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 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 3520 .S67 1909 
 Springer, John McKendree, 
 
 1873- . .X • o 
 
 The heart of Central Africa 
 
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 Yorxc; Ai-i^ka — ^\ Candida ri. loi; 
 Education. 
 
;* OCT 12 1909 *, 
 
 CALSt^# 
 
 c\* 
 
 THE HEART OF 
 CENTRAL AFRICA 
 
 Mineral Wealth and 
 Missionary Opportunity 
 
 JOHN M. SPRINGER 
 
 With an 
 Introduction 
 
 "By 
 
 Bishop J. C. Hartzell 
 
 Cincinnati : Jennings and Graham 
 New York: Eaton and Mains 
 
Copyright, 1909, 
 By Jennings & Graham 
 
#g 
 
 To 
 
 WHO 
 
 HAS SHARED 
 
 WITH ME 
 
 OVER 3,000 MILES 
 
 OF TRAVEL BY NATIVE 
 
 TRAILS IN AFRICA 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 BY BISHOP J. C. HARTZELL. 
 
 This book, which gives the story of a journey 
 across the Continent of Africa, is full of incidents 
 and illustrations, showing how conscientious people 
 may be led in ways they knew not; what life is 
 among the natives in darkest heathenism, and also 
 describes stirring events incident to the advance 
 of civilization northward toward the heart of the 
 continent, especially as illustrated in the extension 
 of railways and the opening of mines. 
 
 The manner of writing is excellent; the de- 
 scriptions of countries journeyed through, their 
 people and natural resources, are entertaining and 
 instructive; while the stories, often pathetic and 
 thrilling, of camp life and of scenes witnessed on 
 the march are intensely interesting. 
 
 The information in the first chapter concern- 
 ing the beginnings and permanent founding of 
 the missionary work of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church in Rhodesia, on the east coast, will be read 
 Mith interest, as will also the glimpses given in the 
 
 5 
 
6 Introductory Note. 
 
 closing chapter of work by the same Church in 
 Angola, on the west coast. 
 
 The author, the Rev. J. M. Springer, B. D., 
 is a graduate of the Northwestern University and 
 Garrett Biblical Institute and is a clergyman of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. He entered upon 
 his work as a missionary in Rhodesia, South Africa, 
 in 1901. The same year Mrs. Helen E. Rasmusen, 
 for two years a missionary on the Congo under 
 Bishop Taylor, was appointed by the Woman's 
 Foreign Missionary Society to the same field. 
 These two journeyed together from America to 
 South Africa, and in 1905 became husband and 
 wife. When granted a furlough in 1907, they 
 concluded to cross the continent from Umtali, on 
 the east coast, to St. Paul de Loanda, in Angola, 
 on the west coast, and from there sail for Europe 
 and America. They had made several missionary 
 tours in former years in Rhodesia and Portuguese 
 East Africa, and were prepared to realize some- 
 thing of the difficulties of the journey they were 
 undertaking. 
 
 This book will be valuable to those who are 
 studying the opening up of the great Continent 
 of Africa, to the civilizing and Christianizing in- 
 fluences of our day. President-elect William H. 
 Taft has recently said, in one of his admirable 
 
Introductory Note. 7 
 
 addresses on Foreign Missions, that the most ac- 
 curate and valuable information from foreign lands 
 comes from Christian missionaries. They live near 
 the people, are conscientious observers, and write 
 with intelligence. We have Mr. Taft's judgment 
 confirmed in this publication. The great events 
 in the exploration of the continent have been com- 
 pleted and given to the world, and what the student 
 of Christian Missions in Africa is now anxious for, 
 is definite information concerning various sections. 
 Northwestern Rhodesia, through which the book 
 takes us, is under the British flag. Government has 
 been established and the processes of advancing 
 civilization are going forward. The native popu- 
 lations are sure to be great in numbers as the coun- 
 try prospers. The agricultural possibilities are 
 good, and enormous wealth, especially in copper 
 mining, is assured. In a few years there will be 
 railway facilities from both coasts, east and west, 
 as well as from Capetown, nearly three thousand 
 miles to the south. But, as in many other parts 
 of the Continent, there are yet no plans for the 
 establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ. 
 Everything is favorable ; the appeal of the heathen 
 native is pathetic; the proffered co-operation of 
 the Government in lands and subsidies, as well as 
 that of the new settlers, is sincere. 
 
8 Introductory Note. 
 
 To the ministry and people of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church this part of Africa has a special 
 significance. Ever since Bishop Wm. Taylor pro- 
 jected his line of missions into the interior from St. 
 Paul de Loanda on the west coast in 1885, there 
 has been a feeling that that line should be extended 
 across the continent. Later, with the development 
 of the work on the east coast, my heart was stirred 
 with the same ambition, and I visited the country 
 north of Victoria Falls and received offers of lands 
 and co-operation from the Government. This 
 great achievement was in the mind of the author 
 and his wife when, upon their own initiative, they 
 planned their trip. A few months ago the Rho- 
 desia Missionary Conference met near Victoria 
 Falls. About fifty Protestant missionaries were 
 present. Rev. Robert Wodehouse, of our own 
 Church, was president of that historic gathering, 
 and he has added his earnest plea that the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church should have a part in the 
 salvation of this section of the continent. The con- 
 cessions of land offered to him correspond in stra- 
 tegic value to those made to myself, and now to 
 Mr. Springer, several hundred miles farther to the 
 northwest. Somewhere in this region the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church ought, in the very near 
 future, begin work. The conditions are all favor- 
 
Introductory Note. 9 
 
 able, and one well-equipped mission in Northwest 
 Rhodesia would be the first of others to develop 
 eastward and westward. The call of God is clear. 
 If we do not occupy the field in the near future, 
 others ought to do so, and will. It is the old ques- 
 tion of financial resources. Men and women are 
 ready to consecrate their lives to the blessed work, 
 but they must be supported, and there must be 
 money for transportation and buildings and equip- 
 ment. 
 
 In recent years, in view of the marvelous things 
 which have transpired on that continent, the Chris- 
 tian world has been saying, "Africa's day has 
 come." That is true, so far as Divine Providence 
 can usher in any day of redemption for a race or 
 continent; but Africa will be redeemed only as the 
 followers of Christ recognize the divine prepara- 
 tion and furnish the means to make that prepara- 
 tion effective. 
 
 January 1, 1909. 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 YOUNG AFRICA READY. 
 
 Sitting in the ashes around our kitchen fire, 
 which, by the way, was in the open, with only a 
 piece of canvas fastened over four poles to keep 
 off the rains, was a half-grown, half-clad boy of 
 perhaps thirteen summers. He was dirty — ex- 
 ceptionally dirty is perhaps a truer designation — 
 and his sole garment was a strip of dark-blue cot- 
 ton cloth two yards in length, which was tied 
 around his loins. The cloth was so dirty that, to 
 the uninitiated, it would have been hard to classify 
 it. But as in the Broken Hill region all cloth is 
 divided into three parts: the blue, the white, and 
 the ginghams, I recognized the class to which this 
 belonged. 
 
 He had sat around that fire perhaps a week, 
 when a sudden vacany in our domestic staff re- 
 quired a boy to bring water at once on a Satur- 
 day afternoon. Benjamin was sent to ask our 
 male Cinderella if he would do the job. This, 
 
 11 
 
12 Foreword. 
 
 apparently, was the opportunity for which he had 
 been waiting, and he thenceforth became a part, 
 an inalienable part, of our household economy. 
 The inanimated, dejected, forsaken-looking figure 
 was transformed as by magic. By degrees the 
 dirt disappeared, and with an increased wardrobe 
 he developed into quite a respectable youth. He 
 made himself incessantly useful (often to our em- 
 barrassment) in the culinary department. And he 
 further announced that he would accompany us on 
 the trail. 
 
 Although in a week's time incredible changes 
 had been made in the boy, yet, when I saw on the 
 morning that we were to start that all ten of his 
 toes were raw and sore at the ends from jiggers, 
 I felt that I could not take him on the trail. I 
 pointed out to him that evidently he would not be 
 equal to three or four months' steady marching 
 some twenty miles a day, that the country ahead 
 of us was unknown and the people wild and hostile, 
 which would make it unsafe for any one who might 
 need to be left behind. I told him further that I 
 could not afford to take any one along who could 
 not carry a load, and reminded him that he was 
 already three hundred miles from his home, and 
 that he might not see it again if he went along 
 with us. 
 
Foreword. 13 
 
 In vain. He said that he would not be left 
 behind, that his feet would get well, and that he 
 was able to carry a load; but go he must, and go 
 he would, for at the end of the trail was a school, 
 and there he would stay and learn the Book. 
 
 So he went the whole fifteen hundred miles, and 
 we left him in the school at Quiongua, in Angola, 
 where he was converted within six months, and the 
 transforming power of the Lord Jesus is working 
 wonders in his heart. That is Songoro, or, as he 
 was known to us, "Kitchen." 
 
 There was a big, raw-boned Mutabele, Jacob, 
 whom I found in a camp at Broken Hill, a man 
 of perhaps thirty, who had worked for years on 
 railroad construction as a "linker-in," for which 
 he had received large wages. A day or two be- 
 fore we were to set out he came to me. "Master, 
 I want to go with you," he said. "My heart tells 
 me I want to be a teacher to tell the people about 
 God." 
 
 "But, Jacob," I replied, "you have received big 
 money for years. If you go with me to enter 
 school you will get no money at all for two or three 
 years, while you study, and after that as a teacher 
 your wages will be very small. The railroad wants 
 men, why don't you go to them.'' Also, if you 
 go with me you will have to carry a load (this was 
 
14 Foreword. 
 
 a class of work far beneath the station he had oc- 
 cupied for years, and was a severe test for him), 
 and there will be but little money in it after all." 
 
 "O Master!" he exclaimed, with a pathos and 
 earnestness that stirred me, "if it were money I 
 wanted I would go to the railroad. But it is n't 
 money I want. My heart is troubled," and he 
 placed his hand over his heart, "and God tells me 
 I must be a teacher. I know that the path is long 
 and the road hard. I have half a load of my own 
 things, too. But I '11 carry all I can for you and 
 help you on the road. I must go." And he went. 
 
 Word had gone out that I wanted carriers for 
 a long trip, and one quiet boy came all alone and 
 was engaged. He said that his name was "Jim." 
 He, too, like Songoro, was from a tribe, a differ- 
 ent tribe, where no missionary resided. He said 
 that he wanted to go the whole four months' 
 journey with us. A week later, when several of 
 the carriers were beginning to grumble and wanted 
 to turn back, Jim came to me and said that he 
 wanted to go to the school at the end of the trail, 
 the school where Songoro and Jacob were going. 
 So he, too, tramped on quietly and patiently, like 
 old Jacob, until he had covered the fifteen hundred 
 miles and reached Quiongua, whence comes recent 
 news of his conversion. 
 
Foreword. 15 
 
 We had gone four hundred miles and came to 
 Kambove, a mining camp in the Copper Belt. We 
 rested there three days. The second day Songoro 
 came to me saying that he had found a brother 
 in the camp, working on the mine, and showed me 
 a lad of eleven or twelve years, named Sondo. He 
 said that Sondo wanted to accompany us and go 
 to school. Now, the word "brother" as used by an 
 African does not necessarily indicate blood re- 
 lationship. These two boys were from the same 
 tribe and village, and so they called themselves 
 brothers. 
 
 Accordingly Sondo joined our caravan, took 
 his load of thirty pounds, and made his way west- 
 ward, where he, too, has been converted. It was 
 Sondo who discovered another "brother" among 
 the "indentured laborers" of a Portuguese planta- 
 tion near Quiongua. This man had been seized 
 and carried to the west coast, where he had been 
 sold to the Portuguese as a slave. Alas ! we had 
 no power to free him, but the other four boys have 
 escaped a worse slavery. 
 
 Thus it is almost everywhere in Africa to-day. 
 Young Africa is waiting, ready, and anxious for 
 something he hardly knows what. And he is ready 
 to work, ready to walk, ready to sacrifice for it. 
 These four instances are but a few of the many. 
 Truly, Ethiopia waits with outstretched hands! 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FA6E 
 
 Introductoet Note, . . - 5 
 
 Foreword, 11 
 
 I. Beginnings, 19 
 
 II. Progress, 37 
 
 III. The Call of the Interior, - - 54 
 
 IV. Leaving Broken Hill, - - 69 
 V. To the Copper Country, - - 86 
 
 VI. The Tanganyika Concessions, - 101 
 
 VII. Mines and Missionary Oppor- 
 tunities, . - - . 120 
 
 VIII. In Congo Territory, ... 133 
 
 IX. To THE Kassai, - - - - 151 
 
 X. Among the Bachiokwe, - - - 175 
 
 XL To Malange, - - - - 200 
 
 XII. Eetrospect, 213 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 BEGINNINGS. 
 
 Verily facts are stranger than fiction. And 
 nowhere is this better illustrated than in the story 
 of the Old Umtali Mission of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church in Rhodesia. 
 
 In 1896, Dr. Joseph C. Hartzell was elected 
 Bishop for Africa. Immediately after his election 
 there came to him the vision of a large industrial 
 training institution to be installed somewhere in 
 the southern part of the Dark Continent and under 
 the flag of Great Britain. 
 
