nothing could surpass the pathos of the prayers that he offered thanking God for every kindness that he had received from anybody and pleading for his complete recovery. He knew that he was a great care to me and it troubled him. On one occasion he entreated: “O Father in heaven, please make me well; for I’ve been sick so long; and I’m so little; and I have no father nor mother.”
The day after he returned from the hospital I observed that he was inclined to be impatient; the next day he was more impatient, and was positively disobedient. I was surprised and pained; and I wondered whether it could be possible that my constant care had in any way spoiled a disposition which years of neglect and adversity had only sweetened. But it was soon explained. That evening while he was eating his dinner, in a little room next the dining-room where I was eating mine, I heard him talking excitedly to the waiter. I immediately went to him and carried him to my room. He sat down and covering his face with both his hands held them there without moving. I spoke to him but he did not answer. Then removing his hands from his face, I called him by name. He turned his eyes towards mine in an agony of fear: it was his last sane moment. He uttered a loud shriek, and another, and another. I caught him in my arms as he went into a convulsion and laid him on my bed. But I knew that upon this poor little boy, from hisbirth marked out for misfortune, and who had now suffered so long, had at last fallen the most terrible of human calamities—insanity; and that, too, just when his recovery seemed hopeful.
All night he continued talking wildly, and shrieking at intervals. In the morning he was more quiet, though not more sane. Nor was there any marked change during the ten long weary days that we still remained in the hotel. He gradually became weaker and more insane. I did not let him out of my sight except when I went to my meals, and then I locked him in my room.
Once when I returned from dinner I found him dressed in a suit of white pajamas of mine. He said to me: “That woman who comes in to attend to the room while you are at dinner is a very foolish person. She came in this evening and looked at me and laughed, and laughed. But all Spaniards seem to be foolish.”
On the 10th of July I returned to Santa Cruz. The next day theVoltaarrived and I immediately went on board. I looked forward with dread to the long journey on the steamer with an insane child. I engaged a second-class cabin (although I was a first-class passenger) that I might be removed from the white passengers; for on these steamers there are seldom any white men travelling second-class. Again, by the kindness of the captain, Ndong occupied the cabin with me. He was determined to go all over the ship, but it was more than ever necessary that I should restrain him. He became impatient of the restraint, and regarded me as his prison-keeper. It made a great difference when this child, who had loved me with the utmost devotion, now turned against me. But his own suffering was increased by this feeling; nor was there anything I could do to relieve it. I simply waited for the end and prayed to Him who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
There were on board sixteen officers of the English army who were expecting to debark at Cape Coast Castle and were bound for the Ashantee territory of the interior, which, as you probably know, has been for several mouths the scene of another great uprising of the natives almost as formidable as that of thirty years ago. When we reached Sierra Leone, we also took on board more than two hundred native soldiers, as deck-passengers. I am glad to testify that among these sixteen officers there were several real gentlemen, in the American sense; others were tolerable; and there were still others. They were not pleasant fellow passengers. We were looking forward with some dread to their last night on board; and they also were looking forward to it, but with feelings entirely different from ours. We were expecting to reach Cape Coast Castle on Thursday. But for the last sixty hours the captain, without telling anybody, used the reserve power of two knots an hour, increasing our full speed from ten to twelve knots. Accordingly, it was with astonishment and unmixed joy that on Wednesday morning, coming on deck, we read on the bulletin: “Cape Coast Castle this morning at eight o’clock!” They had not time to get drunk.
But, in any case, the heartrending scene which we witnessed soon after we had anchored would probably have sobered them. Five missionaries of the SwissBasle Missionwere brought on board in a most pitiful and awful condition. Among them was that great and widely-known veteran, Mr. Ramseyer, whom I had long wished to meet. Mrs. Ramseyer was also in the party, besides two other younger women and another man.
