B.—CENTRAL AFRICA
CHAPTER IVThe Heart of the Dark Continent
Watchman, what of the night?The Watchman said, The morning cometh.Isaiah.
The night is far spent and the day is at hand.St.Paul.
After four and a-half months spent in South Africa, where the Native Church has been planted for a century, I proceeded north to Central Africa, where missionary work is in its early stages and the Native Church in its infancy. Leaving Tiger Kloof towards the end of March, I travelled by the Cape-to-Cairo Railway through the Protectorate and Southern Rhodesia, and was joined by the other member of the Central African Deputation,Mr.Houghton, at the Victoria Falls. The Railway took us to Ndola, 1,373 miles north of Tiger Kloof. There we were met byMr.Nutter, of Mbereshi, in our Central Africa Mission, and over 100 native carriers who were to be our companions for many a day to come. Before attempting any description of travel in Central Africa it will be well to say something about the country itself.
>Map of Central Africa, showing L. M. S. Mission Stations
Map of Central Africa, showing L. M. S. Mission Stations.(Kambole should be west, and not south of Kafukula).
As late as the middle of last century maps of Africadescribed the central regions of the Dark Continent as unexplored. The labours of Livingstone, his contemporaries and successors have revealed to the peoples of the West a vast area as extensive as Europe which is somewhat vaguely described as Central Africa. Towards the end of the century this great expanse of country had been parcelled out amongst the great Powers of Europe. Internal peace has taken the place of tribal warfare, and the land has been thrown open to Western colonization. Foremost amongst the pioneers of civilization has been the Christian Missionary, and one of the earliest Societies to enter the field was our own. A remarkable and immediate result of the travelsof Livingstone was the occupation of Central Africa by some of the missionary organizations of Britain. The work commenced by our own Society, the Church Missionary Society, the Universities’ Mission and the Presbyterian Missions was due directly or indirectly to the influence of that great Missionary explorer—David Livingstone.
Central Africa exercises a singular fascination on those who visit it. Its great lakes, its mighty rivers, its boundless forests, its glorious sunshine, the black races which inhabit it, all combine to make travel in that region a unique and delightful experience. In our case that travel was made the more pleasant by the company of one and another of our missionaries on our journeys, and the great privilege we enjoyed of fellowship with them and their families in their homes, and the opportunities afforded us of seeing something of the work which they are carrying on amongst the people of the land.
One of the first impressions a traveller receives is that of the vastness of the territory and the comparative sparseness of the population. These facts, together with the want of facilities for rapid travel, constitute serious difficulties in carrying on missionary work.
My colleague and I were the first Deputation from the Society to visit Central Africa. As long ago as 1879 the Directors accepted an offer from the Society’s Foreign Secretary,Dr.Mullens, to visit the Mission. He proceeded to Zanzibar and started on his journey to Lake Tanganyika, but died at Chakombe in Julyof that year and was buried in the C. M. S. cemetery at Mpwapwa, between Tabora and Dar-es-Salaam. Since that day conditions of travel and of life in Northern Rhodesia (which is the part of Central Africa in which the L. M. S. carries on nearly all its work) have completely changed. No more striking evidence of the change can be afforded than a comparison between the experiences of the early missionaries and of their successors, twenty-five years later. The average term of service for the first ten missionaries who served in Central Africa was well under three years. The ten missionaries at present on the field have already to their credit an average term of service of thirteen years, and the majority of them are still under forty years of age. Moreover, in the first ten years of the Mission eleven missionaries died on the field, and six were invalided home, and (with one exception) did not return. During the last ten years not a single missionary has died on the field, and no missionary has retired on account of ill-health.
It was our good fortune to visit Central Africa during its winter, and our experience of the climate was altogether delightful. Even during the hot season the heat is not so extreme as might be expected from the geographical position of the country. At the Society’s stations the thermometer seldom, if ever, reaches 100° Fahrenheit during the hottest season—a point often exceeded further south. Nevertheless, Central Africa is still a trying place for many people. The liability to malarial fever, dysentery, and cognate diseases isconsiderable. Nor must it be forgotten that all our stations are necessarily at a high altitude above sea level. The lowest of them—Kafukula—is nearly as high as the top of Snowdon, while all the remaining stations are between 4,700 and 5,600 feet up, except Mbereshi, the altitude of which is 3,900 feet. Life at this altitude is often trying to the nerves and heart, and the strain is all the more severe owing to the impossibility of securing a substantial change of altitude without great expenditure of time and money. The distance to the coast is so great, the travel is so trying, and the cost is so heavy that it is practically impossible for our missionaries and their families to obtain a complete change—either as a mid-term furlough or otherwise.
Perhaps the best indication of the changed conditions of life and the improved health of the Mission in these later days is afforded by the splendid health enjoyed by the missionaries’ children. The picture facing this page speaks for itself.
But there is an aspect of life in Central Africa which must not be over-looked, namely its isolation. At only one of our stations is any other white man in residence. There are less than a dozen white people—officials and a trader—at Kawambwa, the Government station twenty miles from Mbereshi, and about a dozen at Abercorn—the Metropolis, as it is called, of the white people in the Society’s area—ten miles from Kawimbe.