 It was in that very year (though all unknown 
 to him at that time) that the British South Africa 
 (Chartered) Company decided to move the little 
 four-year-old town of Umtali to the other side of 
 a range of mountains, ten miles away. The Char- 
 tered Company had decided that it would be 
 cheaper to take the town to the railway than to 
 bring the railway to the town. 
 
 Although the town was so new, there were al- 
 ready a dozen or more brick buildings with iron 
 
 19 
 
20 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 roofs. When the question was put to Cecil Rhodes 
 as to the future use of the old town-site and its 
 buildings, he replied, "Make a mission of it." 
 
 This grant was still providentially in the hands 
 of the Chartered Company in 1897, when Bishop 
 Hartzell first arrived in Umtali. Negotiations be- 
 tween him and the administrator, Earl Grey, re- 
 sulted in the town-site of Old Umtali of 1,000 acres 
 of land, together with twelve brick buildings, and 
 the commonage adjoining it, another 12,000 acres, 
 being turned over to the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 The company had compensated the owners of 
 these particular buildings to the extent of more 
 than $100,000, and they were worth fully $75,000 
 to the mission. 
 
 In 1899 the buildings were finall}^ vacated by 
 the company and Old Umtali was formally dedi- 
 cated by Bishop Hartzell for an industrial mission. 
 At this dedication there were present of our mission- 
 aries Rev. and Mrs. Morris W. Ehnes (Umtali 
 Academy), Rev. J. Hunter Rcid, Rev. and Mrs. 
 J. L. DeWitt, Mrs. Anna Arndt (later Mrs. E. 
 H. Greeley), and Mr. Herman Heinkel. Mrs. 
 Bishop Hartzell spent some time at the Mission this 
 year, and began work which later developed into 
 that of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. 
 
Beginnings. 21 
 
 The next year Mr. E. H. Greeley joined the 
 forces, and in June, 1901, another party arrived: 
 Rev. R. E. Beetham and Miss H. E. Johnson (now 
 Mrs. Beetham), for the UmtaH Academy; Mr. 
 Geo. M. Odium, Mrs. Helen E. Rasmussen (later 
 Mrs. Springer), and the writer. 
 
 In course of time the jail and its cells were 
 converted into schoolrooms; the magistrate's office 
 became the doctor's dispensary ; the court house a 
 hospital, and later the boys' temporary dining-hall. 
 At that time an elimination of letters by the boys 
 made the sign to read "Our House." 
 
 The post and telegraph office became the hos- 
 pital operating-room; the jail compound, the play- 
 ground ; the library, a residence for the farm over- 
 seer ; one store, a residence for the principal of the 
 boys' school ; another store, a stable and smithy ; 
 the bank, a house for strangers ; and sundry office 
 buildings, dormitories. 
 
 The two-story Masonic Hotel, having sixteen 
 rooms, became the mission home. Its large billiard- 
 room made a spacious drawing-room, where the 
 District and Annual Conferences were held, and 
 at the invitation of the mission became the gather- 
 ing place of the surrounding white population for 
 occasional social purposes. Its bar-room was used 
 for a dining-room, and more than one passing guest 
 
22 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 remarked that this was the first time he had seen 
 tea served there. 
 
 The church was continued in its sacred use; 
 services being held for the whites in the morning 
 and for the natives afternoon and evening. 
 
 One beautiful bungalow up on the mountain 
 side, a quarter of a mile from the main buildings, 
 was named Hartzell Villa by its first missionary oc- 
 cupant and was deeded over, with thirty acres of 
 land, by Bishop Hartzell to the Woman's Foreign 
 Missionary Society for a girls' school. 
 
 Another charming bungalow near the com- 
 pound was used as a residence for the mechanical 
 teacher. This house was named Oleander Cottage, 
 from a very fine oleander tree in front of it. 
 
 The grounds, too, underwent many changes. 
 The straight, unshaded streets gave way to curved 
 roads and walks and park-like arrangement, and 
 was set out with shrubbery, in keeping with the 
 character of the institution. 
 
 In 1905, by mutual arrangement with the gov- 
 ernment, an adjustment regarding the land was 
 made, whereby a large part of the commonage 
 which we had found we could not use in the work 
 of this particular mission, was exchanged for va- 
 rious tracts of land elsewhere, as desired, and of 
 an equal number of acres ; the mission at old Um- 
 
Beginnings. 23 
 
 tali retaining in all 3,000 acres of land, to which 
 the Church holds final titles. 
 
 During the first two years the missionaries at 
 Old Umtali necessarily gave much of their atten- 
 tion to clearing up the grounds and carting off 
 the loads of tin cans, broken bricks, whisky bottles, 
 and quantities of debris, with which the place was 
 strewn. And they also put about forty acres of 
 land under cultivation and began school and re- 
 ligious services. 
 
 In the latter work there were serious handicaps. 
 There was almost nothing in print in or concerning 
 the native language of Mashonaland. The natives 
 generally were unwilling to help the missionaries 
 to learn their language and were equally indiffer- 
 ent to the school. On the whole, they were inclined 
 to stand apart and view the white man with sus- 
 picion, trying in vain to fathom the motives which 
 had brought him into their country. 
 
 There were no interpreters, no native teachers, 
 no evangelists, nor native Christians to help. None 
 of the Gospels had been translated, and there were 
 but a few hymns and the Lord's Prayer in the 
 vernacular. 
 
 It was a beginning at the very beginning, and 
 at great odds. 
 
24 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 The ancient rule is, "First catch your hare." 
 Now, the nearest native village, or kraal (pro- 
 nounced very significantly, crawl), was six miles 
 away from Old Umtali. The natives wanted 
 nothing of th'" white man except money or its 
 equivalent. They did not speak nor understand 
 English, and none of us spoke or understood their 
 language. 
 
 An important phase of the work was the visi- 
 tation of the people in their villages, and in this 
 work the writer took particular interest after his 
 appointment as superintendent of the Old Umtali 
 Mission, in 1901. 
 
 Taking a small tent along, I went first to the 
 nearest kraal. There was a chieftainess here by 
 the name of Shikanga; the shi is from Ishi, Lord, 
 and kanga, a guinea fowl. 
 
 This kraal consisted of fifteen huts just at the 
 base of a steep, rugged hill. These huts might 
 easily have been mistaken for round haj^-stacks. 
 They had been placed anywhere, there being no 
 regularity in any ]\Iashona kraal. Men, women, 
 children, dogs, goats, sheep, and chickens often 
 occupy the one small hut at night, while hoards 
 of rats run riot over everything. 
 
 I pitched my tent in the midst of the jumble 
 of houses, for I had much to learn. I soon found 
 
Beginnings. 25 
 
 that added to the rats were swarms of fleas, nu- 
 merous ticks, and several varieties of other vermin. 
 After that one season's experience I ceased to camp 
 inside a kraal unless I had to. 
 
 But the worst was at meal time, when some 
 twenty or more naked, dirty — O, so dirty ! — 
 youngsters all gathered round me to watch with 
 open-mouthed astonishment and hungry eyes every 
 mouthful I devoured. I often felt a sudden loss 
 of appetite as I beheld them, and frequently a 
 goodly portion of my food went down their very 
 willing throats. And not infrequently what had 
 gone down my own throat refused to stay when the 
 smells and sights got worse than usual. 
 
 Shikanga gave her consent to our building a 
 hut in her kraal for the use of the mission people 
 who might want to come for a day or a week; but 
 she clearly stipulated that they were not on any 
 account to preach against the sin of getting drunk. 
 She was a little body, not weighing more than 
 ninety pounds, but she was the daughter of the 
 king, and she knew it and made every one else 
 know it. Her word was law in that kraal. 
 
 I engaged about a dozen men to work on the 
 hut; but I was new in the country, and most of 
 them had not been used to working on contract or, 
 in fact, much at all, and so I got the worst of 
 
26 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 the bargain. They played up on me, and I was 
 unable to tell them just what I thought of them. 
 
 If there were a threshing bee or the breaking 
 of a new garden in the neighborhood, they simply 
 disappeared, only to return at night full of beer 
 and very boisterous. And Shikanga never missed 
 any occasion that promised a drink. You could 
 hear her a mile or more away as she came back 
 from one of these social events. My tent was just 
 a little distance back of her hut, and one night she 
 kept me awake nearly the whole night singing and 
 yelling at the top of her voice. The charm of 
 novelty of living in a native kraal soon wears off. 
 
 Early in the morning while it was yet dark I 
 would hear the women grinding their millet for 
 the day's rations. I tried to get used to eating the 
 thick, chocolate-colored mush they made of tliis 
 meal, but it was too gummy and contained too 
 much grit to suit me for a regular diet. The 
 natives take off little bits of it, which they roll 
 into a ball, dip it into some kind of gravy, clotted 
 milk, or greens, and then throw the ball into their 
 mouths and swallow without chewing. And this 
 is the proper way to eat the sticky stuff, but I did 
 not get the art. 
 
 Shortly after sunrise all the girls and women 
 would have left the kraal to go to their gardens — 
 
Beginnings. 27 
 
 for it was in May, their harvest time — and I would 
 be left with (or without) the men who were put- 
 ting up the hut. 
 
 Towards evening they all began to return, the 
 women and girls with heavy bags of grain or bun- 
 dles of firewood on their heads, and possibly a baby 
 on their backs, the small boys with the sheep, goats, 
 or cattle they had been herding, and the men from 
 visiting, or sometimes from threshing, where plenty 
 of beer had been promised. 
 
 The women then cooked the evening meal, each 
 wife a separate dish for her husband. 
 
 Now and then a dilatory wife would get a beat- 
 ing, but when they were sober the men were rather 
 inclined to be peaceable, and before eight o'clock 
 all would be quiet, each woolly head covered with a 
 cloth or blanket, on account of the rats. 
 
 Up among the huge boulders, where the big 
 baboons used to come daily and give all sorts of 
 impudence to the people whose gardens they de- 
 lighted to rob, was the village smithy. It consisted 
 of a circular roof of poles and grass, under which 
 three or four people might, by crowding, sit. The 
 blacksmith had a bellows made of a goatskin 
 which had been drawn off over the animal's neck. 
 Three of the legs were tied up and the fourth hind 
 leg used for the nozzle, the neck being so arranged 
 
28 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 that it would let in the air during an upward 
 motion and the operator would hold it closed while 
 pressing the air out through the nozzle. 
 
 He made his own charcoal, and by means of 
 two of these goatskins, one in each hand, he was 
 able to get up a blast sufficient for all purposes 
 of working the native smelted iron into axes, 
 knives, hoes, spears, bracelets, anklets, hammers, 
 and rings. 
 
 One day I heard musical sounds as of a flute 
 in the distance. They drew nearer, and soon a 
 peculiar figure dressed in a very scant loin-cloth 
 and a heavy black coat swung into the kraal. He 
 was playing on a reed flute of his own manufacture, 
 while he held a rattle ornamented with an ante- 
 lope tail in the other hand. He came up to me, 
 and for about a half hour tooted and rattled and 
 danced. At first I did not know whether he were 
 a lunatic, a witch doctor, or what, but found out 
 that he was only a wandering minstrel and was 
 doing this performance for something to eat. 
 
 It took two weeks to get the hut finished, plas- 
 tered inside and out with black mud, the mud floor 
 pounded down by the women and ready for occu- 
 pation. This was the first hut erected by our 
 mission in a native village in Rhodesia and it was 
 dedicated with a "crowded house," which gazed in 
 
Beginnings. 29 
 
 wonder and admiration at the stereopticon views 
 of the Life of Christ. This hut was used consid- 
 erably during the next four years, until Shikanga 
 moved away to obtain fresh garden lands. 
 
 Leaving one of the missionaries at Shikanga's, 
 I next went to Guta, the capital of the Manika, 
 twelve miles north of Old Umtali. 
 
 The king of this tribe always bears the name 
 of Mtasa.* Each successive sovereign builds his 
 town on a new site, in order that the spirit of the 
 former chief may roam undisturbed around the 
 place of his burial and where he has reigned. 
 
 This Mtasa had selected a natural fortress for 
 his capital near the top of the mountain Bingahuru. 
 This defense was necessary, for the pastoral Ma- 
 nika were ever the prey of the bloodthirsty Mate- 
 bele and the warlike Shangani. 
 
 There were troubles within the tribe as well. 
 When this Mtasa as a young man should have suc- 
 ceeded to the kingship, one of the strong men 
 usurped the place. Young Ufambasiku (the-one- 
 who- walks-by-night) was obliged to live among an- 
 other tribe and could only make nocturnal visits to 
 the capital. Finally, aided by the treachery of one 
 of the usurper's wives, he was able one night to lure 
 
 * The m in this name, as In many words In the language, has 
 the half-suppressed sound of u before it; a has the value of the 
 long Italian a, as In arm. Mta-sa. 
 
30 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 his enemy outside his hut, cut his throat, and se- 
 cure the throne. 
 
 Until the advent of the white man, Mtasa had 
 reigned an absolute and despotic monarch of the 
 country. "Whom he would he slew, and whom he 
 would he kept alive ; and whom he would he raised 
 up, and whom he would he put down." 
 
 However, he readily entered into treaties with 
 the British when they came and, to his credit, kept 
 those treaties, though later on he chafed sorely 
 under his curtailed power whereby he could not 
 even give one of his subjects a well-merited beating 
 without being liable to be called to account. So he 
 clung the closer to all his old traditions and posi- 
 tively opposed all mission work. And, though he 
 welcomed me to his kraal because he was sick unto 
 death and wanted me to cure him, he would not 
 let me build, but set aside huts for my use. 
 