At the outbreak of the war these missionaries had fled to Kummassi, the seat of the English government, and were there when that city was besieged by the natives. The English governor was also in the city. For severalmonths they had lived on half-rations, until they were so reduced in flesh that their friends would not have recognized them. All this time they were waiting and watching for the arrival of reinforcements from the English army. At last, having waited for the expected relief until their supplies were nearly exhausted, they broke through the lines of the enemy and made a desperate effort to reach the coast. The governor escaped at the same time and with his retinue started for the coast by a different road. Along the main road the enemy was strongest so that it was impassable; therefore the missionary party of six persons, three men and their wives, together with their fifty carriers, took a most circuitous road, and indescribably bad. They all walked but Mrs. Ramseyer who was carried in a hammock. Many of their carriers were shot down by the enemy and others died by the way, being exhausted by famine. I think it was only fifteen carriers that reached the coast. One man of the missionary party died when they had been a week on the way. They walked for twenty-five successive days before they reached the coast. One woman, the wife of the man who died on the way, walked all the last day without shoes.
“That day, as well as others,” said Mr. Ramseyer, “we waded in water to our waists, and sometimes almost to the women’s shoulders.”
The collapse came when they reached the coast; at least for all but Mr. Ramseyer, a man of iron constitution. The next day theVoltacalled and they were brought on board and were laid upon the deck like corpses; all but Mr. Ramseyer.
The captain, whose humour and inexhaustible anecdote were usually an antidote for the tedium and weariness of so long a journey, was overcome by the scene on deck to the extent that I saw him brush a tear away. Andthen, finding it absolutely necessary to do something, as a vent to his feeling of sympathy, and supposing that the very best thing for the missionary party all round would be a strong stimulant, he stepped to the skylight and shouted: “Whisky! Whisky!” Then, evidently reflecting that if a little whisky were good, more would be better, he circulated about the deck shouting, “Whisky!” at every steward who put his head out of a port-hole.
It sounded like an invocation to some favourite fetish; and for that matter whisky is the fetish of many white men in West Africa. They invoke its aid in all their troubles. If there had been many more stewards around, I am afraid there would have been a serious shortage of whisky for the rest of the voyage, and such an event would have created greater consternation on the coast than the Ashantee war itself.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed a man in the saloon who had been occupied with writing and did not know what was occurring on deck, “where is all that whisky going at this hour of the morning? What’s come on board? the English army?”
“No,” replied the steward, “it’s a party of missionaries.” The man went up the companionway two steps at a time to see the party of missionaries who could drink so much whisky. I do not remember whether the missionaries drank any of the whisky; but it may be taken for granted that it was not wasted.
While they still lay on the deck, Mr. Ramseyer, standing up, told the story of their sufferings to the shocked and eager passengers assembled about him. Until this morning the war had been a kind of a jest to these officers of the army; but now it became a stern reality, and the change in their behaviour was noticeable. One of them, by the way, was shot by a native and instantly killed a few days after landing.
That same evening Mr. Ramseyer told me of the experience of himself and Mrs. Ramseyer in the former Ashantee war, thirty years ago. In that war they were captured by the natives and held for ransom. Five long years, from 1869 to 1874, they were prisoners, carried about from place to place to escape the pursuit of the English. They were told that they would be killed rather than given up. During the first year their feet were put in stocks at night to prevent their escape. But they made friends of their captors, who finally gave them up without ransom. They went to Switzerland for a long rest, and then returned again to their work.
Mr. Ramseyer closed his story of this latest war by declaring triumphantly that the Christian natives had not taken part in the rebellion; though their loyalty had cost many of them their lives.
I have digressed at length from my subject and am several days ahead of my story; but I am glad to have this opportunity of recording the heroism of this grand old man, great alike in counsel and in action; whose advice successive governors of Ashantee for many years have sought; and the equal heroism of his noble wife, and the devotion of the other missionaries of the party, who might have escaped safely at the outbreak of this war, but that they chose rather to suffer with their people.