Healthy Missionary Children in Central Africa
Photo by] [Bernard Turner.Hilda. Gay. Kenneth. Ethel. Dennis. Sylvia. Hope. Monica. Marjorie. Franklin.Healthy Missionary Children in Central Africa.
The exercise of a little imagination will enable the reader to realise something of the loneliness of men and women living in a country where there are so few people of their own race. Moreover, the Mission stations are widely separated from each other. Mbereshi is five days’ journey from Mpolokoso, eight days’ journey from Kambole, nine and a-half days’ journey from Kafukula, and eleven days’ journey from Kawimbe.
For the greater part of the three months following our departure from the railway at Ndola we lived in tents, and travelled through the great Central African forest, which in fact extended nearly all the way from Bulawayo, the capital of Southern Rhodesia, to Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of German East Africa, situated on the east coast of the Continent, 80 miles south of Zanzibar. Almost the whole of this country is a plateau from 4,000 to 6,000 feet above the level of the sea. The southern part of this forest is traversed by the Zambesi, and the western portion is bounded by the Congo, there known as the Luapula, while situated on the table-land there are the great lakes of Bangweolo, Mweru and Tanganyika, the two last of which we visited. In travelling through the forest one day’s journey is very like another, although each day abounds with a variety of incidents and new sights and new experiences for one who visits the country for the first time. A general description of the means and conditions of travel will suffice.
We were almost wholly dependent upon native carriers. With the exception of bicycles and single-wheeled bush-cars there is no wheeled traffic in Northern Rhodesia. There are practically no roads in our meaning of thatterm. The travel-routes are native paths—often very narrow and overgrown. In the long grass, which is a remarkable feature of the country, the path often cannot be seen, but can only be felt by the feet. There are no inns or rest-houses. Tents, bedding, cooking utensils, food, etc., must all be carried everywhere. The minimum number of carriers required by one person on a short journey is about twelve if a bicycle is used, or eighteen to twenty if a machila is the means of conveyance. A machila is a chair slung between two poles and carried by four men. For longer journeys extra men are needed to carry supplies, or in case of sickness among the carriers. Should native food not be easily obtained—as at certain seasons is the case everywhere, and along many of the main travel-routes, more or less constantly all the year round—five more men are needed for each week that food has to be carried. Carriers cost about 1s. 6d. per man per week away from their homes. The general practice is to pay 1s. a week in cash on discharge, and the balance in calico, cash, salt or food, weekly in advance. The speed of travel is, of course, dependent on the ability of the carriers, and the nature of the country traversed, but it may be taken as about seventeen or eighteen miles a day, or three miles an hour, including rests. Sometimes over thirty miles is accomplished with loads, or even more with a letter only. Our average day’s travel from Ndola to Mbereshi was just under twenty miles, but on two days we covered over thirty miles.
Our experience of Central African travel was adelightful one. We left the rail a week or two before the rainy season comes to an end in most years, and we had been warned that we should probably meet with a good deal of rain on our way to Mbereshi. We only had two or three showers the whole way, and with one trifling exception all these fell after we were in camp. We tasted some of the joys of crossing Central African swamps, but with the kindly assistance of our carriers, whose backs and shoulders were always at our service, we were none the worse. Numerous rivers and streams were crossed in dug-out canoes, on men’s backs and shoulders, and by means of tree trunks, stones, or bridges made of the branches of trees. The Luapula (Congo) was crossed in a steel boat.
On the recommendation of the missionaries on the spot we had provided ourselves with bush-cars as our means of conveyance after leaving the railway. A bush-car is a seat fixed over a motor-cycle wheel with steel tube shafts back and front. It is propelled by two men, whereas a machila requires four men, and thus a bush-car halves the cost of carriers. Moreover, it is a much quicker means of conveyance than a machila. The experiment was entirely justified. Some days we were enabled to travel upwards of thirty miles without undue fatigue.
It may be of interest to describe shortly a typical day’s programme on “ulendo”—as travel with carriers is universally called in Northern Rhodesia. We rose at six. Before we had finished dressing a number of carriers would be besieging our tents to snatch up our boxesand other luggage in order to make an early start. Within a few minutes of vacating our tents they would be taken down and made into suitable loads and our beds and bedding would be packed and carried away. We breakfasted in the open air about 6.45, and generally by 7.15 or 7.30 we were under way. It was our custom to walk for the first hour or two in spite of the heavy dew, which during the first part of our trip covered the giant grass and the trees until the sun was well up. Fortunately for us the cavalcade of carriers who had gone on ahead acted as “dew-driers” by brushing the water off the grass as they passed along.
For the most part our journey lay through forest and bush and tall grass, along native paths or roads three or four feet wide, which had been made under the direction of the Government, but were often overgrown with grass and shrubs except for a narrow track a foot or eighteen inches in width, which had been kept clear by the constant passing of natives along it. The greater part of our travel was over the plateau, on which the paths were fairly level except at the depressions caused by the numerous streams which drain it. From time to time, however, there were steep, rocky hills to be surmounted, and there were occasional swamps. It was not often possible to ride more than a few miles in the bush-car without alighting and walking for some distance. A very uncomfortable experience is to travel by bush-car or on a bicycle along a path over which elephants have passed a short time before. The sensation of bumping over footprints fifteen inches across andthree or more inches deep, and occupying the whole width of the path, can be better imagined than described.