 It was not my first visit to this paramount 
 chief. On a former occasion I had had a rather 
 amusing experience. 
 
 As it was customary for all of Mtasa's white 
 visitors (and he had many, particularly the kodak 
 fiends) to take his royal highness a present, they 
 usually gave him a blanket. What he did with 
 them all, I 'm sure I do n't know, unless he bestowed 
 them on his favorites, as I never saw but the one 
 
Beginnings. 31 
 
 cheap, cotton, foully-dirty blanket which covered 
 him while he was sick. But, whether he used them 
 or not, blankets he wanted and blankets he got. 
 Knowing all this, I once essayed to develop his edu- 
 cation along industrial lines and do a service to 
 humanity by presenting him a fine shovel. It was 
 a nice, new, shiney, attractive shovel, and I had 
 hopes that it might prove good and suggestive 
 seed. Perhaps it did; in which case, I am sure, 
 they planted it deep, for I never saw it again. 
 
 But the king was far from being timid about 
 preferring his wants, and while he received the 
 shovel with as much dignity as he could muster 
 while hilariously drunk, he literally fell on my neck 
 and failed to find words to tell me how delighted 
 he was to see me and that the vest I had on would 
 simply complete his earthly happiness. Of course, 
 he got the vest, which was a black and white check, 
 belonging to a suit which I had no love for and 
 was quite willing should adorn the royal back. 
 
 Having disposed of the vest, the next time I 
 took him the coat, thinking that, as every other 
 gift so mysteriously disappeared, I would get rid 
 of that obnoxious suit for good. But alas ! I was 
 destined to meet that vest and coat all through 
 the next five years of my stay there in Southern 
 Rhodesia. They appeared at the most unexpected 
 
32 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 times and places, worn by different members of 
 the family. 
 
 Now the king was sick, and while he was drunk 
 most of the time, that did not keep from him the 
 knowledge that probably his days were numbered, 
 and with that fear hanging over him even alcohol 
 could not make him hilarious. So he was, for once, 
 genuinely glad to see a missionary. He announced 
 at once that he wanted medicine for himself. For- 
 tunately I was able to procure for him the needed 
 treatment, which proved very effective so long as 
 he was willing to take it. But with the return of 
 his strength and some degree of health, he sunk 
 back into his old ways and habits and relapsed into 
 a state where death was inevitable. 
 
 It certainly is an advantage to any missionary 
 to have some primary knowledge of medicine and 
 dentistry. My lack along these lines was a con- 
 stant regret. The man who can efficiently extract 
 aching teeth will win the gratitude of the most 
 savage cannibal. A Wesleyan minister told me 
 that he had frequently, when on his rounds as su- 
 perintendent, extracted as many as thirty teeth 
 after a preaching service. 
 
 If Shikanga's kraal impressed one with its 
 wickedness, what could be said of Mtasa's? It 
 was a kraal of about 150 huts around and among 
 
Beginnings. 33 
 
 the huge boulders. At the back of the kraal there 
 arose from 700 to 800 feet of sheer, precipitous 
 rock, the top of the mountain being not unlike an 
 inverted, round pudding-mold. The kraal itself 
 was situated on a sort of shelf two-thirds up the 
 mountain side. 
 
 It was indescribably filthy in all parts of the 
 kraal and as void of moral principles as of sani- 
 tary conditions. It was notoriously bad, and I 
 do not think its reputation for evil was at all ex- 
 aggerated. 
 
 Every night the sound of the drum proclaimed 
 a dance in one part of the kraal or another; and 
 a dance meant drunkenness and vice. All of the 
 people were drunk some of the time, a part of 
 them were drunk most of the time, and some of 
 them were drunk all of the time. 
 
 Coupled with the tattoo of the drum came the 
 weird shrieks of the women's "Yaie-yaie-yaie," 
 the noise of strife, a drunken brawl, or the sound 
 of wrangling and discord. There were often 
 sounds of hilarity, but seldom any of true mirth. 
 
 One day the noise and discord, the shrieks and 
 yells, were more numerous and exaggerated than 
 usual, and I went to see what was the matter. 
 Every one was running past my hut and the wails 
 increased in volume and violence. 
 8 
 
34 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Hurrying to the place nearby where the peo- 
 ple were congregating, I learned that a young 
 man, a son of the king, Avas dead. I had known 
 the young man well and, indeed, he had been at 
 the last Sunday service, where he had shown more 
 interest than any of the others. What did he die 
 of.'' No one could tell me; but after he was 
 buried, my native helper (Charlie Potter) said 
 that there was a rumor that he had been killed in 
 a row at the dance the night before. 
 
 The news spread rapidly, and fresh relays of 
 friends kept coming to the bereaved hut, each one 
 adding to the fearful wails and lamentations of 
 the women folk. The men began to make prep- 
 arations to bury him at once. I first went into 
 the hut, as did the others, to see the corpse; but, 
 to my horror, saw only an ungainly bundle com- 
 pletely swathed in white unbleached muslin. The 
 Makaranga* bring the knees and chin of the body 
 together and then securely bind it in that position, 
 and in that sitting position bury it. 
 
 Following the men, I found they had selected 
 a place under an enomious boulder which closely 
 
 *The native people of southeastern Rhodesia are called 
 Mashonas by the white men. This is an opprobrious term given 
 them by the Matebeli. They should be called, correctly, Maka- 
 ranga, as they are the descendants of that ancient Makaranga 
 nation, the Children of the Sun. 
 
Beginnings. 35 
 
 resembled a ship. They dug under what might 
 have been the stern until the hole was about four 
 feet deep and diagonal in shape. 
 
 In three hours from the time the first wailing 
 began, the body was borne out of the house on a 
 hastily constructed litter of poles and bark rope, 
 accompanied by a frantic mob of screaming women, 
 who threw themselves down into the dust and leaped 
 into the air, shrieking in a blood-curdling manner 
 in a perfect frenzy. This continued until the body 
 was shoved into its place and the hole neatly walled 
 up with stone. Then they subsided into a stolid 
 apathy, the mother and wives of the dead man in 
 particular being the personification of hopeless- 
 ness, and his sister wailing out over and over: "O, 
 Benzi, Benzi, thou wert a lion!" (The lion is the 
 totem of the reigning family.) 
 
 That evening comparative quiet reigned, but 
 the next night life was going on as ever. 
 
 The dry season was near its close and other 
 duties at Old Umtali were now demanding my at- 
 tention, and as the king's return to his drink had 
 brought on a relapse and he had fallen into a 
 stupor from which it was impossible to rouse him, 
 so that his death was only a matter of a few days, 
 I packed up my belongings and returned to the 
 mission. 
 
36 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 But in the three months among the people we 
 had not only attended the king, held continual 
 services, got acquainted with the natives, and ad- 
 vanced in the language, but we had also been able 
 to get the first group of bo^^s to go directly from 
 the kraal to the school. They were mostly grand- 
 sons of the king — a dirty, almost naked, impudent 
 lot of youngsters ; but they were bright and quick 
 to learn. They were numbered among our first 
 converts, and some of them have developed into 
 excellent teachers and evangelists. 
 
 The time had been well spent. We had made 
 the acquaintance and gained the confidence of the 
 people, much seed had been sown, and there had 
 been not a few visible results. 
 
 It was still the day of small things, but a be- 
 ginning had been made. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 Four more years had passed, making seven in 
 all, from the time of the dedication of the Old 
 Umtali Mission, and it was no longer an experi- 
 ment, but a success, with the work established on 
 tried and approved lines. 
 
 However, the success had evolved slowly 
 through many distinct stages — stages common to 
 the experience of most missions. 
 
 Varied and often seemingly incongruous had 
 been the work and activities of the various mission- 
 aries. The ordained minister had been called on 
 to do the work of farmer and doctor, ox-driver and 
 dentist, machinist and book-keeper, mason and 
 postmaster, diplomat and mule-breaker, cobbler 
 and architect, carpenter and surgeon. 
 
 The physician also had been preacher and 
 mule doctor, teacher and cabinet-maker, nurse and 
 painter, cook and surgeon. 
 
 The layman had been preacher and nurse, 
 teacher and gardener, doctor and poet. 
 
 37 
 
38 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 The women missionaries had been farmers and 
 teachers, translators and nurses, forwarding agents 
 and preachers. 
 
 All had itinerated more or less in the kraals, 
 everywhere sowing the seed, here and there gather- 
 ing a handful of ripened grain and looking for- 
 ward to the abundant whitening harvest of the 
 near future. 
 
 As for the school, for the first year or two the 
 only way Ave could get pupils was to hire them to 
 work about the place and then give them an hour 
 each day in the schoolroom. Each year meant 
 more school and less wages. Then came a time 
 when the wages ceased, but the boys were furnished 
 with their clothes. The next year came the rule, 
 which is still in force, that every boy over fourteen 
 years old must bring an entrance fee of fifteen 
 dollars, and another fifteen dollars for his three 
 years' taxes, and all of the boys must work a half 
 day at some mechanical labor about the farm or on 
 the grounds. 
 
 To be sure, these changes were not often wel- 
 comed by the boys at the time. But as the desire 
 for learning grew they adjusted themselves to the 
 changing conditions, though seldom without con- 
 siderable outward protest. 
 
 When our work first began, not having any 
 
Progress. 39 
 
 books in the vernacular, English school-books had 
 to be used. Later, when we got books in the ver- 
 nacular and introduced them into the schoolroom 
 to be used in conjunction with the English ones, 
 the boys waited upon us to declare indignantly 
 that they had not come to school to learn their own 
 language, nor did they need any of our teaching 
 on that sub j ect ; that they had come to school to 
 study English, and English only. 
 
 It took some months of quiet insistence to show 
 them that it was just as important to learn to read 
 and write their mother tongue as English, and 
 more so, for only in so doing could they come to. 
 understand the Bible. 
 
 A gratifying feature of the work was the early 
 conversion of practically every pupil. Each one 
 became a factor in the work of reaching others. 
 When the boys went home at vacation times they 
 told their friends the Good News they had received. 
 The smaller boys often started a little school of 
 the younger brothers and sisters, teaching them 
 hymns and sometimes the A B C's. 
 
 Another epoch opened when we had about ten 
 older boys who had expressed a conviction that they 
 should become teachers and evangelists, and had 
 begun training for that purpose. 
 
 One vacation I took this group out and made 
 
40 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 a tour of about four hundred miles, using and 
 training them further in practical evangelistic 
 work, in which they were constantly engaged there- 
 after. 
 
 During the shorter vacations they were sent 
 out in groups to hold meetings within a radius of 
 fifty miles of Old Umtali. 
 
 The results of this broadcast seed-sowing was 
 that soon the chiefs began to send in requests for 
 native teachers. This was a distinct gain. At first 
 the chiefs hud absolutely refused to even consider 
 having schools at their villages. But the visits of 
 our pupils in the kraals during vacations and while 
 on evangelistic tours carrying some book or other 
 always in their pockets, a primer, a h3'mn-book, or 
 one of the Gospels, out of which they would read, 
 to the great admiration of the small children, had 
 resulted in a widespread desire for an education 
 on the part of both boys and girls, and the young- 
 sters were beginning to show a restlessness and dis- 
 content at the kraal life. They were constantly 
 running away to the mission to go to school. So 
 it was no longer a question of school or no scliool, 
 but of schools in the kraals or at the Mission. Ac- 
 cordingly the chiefs were compelled to capitulate, 
 and by 1906 requests for teachers to come and live 
 in the kraals began to multiply. We had none as 
 
ir. 
 
 > 
 
 2 ^ 
 
 CI? 
 
 
Progress. 41 
 
 yet fully prepared, but we were able to open work 
 at one kraal six miles away and send a senior stu- 
 dent out there every afternoon to teach school. 
 This place willingly helped to build their own 
 mud-and-pole schoolhouse, and soon there was not 
 only a flourishing school, but there were conver- 
 sions, and the Sunday circuit extended to twelve 
 kraals. 
 
 His experience at tliis place, Mwandiambila's, 
 fitted Solomon Nsingo to take an out-station the 
 next year. It was a singular coincidence that the 
 first call to be answered for a resident native 
 teacher should have been made by Shikanga her- 
 self. She who had placed herself on record as ab- 
 solutely and forever determined that her children 
 should never be taught "books," and who had 
 stipulated that we must not preach against getting 
 drunk, now welcomed Solomon and his wife, Ma- 
 rita, to her kraal and helped to build the school 
 and living-house. 
 
 A few months later there were several conver- 
 sions, and among them Shikanga, In a recent let- 
 ter, Solomon wrote me: "But also here with thirty 
 peoples who turn back to God our Fathers who art 
 in heaven because befor in this Shikanga place it 
 was very trouble but now God will bee at them 
 and so God heard my prayers and also He draw 
 
42 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 them to inc. I have abelievers about thirty boys 
 and now Chiefe Chikanga she leave all bad deeds 
 which she was doing long ago." 
 
 One of the first girls who came to the mission 
 to stay was Mukonyerwa, whose mother, Muledzwa, 
 was a sister of Shikanga and of the young Mtasa. 
 When the girl came she was at once followed by 
 her mother, who made a fearful row and insisted 
 that the girl should return to her kraal and that 
 we should drive her away from the mission. 
 
 As she could not avail anything she went away, 
 and came back the next week with Mtasa and some 
 twenty armed men, who demanded the girl. There 
 was a stormy session several hours long, but the 
 girl firmly and positively refused to go with her 
 mother, and so they had to leave her. 
 