I said that from the time we came on board at Santa Cruz Ndong was disposed to wander over the ship, and I had to watch him closely. Several times he escaped from me. On one occasion I had been up with him until about three o’clock in the morning. He was then asleep and I also lay down and slept soundly for a little while. But during this time he had wakened and was gone. The door was fastened at the first hook and I did not suppose that he could pass through. He went on a tour of inspection around the ship; but in a few minutes he was tiredand wished to return. He became confused and wandered into the saloon, at the other end of the deck, and from the saloon into the cabin which he had occupied with me when we went north. One of the army officers, a captain, an entire stranger to me at the time, occupied the cabin. Imagine his surprise when he was awakened in the dark by a strange hand upon his face. Supposing it to be the hand of a robber, he seized it; but finding how very, very small it was, he concluded that his life was not in immediate danger. He remembered the little boy whom he had seen with me, and calling a steward he sent him to me. I apologized to the gentleman next morning as best I could. His generosity relieved my humiliation.
All the way to Teneriffe Ndong had been getting weaker each day. One morning I took him on deck as usual, but in a little while he asked to be carried back to bed. All that day and the next he lay quietly repeating stories from the Gospel, one after another. He was again patient and loving as before, and his mind was clearer. On Thursday morning, July 19th, about three o’clock he wakened, and I rose and sat beside him. He was very weak and spoke with effort. But after a while he talked more, and without difficulty. I had partly raised him in the bed and he lay on the pillows with his arm around my neck. At last, with eyes dilated and aglow with the beauty of another world, he said: “I see Mr. Marling; he comes towards the door; and beyond him I see the City of God; and Jesus is there. Do you not see, Mr. Milligan?”
“No, Ndong,” I said.
After a while he fell asleep; and some hours later he passed into the deeper sleep in which there is “no more pain”; for he had gone to be with Jesus, “which is far better.”
That same day at noon we buried him at sea, two hundred miles west of Sierra Leone. Only those who have witnessed a burial at sea know how it affects the mind with a nameless depression and spreads a gloom over all on board. It is perhaps the awful vastness of the ocean grave that imparts this sense of desolation. The sailors have many superstitions regarding death on shipboard. For instance, they say that sharks invariably follow the ship for twenty-four hours before a death takes place.
I have several times conducted burial services at sea;—once, on a French steamer, the burial of a deputy-governor of Senegal. The body wrapped in canvas, and with heavy weights at the feet, is placed upon a plank at the open gangway, with the feet towards the sea, ropes being attached to the inner end of the gangplank. After the service, at the signal of the captain, the engines are stopped, whose ceaseless beating, night and day, the ear had not seemed to hear until it stopped. The ensuing stillness is like the sudden suspension of nature. At this moment the sailors standing by lift the ropes and draw the gangplank over the ship’s side until it tilts and the body slides into the sea. A momentary circling of the water, and nothing more remains to mark the place. Another signal, the engines again commence the ceaseless beating, and the effect is even more depressing; it is like the sudden knocking at the gate after the murder inMacbeth. Death is only realized in contrast to the world’s activity. On these African steamers which so often have the sick on board, especially on the homeward voyage, deaths are often kept secret and the burials performed at night, for the sake of the passengers; and it is a kindly custom.
The bodies of natives dying on board are often flung overboard without even being wrapped, and there is never any formal service. But the captain of theVoltato all the rest of his kindness added this also, that he gave little Ndong a white man’s burial. The boatswain wrapped the body in its canvas shroud and laid it upon the gangplank with the British flag thrown over it. As I took my place at the side, the captain stepped forward and stood beside me. A missionary brother read some verses of Scripture; another missionary, of Ndong’s own colour, offered a prayer. The captain gave the signal and the body, wrapped in its “heavy-shotted hammock-shroud, dropped in its vast and wandering grave.”
I have said little of his passionate love for me; but it will ever be one of the sweetest memories of my life in Africa. And when my own time comes and I shall see with unholden eyes the land that is fairer than day, I am thinking that among those who first shall greet me will be Ndong Mba, the little scholar.