We generally took luncheon between twelve and one, at a place where water was to be found, either in a native village or in the forest. We often found the table spread and the meal awaiting us, but sometimes we had to wait long for it if our luncheon box happened to be far behind us on the road. Then came two or three hours’ further travel before we finished our journey for the day. Then came a cup of tea, and as soon as the tents were pitched a bath and change of clothing. We dined about sunset. Then followed what was to us the most delightful of the day’s experiences. The rule on “ulendo” is for every man, when he collects the firewood for his own watch fire, to bring a log for the white man’s fire. Night after night we had magnificent camp-fires. Often the missionary accompanying us would gather the men together for a service round the fire, and sometimes the villagers also came. Those camp-fire services will long live in my memory. The men would sit round the fire, most of them naked to the waist, with their faces lit up by the fitful flames or the light of the moon. They would listen with rapt attention to the reading of the Scriptures or the words of the missionary, or would join in prayer, often led by one of themselves, with the utmost devoutness. But the most impressive part to us of these services was the hearty and reverent singing of the hymns in the native language to tunes well-known at home. These people have wonderful verbal memories. Hymn booksseemed quite superfluous. Many of them knew by heart most of the hymns in their collection, and it was quite evident that they much enjoyed singing them. After the men had dispersed to their own camp-fires came an hour or two’s talk round our fire before we sought the shelter of our tents and our mosquito nets. It was our practice to join in English evening prayers immediately after dinner. But often long before we had left our chairs round the fire our native servants, and oft-times many of the carriers, would spread their mats, or, failing mats, lay some grass on the ground, as near the fire as possible, with their bare feet towards it, and wrap themselves in blanket or cloth and go to sleep under the stars, grateful for the genial warmth of the fire in the cold night of a Central African winter, and for the protection it afforded them against the beasts of prey who were often prowling near at hand.
Thus we travelled through Northern Rhodesia, visiting the stations of our Central Africa Mission, calling upon the European Magistrates and Native Commissioners, meeting Native Head-men and Chiefs, and passing through numbers of small native villages, at all of which we received a hearty welcome. When we entered a village, or met native carriers on the path through the forest, we were greeted with the salutation “Mutende,” which, being interpreted, means “Peace.” The carriers would take their loads off their heads or shoulders, squat down on their haunches, clap their hands and give us their salutation. On leaving a village we were often accompanied for a mile or two by a running crowdof natives, consisting for the most part of women with babies tied upon their backs and laughing children, who would shout and sing as they ran behind and before the bush-cars or bicycle. We soon got accustomed to the sight of these natives, nearly all of them naked to the waist, and many of the children altogether naked. Most of those whom we saw were smiling, happy-looking people, but that there was another side to the picture was often painfully apparent. In many villages the faces of nearly all the adults were marked with small-pox. We frequently met cripples and lepers. Sore eyes, caused by the smoke of the wood fires in the huts, for which there is no escape but the door, were much in evidence, and we heard sad stories of the high rate of mortality amongst these children of nature. Certain forms of disease were very prevalent, and laid a heavy toll upon the people. Signs of the superstition which shadowed their lives, and which is the main feature of their animistic religions, were abundant. In many a village the rude “spirit-hut,” with offerings of food spread in front of it was to be seen, and we heard many sad stories of the influence wielded by sorcerer and witch-doctor upon the lives of the people.
Everywhere we experienced the good-will and hospitality of the inhabitants. On arrival at our camping places a dozen women would appear with brooms made of the twigs of the trees and brushes to sweep the site of the camp clean before the tents were pitched. Others would hasten off to the nearest watering-place to get a supply of water in very large rough clay vessels forourselves and our men. We often pitched our camp in the middle of a village, and on these occasions many of our men slept in the huts of the villagers which had been willingly vacated to afford this accommodation. Mealies, manioc, and native flour would be purchased by the missionary in charge of the expedition for the men, and fowls and eggs for our own larder. Portions of Scripture and hymn books would be sold by the missionary, and there were many applications for them. Wherever we went the people were always most grateful for any recognition of their efforts to show us hospitality. Their desire for books for themselves and schools for their children was everywhere apparent; while they were always willing to come to the open-air services round the camp-fires. In the parts of Northern Rhodesia through which our journey lay there were but small indications of the advance of Mohammedanism from the north, of which we had heard much. In the territory recognised as the Society’s field of operations we have the country almost to ourselves. But in the northern part of this territory there were not wanting indications that the followers of the “false prophet” were already at work. In the northern part of Central Africa Islam is advancing like a flood, and it was clear that unless our Society is able effectively to occupy this territory, we shall before many years be face to face with the growing forces of Mohammedanism in its most debased form. The light which is brightening the sky in Central Africa has this background of threatened cloud and storm.