 In the course of six months, Muledzwa's visits 
 became less and less stormy, until at last she be- 
 gan to view her daughter's growing accomplish- 
 ments of sewing, reading, and writing with pride. 
 A year later she said that she should like her 
 daughter to marry a native teacher and come u]) 
 to live in her knial, where she would build tlieni 
 a hut and schoolhousc. However, her daughter 
 was placed in a neighborliood village with her 
 husband, and Vurungu, ]Muledzwa's only son, has 
 been appointed to the school and Church in his 
 mother's kraal. 
 
Progress. 43 
 
 The young Mtasa, like his old father, was 
 strongly opposed to mission work. On one of my 
 visits to his kraal, though he himself was very 
 friendly and affable, his brother told me confiden- 
 tially in great bitterness of spirit that all the boys 
 and girls were leaving the kraal for the mission. 
 
 I told him the only remedy for it was to have 
 a teacher come and open a school at the kraal, 
 which advice he promptly rejected with scorn. 
 
 But the boys and girls continued to come to 
 Old Umtali. The sub-chiefs were calling for 
 teachers, that they might hold their children at 
 home, and so Mtasa yielded at last. In 1907, he 
 made an official call on Bishop Hartzell and asked 
 that a white man be sent to open up school work 
 at the capital. The request was granted, land was 
 purchased adjoining tlie native reserve, and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Coffin are there at present in the midst 
 of a flourishing work, which includes a circuit of 
 some ten out-stations in charge of young men who 
 were trained at Old Umtali, all of whom have mar- 
 ried girls from the girls' school there. 
 
 One of the greatest changes had taken place in 
 connection with the work among the girls and 
 women. 
 
 In 1901, Helen E. Rasmussen was sent out by 
 the Women's Foreign Missionary Society to take 
 
44 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 up this work. As there were no girls nor women 
 at the station, she, too, had to go out into the 
 kraals to find them. 
 
 She found them more indifferent to the mission 
 and school than the boys and far more tenacious 
 of the traditions of their ancestors. But nearly all 
 of them needed medical treatment, so that large 
 numbers came to the dispensary daily. They not 
 only got their medicine, but they stopped to chat 
 and to hear the "machine," the baby organ. Soon 
 the girls flocked to her hut in large numbers, and 
 some days there were services nearly all day. 
 
 But they scorned the idea of a native woman 
 learning to read. Why should she.'' They knew 
 as much as their mothers (most of them knew 
 more) and the}- could see no advantage in learn- 
 ing at school. They were all engaged to be mar- 
 ried — some of them from birth, some even before 
 birth; for the girl is considered an asset bj' her 
 father against his liabilities. 
 
 To be sure, the girls did not always want to 
 marry the man chosen for them, and some of 
 tluni rebelled openly, but on the whole they had 
 had the custom instilled into their minds from 
 babyhood as being the only proper tiling, and 
 most of the girls were proud of the engagement, 
 putting off the evil day of marriage as long as 
 
Progress. 45 
 
 possible and in the meantime not binding them- 
 selves to any hard and fast code of morals. 
 
 The condition of their lives and morals was 
 enough to make one shudder. And the worst of it 
 was that, knowing nothing better, they were fairly 
 well satisfied. 
 
 After the visits of the "Missis" to the kraals, 
 the girls frequently came to visit her at Old Um- 
 tali, stajnng a night or several days. 
 
 One girl came and stayed eight months, but 
 she, alas! was an outcast, having cut her upper 
 teeth first. According to the custom of her people, 
 she should have been buried alive, for to cut the 
 upper teeth first is a sign that the child has a 
 devil or is bewitched. 
 
 For some reason this girl had not been buried 
 by her mother and had grown up into an extra- 
 ordinarily beautiful young woman, but no man 
 in the country dared to marry her. 
 
 It was a native boy named Jonas who re- 
 luctantly offered the explanation about Shakeni. 
 He said: "You see, she is bewitched and if any 
 man should marry her, he would die." 
 
 "How soon would he die .f'" was the inquiry ; 
 "as soon as they got married .f^" Jonas was cau- 
 tious. "He might, and then he might not ; he could 
 not say for sure." 
 
46 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 "Well, would he die in a week, or a month?" 
 
 "Do n't jou see, Missis," exclaimed the cross- 
 questioned boy in exasperation, he might live a 
 day and he might live a year. And they might 
 have children, and the children might grow up, 
 but sooner or later he would surel}' die." 
 
 This statement was indeed incontrovertible 
 since, as the "Missis" told Jonas, from the time of 
 Adam down every man who has married a woman 
 has met a similar fate. But though Jonas had a 
 strong sense of humor, now that a native super- 
 stition was involved, he felt that any other view 
 of the case was rank heresy, of which he would 
 have no part. 
 
 This girl, to repeat, stayed eight montlis, and 
 then went back to her mother. Four years later 
 she was legally married to a man from Cape 
 Colony, a mulatto, and later came back to the girls' 
 school, with his permission, while he was driving 
 cattle about the country, or, in South African 
 parlance, "riding transport." 
 
 But with the exception of this one girl, no 
 others came for over three years, and, as the boys 
 were increasing steadily in numbers, the situation 
 was serious. So we put the matter before them 
 clearly : How that they would soon be tlirough 
 school and would need Christian wives and girls 
 
Progress. 47 
 
 who could help them in their work as evangelists 
 and teachers, and they began to talk to the girls 
 about coming to school. Brothers began urging 
 their sisters, and now and then one of them would 
 urge another boy's sister to come. 
 
 In 1904, Gumba, a granddaughter of the 
 old Mtasa, and a niece of the young Mtasa, 
 came to stay. About five women were at that time 
 living on the place with their husbands. After 
 Gumba's arrival other girls began to come, mostly 
 those who had been in constant touch with the 
 missionary from her first visits to the kraals and 
 who had friends or brothers in the boys' school. 
 
 Of course, the arrival of these girls caused a 
 violent protest from their irate parents. These 
 girls represented "vested interests" to the extent 
 of from four to ten head of cattle each, to be paid 
 to her father on her marriage. It was not strange 
 that the whole tribe stood solidly against any in- 
 novation which should free the girls from their 
 claim. 
 
 But once a break in the old regime had been 
 made and the girls began to find out that the 
 mission was veritably a City of Refuge, they 
 began to rebel against the unfit marriages ar- 
 ranged for them by their parents, and to flee to us. 
 We had to spend days trying to reason with 
 
48 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 angry and prejudiced parents each time a girl 
 arrived. But the girls were firm in their deter- 
 mination that they would not be sold as mere 
 cattle and that they wanted to learn. The gov- 
 ernment was on their side, and so they stayed, and 
 their numbers increased from that on. A con- 
 ciliatory spirit toward the parents soon won them 
 over to at least a resigned attitude, and in a few 
 cases to positive approval. A few of the young 
 men had arranged with the girls before coming 
 to marry them after completing the school course. 
 The other girls had several offers of marriage 
 each soon after their arrival. 
 
 After her marriage on New Year's, 1905, ]Mrs. 
 Springer continued to carry on the girls' work 
 for seven months, by which time there were nine 
 girls in the school. 
 
 In August, 1905, the Woman's Foreign ]\Iis- 
 sionary Society transferred Miss Virginia Sworm- 
 stedt (later Mrs. Coffin) from Inhambane to this 
 school. And early in 1907 Miss Sophia Coffin ar- 
 rived and was soon placed in charge. 
 
 The school has had a steady growth and in- 
 crease in numbers, and already several of the girls 
 trained here have married native evangelists and 
 arc efficient helpers in reaching the women and 
 girls on out-stations. 
 
Progress. 49 
 
 A friend gave $5,000 for a mucli-needed dor- 
 mitory to accommodate one hundred boarders, 
 which was dedicated in June, 1908. At the last 
 report there were seventy-five girls in the school. 
 
 The industrial work developed more slowly. 
 Naturally it took the native longer to see the 
 reason for hard and steady work than for learning. 
 
 Apprentices could not be expected to apply to 
 learn the trades until as pupils they had com- 
 pleted the course in the school proper. From the 
 first the farm had required a good deal of atten- 
 tion. The fields had increased from forty to one 
 hundred acres, the principal crop being Indian 
 corn, maize which is known through South Africa 
 as "mealies," The farm had more than its full 
 share of difficulties and setbacks. 
 
 Kipling tersely describes the conditions in 
 Rhodesia in his inimitable way: 
 
 " Plague on pestilence outpoured, 
 Locusts on the greening sward 
 And murrain on the cattle ! " 
 
 Most of our cattle died with Texas fever and 
 we had to sell the rest before they had a chance 
 to die. Our one horse died of horse-sickness; one 
 by one the mules and donkeys shuffled off their 
 leather reims and were no more from pyasmia; 
 4 
 
50 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 drought brought a year's famine, and the locusts 
 were an abiding plague present with us at the 
 greening season. 
 
 In 1903-1904! was our hardest 3' ear, a time 
 of general drought in the country. Our increas- 
 ing school either had to be fed or sent back to 
 their hungry kraals, and that was not to be 
 thought of. The routine work had to be car- 
 ried on, so that with loss of animals and crops, 
 the mission was put in hard straits financially. 
 However, the next year we reaped 4,000 bushels 
 of corn, and, with a good market which had sprung 
 up in the mining camps all around us, the agricul- 
 tural department of the mission has met its own ex- 
 penses ever since. 
 
 Important changes had taken place in the im- 
 mediate neighborhood of the mission. Although 
 situated on the gold belt, for the first five years 
 of the mission there were no mining activites within 
 seven miles of us. In 190-i, had come a revival of 
 the early boom and numerous white men were en- 
 gaged in prospecting and proving claims all 
 about us. There were twelve mines and two crusli- 
 ing batteries within two miles of us. 
 
 These mines employed hundreds of natives, 
 and permission was readily granted us to do evan- 
 gelistic work among them. Some of these natives 
 
Progress. 51 
 
 had come hundreds of miles from their kraals, and 
 most of them had never heard of, much less seen, 
 a missionary. The mine compounds present a 
 splendid opportunity to reach hundreds with the 
 gospel. It gave us also an exceptional oppor- 
 tunity for training our senior boys in the prac- 
 tical work of winning souls and of reaching the 
 totally raw heathen. These mines greatly en-^ 
 hanced the value of Old Umtali as a training 
 center. 
 
 Since 1901 other missionaries were added to 
 our numbers — Dr. Samuel Gurney, Rev. and Mrs. 
 James E. Ferris, who were for two years in charge 
 of the Umtali Academy ; Rev. Shirley D. Coffin, Mr. 
 and Mrs. E. L. Sechrist, and Mr. G. A. Roberts, 
 all of whom are now on the field. 
 
 i\Ir. M. B. Spears was also in the employ of 
 the mission as farm overseer and mechanical as- 
 sistant for over three years. 
 
 As the time for furlough drew near, after 
 more than five years of service, it was gratifying 
 on looking back over the vista of those years to 
 note the changes which had come to pass. 
 
 Let me summarize them briefly: 
 
 1. From an indifferent and suspicious atti- 
 tude, the natives were now friendly. 
 
 2. Instead of ignoring our school, the out- 
 
52 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 lying kraals were beginning to ask for native 
 teachers and preachers. 
 
 3. Instead of having no interpreters, teachers, 
 or native helpers, we now had nearly a dozen ready 
 to be placed on out-stations, and to assist the white 
 missionaries at Old Umtali. 
 
 4. From a half dozen pupils the school had 
 grown to nearly a hundred bo^'s and girls. 
 
 5. The fields were now white for the harvest, 
 in the reaping of which our trained native workers 
 were taking an active part. 
 
 6. In short, as was said at the beginning of 
 the chapter, the work of the mission had been 
 firm!}' established on tried and approved lines. 
 
 The latest information from Old I^mtali is 
 that there are over two hundred boarding pupils 
 in the schools, notwithstanding the large number 
 of day schools which have been opened up in the 
 vicinity and which are also well attended, and 
 students arc being turned awa}' for lack of room. 
 
 In Umtali and Penhalonga, Churches for 
 whites have been organized, and at each point a 
 large brick church has been built. In Umtali we 
 have had an academy, a grammar and high school 
 for European children which has had an average 
 attendance of about fifty pu})ils. 
 
 In these two centers Churches for the natives 
 
Progress. 58 
 
 have also been organized, and day and night 
 schools conducted. The work has extended to the 
 thickly populated districts to the south and south- 
 west, where several splendid beginnings have been 
 made. 
 
 This work has been under the direction of the 
 Rev. R. Wodehouse as Presiding Elder, who with 
 his wife reached the field in April, 1901. 
 
 Associated with him are Mr. E. H. Greeley, 
 the Rev. and Mrs. J. L. Gates, Rev. and Mrs. A. 
 L. Buckwalter, Rev. and Mrs. J. E. Ferris, Rev. 
 G. A. Stockdale, Mr. Garner and wife. Miss Mae 
 Bell, and other European helpers, besides a number 
 of native workers. 
 
 At the Conference held in November, 1907, 
 there was reported for the entire Rhodesia work, 
 a native constituency of 201 members, 1,038 pro- 
 bationers, and 1,922 Sunday-school pupils. These 
 numbers are being added to at a rapid rate with 
 each succeeding Sabbath. 
 
 With an increasing number of trained native 
 helpers at hand, and with the tribes awakened, the 
 situation is ripe for a large extension and de- 
 velopment of the work, which is proceeding as 
 rapidly as funds will allow. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 THE CALL OF THE INTERIOR. 
 
 In November, 1906, we left Old Umtali to 
 proceed home on furlough. Although in point of 
 distance our route was the most direct one, In 
 point of time it was the longest. We took the 
 one straight across the continent. 
 
 The origin and growth of this idea and the 
 jjreparation for the undertaking had proceeded 
 through several years. 
 
 Soon after my appointment lo Africa, in 1901, 
 one of m}'^ esteemed theological instructors said to 
 me, "You will want to make your travels about 
 Africa, and particularly your trips home on fur- 
 lougli, to contribute to the enlargement of your 
 knowledge of the continent and of the conditions 
 in that field." 
 
 The remark fastened itself in my memory and 
 has had not a little to do in controlling my plans 
 and actions at various times since. 
 
 Roughly speaking, the coast of Africa is cir- 
 cled with missions, and, tliough much territory 
 
 54 
 
The Call of the Interior. 55 
 
 remains to be occupied near the coast, yet most 
 of it is already marked out for occupation by 
 various societies. 
 
 In the interior there still remains vast sections 
 unentered, untouched, and unassigned. The very 
 appeal which, in the first place, leads the mission- 
 ary to leave his own land for foreign fields, be- 
 comes more articulate and commanding when he 
 settles on the edge of a vast area of unrelieved 
 heathenism. 
 
 So in district meetings, finance committee 
 meetings, and Conference sessions, the "Regions 
 Beyond" were a constantly recurring topic of con- 
 versation and prayer, and appeals from one and 
 another of the missionaries constantly found their 
 way to the homeland — the majority of them, so 
 it seemed, alas! to pass unheeded and the needed 
 advance appeared to us on the field so long 
 delayed. 
 
 Bishop Taylor, on landing in Africa, had 
 purposed occupjdng territory in the heart of the 
 continent and had thrown out that magnificent 
 challenge, "A chain of missions across Africa," a 
 challenge based not so much on sentiment as on 
 the acknowledged needs through all that interior 
 region. 
 
 In such a chain the missions established by 
 
56 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 him in Angola formed the western links, and 
 those in East Africa the eastern links. 
 
 The Old Umtali district, of which I was super- 
 intendent, bordered on the intervening territory. 
 With these facts and conditions constant!}- forcing 
 themselves upon me, it was but natural that there 
 gradually settled on my heart an overwhelming 
 burden of prayer and desire for the extension of 
 the work to these regions. 
 
 And it was, perhaps, the fi-uit of the seed 
 dropped into my life by my beloved teacher that 
 appeared in the course of these years in the form 
 of a conviction that, on my way home, I should 
 traverse the territory between our missions in 
 Rhodesia and those of Angola, learn the condi- 
 tions, and report. 
 
 A number of circumstances pointed to this 
 as the opportune time to make this journey. 
 
 In the first place, the country to the north was 
 being rapidly opened up. Between the years 
 1899 and 1905 vast deposits of various minerals 
 had been discovered in Northwestern Rhodesia and 
 the Congo State. And two lines of railroad, one 
 from the south and one from the west — the two 
 to be connected ultimately — were being con- 
 structed as rapidly as capital could be secured and 
 the work pushed. 
 
The Call of the Interior, 57 
 
 This meant the total abandonment of the "Let- 
 the-natives-alone" policy, so frequently advanced 
 both at home and abroad. New and powerful in- 
 fluences were beginning to be exercised on the 
 natives of all that section north of the Zambesi, 
 and the question was, What part the Church was 
 taking, or was going to take, in the new age. 
 
 Moreover, so far as the conditions in the 
 Church at home were concerned, while the rate 
 of advance had been slow, though steady, from 
 the reports of increasing interest and information 
 among the young people, and among the laymen, 
 and the Church as a whole, there was reason to 
 believe that the day was at hand when the ad- 
 vance would be large, and signal, and when the 
 desideratum from the field would be that of in- 
 formation concerning the needs and opportunities. 
 
 Accordingly, when the time came to arrange 
 for our furlough, I submitted the situation and 
 stated my conviction to Bishop Hartzell, with the 
 request that the matter be taken up with the 
 proper authorities at home and that a grant be 
 made in addition to the ordinary amount for home- 
 coming expenses. 
 
 Neither the official to whom the matter was 
 referred nor the Bishop felt competent to de- 
 
58 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 cide on the advisability of our undertaking such 
 an extended trip through these remote regions; 
 and as to financial aid, there was no money avail- 
 able that could be so applied. 
 
 And since we had had considerable fever during 
 the months past from a trip we had taken in the 
 Zambesi Valley, it was thought too hazardous a 
 venture for us at that time. 
 
 But as the conviction only deepened in the face 
 of the many seemingly insurmountable obstruc- 
 tions, there was a continual bombardment of com- 
 nmnications, with the ultimate result that we were 
 informed that, taking all risks as to health and 
 assuming all financial responsibility, we were at 
 liberty to come home that way if we chose. 
 
 It was a test of faith to learn that we could 
 get only the usual allowance of money, which 
 would not be more than half enough. But as we 
 packed up our possessions, we sold everything we 
 possibly could, and were surprised at the sum 
 realized. This took us by rail to Broken Hill and 
 kept us — with the strictest economy — some time 
 after we got there. 
 
 We left Umtali, November 26, 1906, by train, 
 for Broken Hill — Mrs. Springer, myself, and one 
 of the mission boys, Benjamin Mndzilo. In view 
 of the uncertainties of the country and tribes 
 
S^rMVoHMttf 
 
 fe- 
 
 
 I 
 
 Rev. and ^Iks. John jNI. Spiungeu. 
 
The Call of the Interior. 59 
 
 ahead of us, we felt that we should have at least 
 one Christian native with us on whom we could rely. 
 
 We had made this a matter of prayer; as, in 
 fact, we had every other detail of the enterprise. 
 Benjamin had worked for Mrs. Springer for a 
 year and a half previously. He was a man of 
 about twenty-five years of age, an earnest Chris- 
 tian, and best fitted of all the boys to fill the role 
 of helper, interpreter, and general man on whom 
 we could rely. He was also a splendid cook and 
 had the art of a superior chef — the ability to make 
 tasty dishes out of almost nothing, a very im- 
 portant feature on the trail. 
 
 We had not thought of Benjamin to go with 
 us, as he was living at the kraal of his father, 
 who was not well, and who would not let Benjamin 
 leave him for ever so short a time. But shortly 
 before we left his father died, and almost simul- 
 taneously we received money from The Christian 
 Herald which would just about cover Benjamin's 
 expenses across the Continent. And this money 
 came to us as our Father's assurance that He would 
 provide for all our needs, and we thanked God 
 and took courage. 
 
 In order to reach Broken Hill we had to take 
 a rather round-about route through Salisbury, 
 Bulawayo, and the Victoria Falls. These falls 
 
60 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 are nearly three times the size of the Niagara 
 Falls. "The most beautiful gem of the world's 
 scenery," they have been called. "The Victoria 
 Falls are twice as broad and two and a half times 
 as high as the far-famed Niagara. Their width 
 is over a mile and the water drops over 390 feet — 
 a greater height than that of St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 The grandeur and solemnity of this magnificent 
 spectacle can not be adequately described, and 
 pictures can only convey an idea of the scene. 
 Half a mile above the falls the Zambesi is a mile 
 and a half wide. Then the channel contracts till, 
 at the falls themselves, its breadth is only 1,936 
 yards. At this point the river suddenly ends — 
 at least so it seems. It disappears into space. 
 What has happened is this : The entire river falls 
 sheer into a great fissure or canon. It is as though 
 some giants of earlier days had dug a trench four 
 hundred feet deep right across the path of the 
 river. Into this trench dashes the mighty volume 
 of water, only to be met by a vast wall of basaltic 
 rock. But in this wall there is an opening. It 
 is only one hundred j^ards wide, but tlirough it 
 the Zambesi must force its way. This is the awful 
 boiling pot, a nightmare of furious water, of 
 sheets of spray, of strange and inspiring blasts of 
 wind — more than half water — of thunderous 
 
The Call of the Interior. 61 
 
 sounds. Out of this boiling pot the Zambesi 
 rushes along a deep, winding gorge, which zig- 
 zags through the plain, sometimes going back on 
 itself, for five and fort}^ miles." 
 
 The message of the falls to me was a vivid 
 realization of the analogy between the human 
 race and this river with its never-ceasing onward 
 flow. 
 
 I realized that heretofore many of my ideas 
 about the heathen world had unconsciously pic- 
 tured it as a standing forest, a solid, mighty 
 phalanx, with its millions of arms always stretch- 
 ing toward the Light, waiting, waiting down 
 through the centuries — still waiting. 
 
 Now the passing generations became visualized 
 into the likeness of this mighty river with its mag- 
 nificent, thundering, awesome falls and its awful 
 abyss. I had a new vision of the heathen mil- 
 lions that have gone over and are constantly being 
 swept over, down, down into the depths of eter- 
 nity, down into the depths of gloom and despair. 
 
 As I sat there with fascinated eyes, watching 
 those never-staying waters make that final plunge, 
 going over, going over, passing on, and on, and 
 on, I felt like crying out to them to stay, if but 
 for one second. But there was no staying that 
 mighty flood. 
 
62 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Having waited over one train at the falls — 
 a three days' wait, by-the-by — we got into a train 
 made up of freight cars and a ramshackle old 
 coach, tliat might have come down from prehis- 
 toric times, and were bumped, and shaken, and 
 jolted another 375 miles and then dropped off on 
 what, in the darkness, seemed to be the open veld. 
 A few lanterns swinging here and there showed 
 quite a gathering to meet the train, most of whom 
 were natives who were swarming about the car and 
 on seeing us alight shouted, "A Missis ! A Missis !" 
 for though there were five white women in the 
 camp, the novelt}' to the natives had not worn off. 
 And this was Broken Hill. At least, it was the 
 station from which we had to walk a mile up the 
 railroad track to get to the camp itself. 
 
 It was a typical mining camp in many re- 
 spects, most of its houses being made of poles and 
 mud. The Cape-to-Cairo Railway was finished 
 to the northern edge of the camp and formed 
 the sharp dividing line between the "Mine" and 
 the "Town." There were about one hundred 
 whites here at the time. Some forty of these were 
 working on the mine, part of the others were 
 variously employed about the "town," and the 
 rest were waiting for a job when the railway con- 
 struction should ffo forward. The railroad had 
 
The Call of the Interior. 63 
 
 been completed to Broken Hill only two months 
 previously and many of the men expected the work 
 to go on at once. 
 
 With the coming of the railway the place had 
 developed rapidly. When we arrived there were one 
 thousand natives working on the mine and several 
 hundred others working as servants, carriers, etc. 
 These numbers continued for two or three months, 
 but the personnel of both the blacks and whites 
 was constantly changing. The air was full of 
 optimism and pioneer enthusiasm. Prospectors, 
 scientists, savants, mining engineers, tourists, and 
 speculators were coming and going with each train. 
 
 Religiously^, there was nothing being done. 
 Three services had at long intervals been held by 
 visiting clergymen and missionaries. But there 
 was no local Church organization, no resident 
 preacher, nor regular preaching services. 
 
 Among the natives were about sixty young men 
 who had, for a longer or shorter period, attended 
 some of the Scotch missions in Nyasaland. Many 
 of them were in the employ of the African Lakes 
 (Trading) Corporation. Some of these fre- 
 quently held prayer meetings among themselves. 
 Others of them were drifting. 
 
 As the rainy season had just begun, we could 
 not proceed on our long trek for four or five 
 
64 The Heart op Central Ap^rica. 
 
 months, so I felt it my duty to do whatever was 
 in my power for both blacks and whites during 
 our stay. Finding that no Christian work had 
 been inaugurated among the natives in the mine 
 compound, I went at once to the manager of all 
 this group of mines, Mr. Howard Moffat, who is 
 a grandson of Robert Moffat and a nephew of 
 David Livingstone, and asked his permission to 
 hold services there. jNIr. Moffat was very willing, 
 and all through those five months' stay gave all 
 possible assistance. 
 
 He gave me the use of the mine interpreters, 
 and, from that first Sunday until we left, I con- 
 tinued to hold regular meetings on the compound. 
 
 There was also a group of thirty-two Zulu- 
 speaking natives. They had worked on the rail- 
 way as linkers-in and were now waiting here idle 
 for the road to proceed, being rationed by the 
 contractors. They were recommended to me as 
 being the worst crowd about the camp. That 
 was saying a good deal, but the reputation was 
 verified. Having nothing to do, and being at 
 liberty to earn all the spending money they 
 wanted, they gave themselves up to hard drink- 
 ing and native women. 
 
 As they were called ":Mission Boys," I began 
 an investigation. I found one of their number 
 

 H 
 
 
 w 
 ^ 
 y; 
 
 K 
 
The Call of the Interior. 65 
 
 was a man, perhaps thirty years old, by the name 
 of Jacob. He was a tall, raw-boned Matebele who 
 had once attended a mission school for six months. 
 Every one of his companions testified that they 
 had never known Jacob to drink or join any of 
 their carousals. He was fond of singing hymns 
 and had taught them to the others, and it was 
 their nightly and prolonged hymn-singing that 
 had given them the title of "Mission Boys." 
 None of the others had ever attended a mission. 
 
 But several said they would like to learn and 
 were willing to build a little mud hut for a school- 
 house and chapel. Jacob, who could just manage 
 a primer and hymn book, offered his services as 
 a teacher, free of charge, and so there was soon 
 quite a little night school. 
 
 As has already been related, Jacob joined us 
 when we proceeded from Broken Hill and went the 
 whole 1,500 miles to Angola to school. , 
 
 I also began holding services for Europeans | 
 every Sunday night. As there was no room or 
 building of any description suitable for religious 
 meetings, I called a mass meeting and put the 
 proposition before them that they build a tem- 
 porary mud and pole chapel, and that I would hold 
 regular services there gratis during my few 
 months' stay. 
 5 
 
66 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 This was carried through and soon the funds 
 were subscribed and put in the hands of a repre- 
 sentative committee, who would have charge over 
 the chapel after I had gone, securing any visiting 
 clergyman to hold service. This was the first 
 church for whites to be erected along this rail- 
 road north of Bulawayo, a distance of nearly 
 seven hundred miles. 
 
 Those were the days of first things in all that 
 new country. Inside of a week I was asked to 
 perform the first christening. A few days later I 
 was asked to officiate at the first wedding. It 
 was held in the hotel dining-room. Now the 
 "hotel" was a collection of grass-thatched, cir- 
 cular mud huts, and the dining-room boasted itself 
 of being square and having a brick floor instead 
 of mud. It was fourteen by twenty feet and was 
 well filled at the time of the wedding. Word had 
 gone out that there would be plenty of whisky for 
 all who came. 
 
 The bride was a pretty Scotch girl, who looked 
 charming in her white veil and gown. The groom 
 was an Australian who was working on the 
 mine. 
 
 No sooner was the ceremony ended than the 
 refreshments began, and in an hour's time a row 
 
The Call of the Interior. 67 
 
 seemed inevitable. But the offenders were lured 
 outside and engaged in games, and so the day and 
 evening ended in good humor, though considerable 
 of it was maudlin humor. 
 
 When we got the church funds in hand there 
 was enough to put up the chapel and a two- 
 roomed hut beside it. Here we took up our abode, 
 welcoming all of the white men who frequently 
 called and for whom there was ever the cup of 
 tea, or a share of our own simple fare for the 
 hungry, of whom there were many. Many of these 
 men keenly enjoyed getting into a homelike at- 
 mosphere again. 
 
 Of the various parties coming and going, no 
 other interested us so much as that of Mr. Malcolm 
 M. Moffat, his wife, and two children, who ar- 
 rived the last week in April. He and his wife had 
 already spent five years in the Livingstonia Mis- 
 sion in Northeastern Rhodesia under the Free 
 Church of Scotland. He was now under appoint- 
 ment to open up the work of a Livingstone Me- 
 morial Mission near Chitambo's kraal, where Liv- 
 ingstone died and where his heart is buried, about 
 two hundred miles east of Broken Hill. 
 
 Mr. Moffat left Broken Hill for Chitambo's on 
 May 2d, just thirty-four years and one day after 
 
68 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Livingstone had breathed out his final prayer alone 
 on his knees, so remote from civilization. But 
 during those tliirty-four years the spirit of David 
 Livingstone has still worked in the world, and 
 slowly but surely has been stirring the Christian 
 world to the great task of finally "healing the open 
 sore of the world." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 LEAVING BROKEN HILL. 
 
 During the rainy season, which continues 
 from October to March, the country to the north 
 of Broken Hill was largely under water, and to 
 travel at that time would mean wading in water 
 from one to four feet deep for long distances, not 
 to mention the big swamps and flooded rivers to 
 cross. 
 
 By April the rains were well over and another 
 month would dry up the trail sufficiently for us 
 to travel. So we set Monday, the 13th of May, for 
 our departure. 
 
 But at the same time that we set this date, we 
 had none of our supplies in hand and no way of 
 knowing when they would arrive. The tent and 
 camp outfit, with some clothing and provisions, 
 had been ordered from the United States eight 
 months previously. The rest of our food sup- 
 plies, photographic materials, etc., we could get 
 in Cape Town, Bulawayo, or locally. The money, 
 we learned, had not left New York. 
 
 69 
 
70 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Not the least important of our needs was that 
 of carriers. It was important, if possible, to get 
 men who would go the whole distance with us. 
 Otherwise, we might be left stranded and helpless 
 in the midst of some hostile tribe. 
 
 As Ave were leaving a base of supplies, with 
 no chance of replenishing, we needed to take all 
 the European food we should require for our own 
 use and all the trading goods necessary to pro- 
 vide food for our caravan for the entire period. 
 In short, we must take of food, cloth, salt, beads, 
 medicines, and photographic supplies enough to 
 last four months. 
 
 We expected to use as much native food as 
 possible for our own diet. But previous personal 
 experience and the experience of hundreds of other 
 whites had proved that the white man can not 
 keep up his strength and health on the trail by 
 depending on native foods alone. It is not so bad 
 as long as one can buy plenty of sweet potatoes, 
 which make a good meal either raw or cooked. 
 P" But when it comes to the varieties of mush — millet 
 nmsh, Kaffir corn mush, sour cassava mush, and a 
 three-times-a-day diet of nothing else but sticky, 
 gritty, unappetizing mush — it won't keep a white 
 man in good condition. He is almost sure to get 
 down sick on it. 
 
 V 
 
Leaving Broken Hill. 71 
 
 So we took along two fifty-pound loads of 
 whole wheat flour, or Boer meal. We also took a 
 case and a half of milk, tea, coffee, canned fish, 
 cheese, and jam, a case of Welch's grape juice 
 for use in fever, arrowroot to be used if we got 
 that most dreaded foe of the trail, dysentery. We 
 also had to have candles, matches, a small amount 
 of soap, and numerous odds and ends of little 
 things which contribute to health and efficiency ; 
 for we neither wished to die on the way, to reach 
 Angola in a dying state, or to be unfitted for work 
 for long months when the journey should be over. 
 
 In order to take the things absolutely needed 
 (and we went over our list time and time again, 
 cutting out everything we felt we could possibly 
 do without) we required forty carriers. 
 
 Now, certain white men at Broken Hill had 
 been waiting for weeks to get carriers, so when 
 we told them that we expected to leave May 13th, 
 they laughed and said, "No, you won't." 
 
 As previously stated, for more than a year we 
 had been making every detail of this trip — the car- 
 riers, route, funds, dates, and the securing of infor- 
 mation about it — a subject of constant prayer. 
 Now an earnest of the answer for carriers was 
 granted the first week in April, when eight Angoni 
 men, who had just arrived there from their own 
 
72 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 country, six hundred miles cast, came to me. They 
 said that they had heard that I was about to make 
 a long journey and they wished to go with me. I 
 engaged them and they went with me straight 
 through to Angola, the most faithful and efficient 
 men I had. I consider it as one of the most signal 
 of the many answers to our prayers. 
 
 But no more carriers, and none of our goods 
 came during that month. It was a month of walk- 
 ing solely by faith. 
 
 Monday, May 6th, came around without any- 
 thing further in sight; still, we believed that we 
 should leave the next week, and made all plans 
 for that. And, sure enough, just when they were 
 needed, and not before, everything came to hand. 
 
 On Tuesday additional carriers began coming 
 to me, until I had thirty. On Thursday the money 
 came by cable, the tent and other necessaries also 
 arrived, so that we were awed as we saw God's 
 wonderful providence manifested. From that 
 time on there could not be the shadow of a doubt 
 as to His purposes regarding the expedition, nor 
 of His especial care and guidance. 
 
 Friday and Saturday found us unpacking 
 goods received and repacking them into sixty- 
 pound loads. 
 
 Sunday was devoted to farewell services with 
 
Leaving Broken Hill. 73 
 
 the several groups to whom I had been ministering 
 during these months. 
 
 Monday Mr. MofFat let me have eleven men 
 from the mine to go with us a week at least. The 
 delays incident to starting out on such a long trip 
 seemed numberless, and so it was near the noon 
 hour when our carriers at last lifted their loads 
 onto their heads and our caravan wound out of 
 Broken Hill, 
 
 We were accompanied by Mr. Frank E. Gif- 
 ford, a young English Wesleyan, whom we found 
 employed on the mine at Broken Hill, and be- 
 tween whom and ourselves there had sprung up 
 a mutual attachment. Three weeks before we left 
 he received notice that the mine was closing down 
 indefinitely, pending experiments as to the best 
 methods of treating the ore and the subsequent 
 installation of smelters, and he, with most of the 
 other employes, was being laid off. He, therefore, 
 proposed accompanying us to the copper mines 
 further north to seek employment. Failing to 
 get work, he continued all the way to England 
 with us. 
 
 Our late start brought us to the first water, 
 twelve miles out, about sundown, all three of us with 
 badly blistered feet and the carriers in bad humor. 
 The native wants to be in camp by four o'clock 
 
74 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 at the latest, so that he can get wood, and water, 
 and fix up his bed of grass before dark. Then 
 the next day we did not get started as early as 
 we wished, the kraals and water were few and far 
 between, and we were late again. They now 
 grumbled openly : they could not travel all day and 
 all night, too. Several were determined not to go 
 on and I had considerable difficulty in quelling 
 the mutiny. 
 
 During the rest of the week I had the task 
 of organizing the caravan and of assigning each 
 man his regular load and his duties when in camp. 
 Five of the machilla men were to pitch our tent, 
 two of them to bring grass for our bed, and a 
 third gather wood for the evening fire, for the 
 nights were cold, the thermometer registering 
 from 48 degrees down to 28 degrees. 
 
 By the time these things were done Jacob 
 usually arrived, and his task was to make the bed 
 and place all our personal effects inside the tent. 
 
 Benjamin carried no load except his own 
 blanket and clothes. He had to work early in 
 the morning and often until late at night baking 
 our bread, and that was enough for him. 
 
 Neither did the Capitao carry a load. His 
 duty it was to walk at the rear end of the caravan 
 and be the last man to reach camp. If any fell 
 
^0^=^EF^^ 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
Leaving Broken Hill. 75 
 
 sick on the trail, he had to carry the load and 
 see that the man reached the camp in safety. The 
 office of capitao is important and trying. But we 
 had a splendid one from among the eight Angoni. 
 
 Every man in the caravan thus had his evening 
 and morning duties. The last thing at night, 
 after the evening meal had been eaten, one of the 
 Angoni saw that all the loads were safe from the 
 ravages of the white ants or termites. 
 
 In the morning the same -boys who put up 
 the tent took it down and gave the tent, blankets, 
 etc., to their respective carriers. We then ate 
 a hurried and very simple breakfast, and a call 
 was made for prayers. The whole caravan gath- 
 ered around and stood with bowed heads while 
 we committed ourselves to God for the day, asking 
 His guidance and protection, the supplying of all 
 our needs, and praying that the Light might 
 soon shine in all that dark land. 
 
 Two articles we took on that trip gave us such 
 satisfaction that they deserve special mention; the 
 one was a balloon silk tent, and the other a tin bake 
 oven. The tent was very light in weight, and, with 
 its floor sewed on, was very compact and comfort- 
 able. The floor was rot-proof, ant-proof, brown 
 canvas, so we could put our things down at night 
 without the danger of having them devoured before 
 
76 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 morning. The tent was too hot and light to give the 
 best comfort bj day, but for those making rapid 
 marches it is excellent. 
 
 The bake oven consisted of fiA^e pieces of tin, 
 which folded flat. They opened like an alligator's 
 jaws, with a shelf in the center. On this shelf we 
 could bake anything to perfection — meat, bread, 
 potatoes — as well as in the finest stove oven. It 
 was one of our pleasures during the evening to 
 sit by the big log fire and watch our bread baking 
 over on the other side. The oven only weighed 
 three pounds and took little space in the kitchen 
 box. 
 
 During the first month we were able to buy 
 quantities of sweet potatoes, which furnished us 
 and our carriers with the bulk of our eating. We 
 ate them raw, and baked, and boiled. As the most 
 of the carriers had been on a steady diet of musty, 
 wormy Kaffir corn for weeks before starting, they 
 fell upon the tubers like famine subjects. They 
 could hardly get enough of sweet potatoes and 
 new beans. 
 
 In Northwestern Rhodesia there obtains a good 
 custom for rationing a caravan. Each man is 
 given one yard of blue or white calico, and he 
 buys his food for a week with it. This is called 
 "posa." In addition to that, we gave our men two 
 ounces of salt each per week. 
 
Leaving Broken Hill. 77 
 
 On the third day from Broken Hill we en- 
 countered the tsetse fly, the glossina morsitans — a 
 small insect a trifle larger than the common house 
 fly. It is barred a brownish gray and a dingy 
 white over the body and down the legs. It has a 
 three-tined probosis which, like the old-fashioned 
 forks, have superior power of penetration — as we 
 soon learned. 
 
 This species is sure death to domestic animals 
 of all kinds: cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, sheep, 
 goats, dogs, and cats. From this time until 
 after we had crossed the Lualaba River, beyond 
 Kambove, we did not see a living animal about the 
 native kraals, not even a fowl. As the country 
 abounds in wild game, there is plenty of meat for 
 those who can take the time to hunt for it. And 
 it is a satisfaction to know that in time, with the 
 settling of the country, when the wild game dis- 
 appears, the fly goes with it. 
 
 The glossina morsitans is not fatal to human 
 beings, and beyond a stinging bite, like the thrust 
 of a red-hot needle into the skin, and a big welt 
 which smarts and itches as if done by a score of 
 mosquitoes, its bite is harmless. Not so the glos- 
 sina palpalis, or black-legged tsetse. It is now 
 believed that this species is responsible for the 
 sleeping sickness. Scientists are still in the dark 
 
78 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 as to how this fly transmits the disease and in 
 what respect it differs from its striped brother. 
 
 A number of scientists are devoting themselves 
 to the investigation of this dreaded sleeping sick- 
 ness to see if they can discover the preventative, 
 and also a cure. So far they have not found either, 
 while one or two of them have died from the sleep- 
 ing sickness. For years it was thought that white 
 people were immune from it, but now that this 
 has been proved untrue, it is all the more needful 
 to learn some way to cope with it. 
 
 Starting on the lower Congo, about twenty 
 years ago, the disease spread rapidly up the river 
 and has now got as far south as Northwestern 
 Rhodesia, though the government is doing all it 
 can to restrict it. 
 
 It is claimed that the bite of the fly does not 
 necessarily show any immediate effects and death 
 may not take place for ten ^^ears later, but, sooner 
 or later, it is inevitable. The first symptoms which 
 enable one to be sure that the case is one of sleep- 
 ing; sickness is a formation of "beans" down the 
 lymphatic glands at the back of the neck. Run- 
 ning the fingers over the glands, these bean-like 
 formations can be readily felt. 
 
 When we were nearly to Angola, one of the best 
 of the machilla men came to me one day and asked 
 
Leaving Broken Hill. 79 
 
 to be freed from the machilla and given a load. 
 He said he had a lame neck. On examination it 
 was found that these "beans" were there. I, of 
 course, did not mention them to him, but gave him 
 the other load, as he had asked. 
 
 Soon he came again, saying that he felt too 
 badly to carry any load, so I let him off entirely. 
 He seemed extremely nervous and began to fail 
 rapidly. As we reached Angola soon, I saw him 
 no more and I do not know the result. 
 
 But the disease has been a dreadful scourge. 
 One of the scientists, in writing from a sleeping- 
 sickness camp, describes the situation thus : "From 
 this place we have a most exquisite view as far as 
 the eye can see — valley, wood, and hill, and, far 
 away, a great range of mountains. To the south 
 of us, for many miles, the country is deserted on 
 account of sleeping sickness. Thousands died 
 and the others left. Here we are close to a sleep- 
 ing-sickness camp, so we get the full benefit of 
 the cries of the delirious patients. There are 515 
 people in this camp. Ten men are employed to 
 remove jiggers from the feet of the patients." 
 
 Another authority states : "From the best sta- 
 tistics available, the number of deaths in the 
 Uganda protectorate, during the last five or six 
 years, has considerably exceeded 200,000, or has 
 
80 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 been equal to more than two-thirds of the entire 
 population in the affected districts. The lake 
 shore and the islands have been almost completely 
 depopulated, and thousands of the sick have been 
 abandoned by their terror-stricken relatives to 
 starvation or to wild beasts." 
 
 It is encouraging to note that the heroic men 
 who are engaged in the study of this dread malady 
 believe that it may be exterminated in a similar 
 way to malaria — the abolishing of suitable breed- 
 ing places and the removal of infected patients 
 from the reach of the fly. 
 
 So far as we knew, we did not come into any 
 region of the glossina palpilis, though we were the 
 tortured victims of the glossina morsitans for five 
 weeks. 
 
 While at Broken Hill Mr. Gifford had de- 
 bated long whether to take his bicycle along or 
 not. So many men were leaving that there was 
 no sale for that or anything else, so at last he de- 
 cided to make the venture. During the first week 
 the country was fairly level, the trails of the usual 
 crookedness, and only the orthodox amount of ant 
 hills, fallen sticks, and other obstructions. 
 
 What with badly blistered feet, we were both 
 glad to take turns at riding the wheel to rest our 
 feet, and at walking again, to rest our eyes and 
 
Leaving Broken Hill. 81 
 
 nerves. On the whole, we decided that the wheel 
 was an advantage. It became more doubtful after 
 we got into the fly belt, for, whether we rode, la- 
 boriously pedalling, with both hands clenched on 
 the handle bars and both eyes glued on the path 
 ahead, or whether we walked behind the machine, 
 which acted like a fiend incarnate as we tried to 
 push it through the grass from six to eight feet 
 high, it seemed as if the flies sensed that both our 
 hands were engaged, and they settled down over 
 our bare necks and arms in a maddening swarm. 
 
 The question nearly settled itself on the Sat- 
 urday after we started when we came to several 
 miles of timber land where an abundance of trees 
 had been cut down, leaving their stumps close to 
 the trail. After dismounting a score of times or 
 so, Gifford thought at last that he saw a clear 
 track, nor knew the contrary until he lay on the 
 other side of a stump, his bleeding knee thrust 
 through his khaki trousers and the front wheel 
 of the bicycle bent into a bow. He had then, 
 fortunately, only a short distance to the Baptist 
 Mission, for which we were heading. 
 
 There were but few native kraals along the 
 way, and we were struck with the miserable ap- 
 pearance of the few. The huts were merely grass 
 roofs set on the ground, under which the people 
 6 
 
82 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 existed. The gardens were small and uncarcd for. 
 The natives impressed one as being just the rag- 
 tags left by the slave raiders, who had taken all 
 worth while with them, and these few all smoked 
 the hemp pipe, the effects of which are even worse 
 than those of opium. A more degenerate, hope- 
 less lot of people it would be hard to find. Every 
 where the hemp pipe, with its long reed in water, 
 through which the inhalation is drawn, was in evi- 
 dence, and always we could hear the violent cough- 
 ing of the victim which accompanies this dread 
 habit. So pernicious is this habit that the govern- 
 ment is taking measures to stamp it out. The 
 police are instructed to destroy all the hemp plants 
 they can find as they patrol the country. 
 
 We had not taken the direct route from Broken 
 Hill to Kanshanshi tlu-ough Kapopo for two 
 reasons. One was that there were two Baptist 
 missionaries on a lone station, just one hundred 
 miles north of us, and we wished to spend a Sunday 
 with them. 
 
 The other reason was that on the Kapopo route 
 there was the vast Lukanga swamp to cross. One 
 of the first government officials to cross this swamp 
 got a chief of one of the villages to be his guide. 
 At one place the chief disappeared through a hole 
 and, though his load (being a tent) was recovered. 
 
Leaving Broken Hill. 83 
 
 he was never seen again. Another man in crossing 
 had a hippopotamus suddenly come up beside him 
 and then disappear. 
 
 That there is a good-sized river underneath 
 the swamp is quite believable, and it is evident that 
 somewhere there is an obstruction to its flow, for 
 the swamp is steadily extending its area. But its 
 solid mass of reeds die down each year and form 
 hummocks, which afford sufficiently solid footing 
 to enable thousands of loaded carriers to cross it 
 each year. 
 
 After the empty country and the few down-at- 
 the-heel kraals we had seen for five days, it was 
 a delight to come to substantial, well-cultivated 
 fields and see bright, eager-faced natives. We 
 were the first missionaries to visit this Kafulafuta 
 Mission, and the natives had never seen a white 
 woman before. 
 
 As soon as the men who were out in the gardens 
 working — please note! — saw the machilla and 
 learned that there was a white woman in it, they 
 dropped their tools and, crowding around, vied 
 with each other as to who should help in carrying 
 it. By the time she reached the mission there was 
 a crowd of about fifty men and boys, all running 
 and singing so they could be heard a mile away. 
 It was a royal reception indeed. 
 
84 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Here we were quite as heartily welcomed by 
 Mr. Phillips and his associate, Mr. Masters. They 
 had arrived from East Africa two years pre- 
 viously, and settled at the junction of the Kafue 
 and Kafulafuta Rivers. Here, on the bare veld, 
 they had succeeded in establishing a flourishing 
 mission. There were three living houses and several 
 good huts for the various station uses. They had 
 made quite extensive gardens, had quite a little 
 fruit orchard started, a large castor bean patch, etc. 
 
 There were several kraals near them and the 
 day school numbered about twenty-four. Since 
 our return home, Mr. Phillips writes me that just 
 after the second anniversary of their arrival there 
 some of the young men sought him out and ex- 
 pressed their desire to become Christians. Others 
 followed, and soon there were twenty of them 
 formed into an old-fashioned Methodist "class." 
 For that which we seem so willing to be rid of, 
 other denominations arc beginning to value. 
 
 I mention these converts particularly, because 
 in all the territory in which I had traveled for thou- 
 sands of miles in Africa I had never seen a people 
 for whom I had so little enthusiasm. To be sure, 
 no one would question their need of the Gospel, 
 but while we recognized that the two brethren had 
 done great credit to themselves in the start they 
 
Leaving Broken Hill. 85 
 
 had made, our party were all agreed, as we dis- 
 cussed the matter after leaving, that, considering 
 the low-down state of the natives of that region, 
 there would be reason for rejoicing if there were 
 any converts in ten years' time. 
 
 It certainly is a fair proposition that if a tribe 
 so nearly exterminated with the bloody slave traffic 
 which has continued for centuries, and a tribe 
 which has been given over to degeneracy, is so 
 susceptible to the influences of the Gospel, what 
 may we expect of the more superior tribes to be 
 found all over Central Africa? 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 TO THE COPPER COUNTRY. 
 
 OuE next objective point was the Kanslianshi 
 copper mine, two hundred miles further northwest, 
 on the border of the Congo Free State. 
 
 No one at Kafulafuta knew of any trail by 
 which we could go from there directly to Kan- 
 slianshi, neither the white men nor any of the 
 natives. One native said he knew a path to one 
 village in that direction, but others said that we 
 would have to go five days ere we reached a kraal. 
 We got our brethren to let us have the one man 
 who claimed to know ever so little, and set forth 
 only to discover that our guide really did not know 
 the way at all, and so by noon I had to resort to 
 m}^ compass and follow the best-worn trail, which 
 soon turned in the wrong direction and we had to 
 take to the pathless veld. After an anxious day and 
 twenty miles of hard travel we were rejoiced to see 
 native gardens, and at last came to an old man. 
 
 We were not near a kraal, but the old man 
 went to the garden people and told them we were 
 
To THE Copper Country. 87 
 
 hungry, so that by dusk we were doing quite a 
 brisk trade. As the thermometer went down to 
 32 degrees that night, we all suffered from the 
 cold. 
 
 The next morning, after an hour's walking, we 
 came to the kraal. The chief and his people were 
 in their gardens, but came quickly in response to 
 call. In the meantime we fought fleas. The place 
 was just alive with them, and we were soon pep- 
 pered with the tormenting, vicious little pests. 
 
 As soon as the natives arrived I told the chief 
 that I wanted a guide to take me due northwest, 
 to Kanshanshi. Then one of the young men spoke 
 up and said there was no path and there were no 
 villages nor water in that direction, but we would 
 have to turn back and go southwest to Kapopo. 
 The chief and all his people swore that he was 
 right. They vowed we could go east, or north, or 
 southwest, but not northwest. This would mean a 
 loss of from two to four days, which we could not 
 afford, and I told them I knew there was a path 
 in the right direction and they must give me 
 guides, whom I would pay well. We needed a 
 guide, as part of the country was depopulated by 
 the slave trade, and we must pass through vil- 
 lages in order to get food for the caravan. 
 
 And so I stood there and insisted that we would 
 
88 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 go one way, and the natives persisted that we must 
 go another, and this excited debate continued for 
 more than an hour and waxed so warm that I soon 
 forgot all about the fleas, which were making life 
 miserable for my wife and GifFord. 
 
 Bub after about an hour I won the day. 
 Among the carriers I had borrowed from'the mine 
 was one man whom I dubbed "Joab." He lived in 
 the Congo State and, when he came up, joined in 
 the discussion. "Why, you know where Chima- 
 gata's kraal is?" said Joab. "Yes, we know where 
 that is," was the incautious reply. "Then show us 
 the path leading to it," said Joab. They saw they 
 were caught, and good-humoredly took their de- 
 feat, and in a few minutes I had engaged two 
 guides to go with us five da3's, one of them being 
 the young buck who had so strongly insisted there 
 was no trail in that direction. 
 
 Now, why these all united in lying so steadily 
 for the space of an hour or more, is more than I 
 can fully explain. It probably is connected with 
 the fear of slave raiders, who may do damage, for 
 which the guides may have to answer later ; but, no 
 doubt, much of it is due to the native oi)lnion that 
 a lie is an evidence of cleverness, an idea that has 
 not wholly been eradicated from civilization. 
 
 Two miles further on we came onto a group of 
 
To THE Copper Country. 89 
 
 beautiful sable antelope grazing by the Rufubu 
 River, but they were gone before we could get our 
 guns, and, although we pitched camp and kept 
 hunting for them, the grass was so long that we 
 got nothing. 
 
 From this on, for several days we were in a 
 hunter's paradise (at the wrong season, on account 
 of the long grass). Every day we saw spoor 
 (tracks) of elephants, buffaloes, rhinoceri, ante- 
 lopes, buck of at least a dozen varieties, lions, 
 leopards, and hyenas. But the grass was against 
 us not only in hiding the game, but in harboring 
 swarms of the tsetse flies. In the forest there were 
 fewer flies, but swarms of bees. 
 
 One morning Mrs. Springer and I were walk- 
 ing along with one of the guides, the caravan be- 
 ing far in the rear. Suddenly I saw a large, lone 
 bull baff^alo down in the vlej standing quietly re- 
 garding us. We needed meat badly for our boys, 
 but a wounded bufl^alo is perhaps the most danger- 
 ous animal in all Africa to meet, and I hesitated 
 to shoot, on my wife's account. There being 
 plenty of trees, I could look out for myself. But 
 she waxed enthusiastic over the prospect of fresh 
 meat, and hid away behind some bushes, where she 
 was reasonably safe. I went off' to an ant hill, in 
 another direction, and fired, wounding the animal 
 
90 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 in the abdomen. Instead of charging the ant hill, 
 as I had expected, he galloped straight ahead, and 
 I did not dare to fire again, lest he veer and catch 
 sight of my wife. We followed his spoor of blood 
 and half-digested food for four miles, but could 
 not get him. 
 
 About that time mj boys spied a few bees and 
 quickly made their way to a tree in which was the 
 nest. One man climbed the tree, another made a 
 smudge of old rags which he tore from his scanty 
 loin cloth, and the first man shoved it into a small 
 opening in the tree. A third man quickly chopped 
 off a piece of bark, which he made into a trough. 
 The first man reached into the tree and pulled out 
 chunk after chunk of honey without the least sign 
 of fear, although the bees were crawling all over 
 his hands and arms. 
 
 It was now nearly noon and I was faint from 
 the chase, so I took one fine piece of honey and ate 
 it, but its effect on me was very different from that 
 on Jonathan, the valiant son of Saul. My eyes 
 were not enlightened, and I soon lost all my valor 
 and, subsequently, the honey. 
 
 The beauty of the country through which we 
 were passing was a continual delight to the eye. 
 There were no high ranges of hills, but the country 
 was undulatory and for the most part well adapted 
 
To THE Copper Country. 91 
 
 to fanning, though now heavily tnnborcd. Sonic- 
 tinics there were swampy stretches, small streams of 
 beautiful water were abundant, and large rivers 
 were not infrequent. Some of the rivers had to be 
 crossed on tree trunks, some waded, and sonie in di- 
 lapidated bark canoes in charge of native ferry- 
 men, to whom we had to pay from one to six yards 
 of cloth as ferriage for the entire caravan. 
 
 Although it was the sere of the year, yet ex- 
 quisite blossoms greeted us on every hand, for in 
 her great African conservatory Nature has ar- 
 ranged for a succession of flowers the whole year 
 round. Adornment seems to be her constiint pas- 
 sion, and even where the veld fires leave a black- 
 ened wake, in but a few days the sooty background 
 is starred with yellows, white, crimson, and nearly 
 all other colors. And the white, barren, sandy 
 stretches which so tire the feet of the traveler are 
 also cheered with masses of dainty he;ither. 
 
 Moreover, we were not only in a hunter's para- 
 dise, but what would have been an entomologist's 
 heaven. Even the attacks of the flics, mosquitoes, 
 and the savage ants could not prevent a thorough 
 enjoyment of tlie miriads of new and funny insects, 
 beetles, and bugs. We never tired of that sociable 
 little chap, the praying mantis. He has such an 
 endless variety of costumes. His conunon garb is 
 
92 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 straw-colored and makes him look like a piece of 
 dry grass. But sometimes he 's green as grass, 
 then again he copies the leaves of the trees, and at 
 this time we saw the most beautiful specimen yet, 
 a mantis about ten inches long, an exact reproduc- 
 tion of the rough moss which grows on trees. But 
 he refused to be caught for closer examination, like 
 the other members of his family, who would walk 
 over us and be handled without the least sign of 
 fear. 
 
 The bees were friendly, too ; uncomfortably so. 
 As we rested in camp the next Sunday, they lighted 
 on everything and everybody, though no one was 
 stung. Our bo^'s foraged and brought in loads 
 of honey, and bees with it. There were swarms 
 that da3^ of bees, tsetse flies, and big deer flies, all 
 of which tend to keep the memory of that Sunday 
 green in our minds. 
 
 The second week we entered the Wakaonda 
 country, and from there to Kanshanshi were among 
 the Wakaonda tribe. We were struck at once with 
 the superior physical appearance of the people and 
 the air of alertness and ambition shown by them 
 in their large, clean kraals, well built, commodious 
 mud huts, carved wooden stools, which they 
 brought out for us to sit on, and the absence of 
 the hemp pipe. At Kanshanshi we were told that 
 
To THE Copper Country. 93 
 
 this tribe positively refrains fi'om all hemp-smok- 
 ing. We were also told by the manager of the 
 mine, who had been among them six years, that he 
 considered the Wakaonda one of the finest tribes 
 he had ever met in a long experience in South 
 Africa. 
 
 On several evenings the Wakaonda women came 
 out to our camp to look at Mrs. Springer, she be- 
 ing the first white woman they had ever seen. 
 Their heads were loaded down with beads and 
 cowry shells woven into the hair. It was odd, but 
 not ugly. Like most of the women of other tribes 
 through which we passed, their ornaments were 
 their chief articles of clothing. But in the previous 
 tribes there was not enough ambition among the 
 people to even wear ornaments of any amount. 
 
 On the fourth day out from Ivanshanshi we 
 came to the kraal of Kaliere, which had been raided 
 by slavers from the west only a year previously, and 
 several persons carried away as slaves to Angola. 
 
 For a week past I had had one carrier very sick 
 with bloody flux. I had not dared to leave him 
 where he might be seized and sold for a slave if 
 he got well, but when we got on the main trail 
 from Kapopo to Kanshanshi, where hundreds of 
 carriers were constantly going back and forth, I 
 left him, and two of his brothers with him. 
 
94 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 The next day being Saturday, we had to reach 
 a kraal for Sunday, so we covered twenty-five miles 
 to do it. I then paid off three other brothers of 
 the sick man, so that they could go back and take 
 care of him. 
 
 This left me short of carriers, and a big, fat, 
 cheeky fellow thought he would take advantage of 
 the fact to demand more pay. He influenced his 
 gang of six to mutiny and, when they could not 
 accomplish their ends, to desert. This was the only 
 case of desertion I had during the entire journey. 
 
 As I then had to load up the machilla men, 
 leaving only two to carry the machilla, Mrs. 
 Springer had to walk nearly the whole way the 
 next two days, until we came to the farm of an 
 enterprising young Frenchman, M. Nicoley, who 
 was making an early and worthy start toward sup- 
 plying grain and vegetables for the Kanshanshi 
 mine, seven miles away. What with the fly pre- 
 venting all cattle being used, and the necessity of 
 farming entirely Avith native hoes, with the lum- 
 bersome hippopotami tramping down his fields 
 by night and the flocks of paroquets eating his 
 standing grain by day, his task of establishing a 
 farm was not an easy one. Nevertheless he was 
 surely succeeding. 
 
 The next morning M. Nicoley let mc have five 
 
To THE Copper Country. 95 
 
 of his men, and we pushed on to Kanshanshi, the 
 second landmark in our journey. 
 
 This is the first of the great copper mines dis- 
 covered by the Tanganika Concessions, a large 
 English company. There is evidence that it was 
 worked by the natives of the country centuries ago. 
 Thousands of tons of copper have been taken out, 
 and in some places they had gone down as low 
 as forty feet on the reef, taking out only the ore. 
 
 Although in recent years this part of the 
 country had been practically deserted by the na- 
 tives, it is not at all unlikely that these ancient 
 workings were done by the Bantu race, for else- 
 where the natives still continue the digging, smelt- 
 ing, and working of copper. Large copper coins 
 in the shape of a Greek cross were in use when 
 the white men arrived, in 1899. 
 
 When the prospecting party reached that coun- 
 try there was no village within twenty-eight miles 
 of Kanshanshi, nor were there any paths in the 
 almost unbroken forest all around. 
 
 But the Wakaonda knew of the copper de- 
 posit, and the party was directed by Kasempa to 
 Peripanga, and he conducted them to the mine, 
 receiving a few blankets as a reward for his 
 services. 
 
 The Cape-to-Cairo Railway had at that time 
 
96 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 only reached Bulawayo, eight hundred miles to the 
 south. Therefore, on account of expensive and 
 slow transport, the development of the mine had 
 been slow. Some of the heaviest machinery was 
 taken up on three ox-wagons with sixty oxen. 
 They had to make their road through the fly belt, 
 and the oxen all died within a few months. 
 
 At the time of our visit the mine had been 
 proved to a depth of two hundred feet and a sub- 
 stantial lode, which smelted from five to forty-five 
 per cent pure copper, with an average of fifteen 
 per cent, had been exposed. The smelted copper 
 contains an ounce of gold per ton. 
 
 Shortly after we passed through Kanshanshi a 
 smelting plant arrived and was hauled up from 
 Broken Hill by traction engines. About one hun- 
 dred tons of copper is now being smelted each 
 month and hauled down to the rail head by these 
 same engines. 
 
 This deposit of copper outcrops in several dis- 
 tinct reefs in the kopje, or hill, which rises some 
 two hundred feet above the surrounding country. 
 We were taken to the top of this hill by Mr. Rob- 
 inson, the manager. 
 
 It was a decided relief to get onto some such 
 eminence, for all the way from Broken Hill we 
 had been traveling in an almost interminable for- 
 
To THE Copper Country. 97 
 
 est. We had crossed a few ridges, but on them the 
 trees were thickest and so high that no outlook was 
 afforded. The open spaces of country had been 
 largely confined to low, swampy vlejs. 
 
 The Kanshanshi kopje was like an island in a 
 sea of undulating tree tops that surrounded us in 
 every direction. Occasionally could be seen an 
 open vlej, and here and there a clearing for some 
 native garden as the natives from the thickly pop- 
 ulated sections are coming nearer to the mine. 
 
 Within the circle of the horizon were perhaps 
 a score of other kopjes, varying slightly in size, 
 the most conspicuous of them being Chafugama, 
 a mountain just within British territory, six miles 
 north of Kanshanshi. 
 
 From this view-point we were able to get a 
 good idea of the Congo-Zambesi watershed, which 
 is the natural highway from the west coast to the 
 heart of Central Africa and has been used as such 
 for decades, if not for centuries. Following its 
 course has been the famous slave route, along which 
 untold thousands of wretched captives have been 
 hurried from the interior tribes to be sold in An- 
 gola, and from there to the markets of the world. 
 Moreover, the route is still marked with the bones 
 of recent victims. 
 
 This watershed extends in an easterly and west- 
 7 
 
98 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 erly direction from a point seven hundred miles 
 west of Kanshanshi to near Lake Nyasa, six hun- 
 dred miles east. Throughout this entire length 
 there is a well-sustained height of from 4,000 to 
 5,500 feet, the altitude at a number of places, as 
 here at Kanshanshi, approximating a mile above 
 sea level. 
 
 This is the roof of Central Africa, from which 
 flow two of the largest and most magnificent water 
 systems of the world. It is not a high or well- 
 defined ridge, or a range of hills : its elevation is 
 but little above that of the surrounding country. 
 
 To use a very homely illustration, the physical 
 geography of Central Africa might be likened to 
 the roof of a shed, carriage-house, or lean-to. 
 From the coast all around South Africa the land 
 rises rapidly, so that tAvo hundred miles inland 
 there is usually an elevation of about three thou- 
 sand feet, forming an immense and for the most 
 part a rather level plateau from three to five thou- 
 sand feet in altitude. 
 
 This constitutes what is popularly known as 
 the white man's country, as, on account of the alti- 
 tude, most of this plateau is healthful and safe for 
 white occupation. 
 
 To the north of the Congo-Zambesi watershed 
 the elevation decreases nearly half inside of two 
 
To THE Copper Country. 99 
 
 hundred miles. The Lualaba River, which rises 
 only a few miles from Kanshanshi and which will 
 be more particularly mentioned later, drops about 
 three thousand feet in two hundred and fifty miles. 
 This watershed therefore marks the rather abrupt 
 end of this plateau, which for two thousand miles 
 southward has an average elevation of about four 
 thousand feet, and it marks also the beginning of 
 the hot, densely-populated, unhealthy regions of 
 the Congo basin to the north. 
 
 This watershed is the line on which the Ben- 
 guella Railway, which is already completed for 
 one hundred and fifty miles from Lobito Bay, will 
 be laid. It is said that there are four hundred and 
 fifty miles of almost level land without a single 
 bridge to build. 
 
 From being the scene of slave-raiding and the 
 line of march of the slave caravans dragging their 
 wretched victims along loaded with heavy logs and 
 chains, spurred by the brutal lash of the slave- 
 driver or left piteously to die of starvation or by 
 wild beasts by the trail, this watershed will in a 
 very few years be transformed into an iron high- 
 way over which shall go the legitimate traffic of 
 Central Africa. 
 
 It is also expected that the bulk of the mail 
 and passenger traffic from London to Rhodesia 
 
100 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 and the Transvaal will pass this way, as there will 
 be a saving of four to six days by this route. 
 
 As we stood there that day, with the Wakaonda 
 country stretching along in British territory to 
 the south of the divide, and with the extensive 
 mineral field all around us, the strategic value of 
 this healthy location was obvious. Here in this 
 very vicinity was a matchless location for a train- 
 ing institution to be related to the work on the 
 mines, in the kraals, and in the towns which are to 
 spring up along this rich mineral belt. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 THE TANGANYIKA CONCESSIONS. 
 
 On June 10th we left for Kambove, having 
 spent a day and a half at Kanshanshi, where we 
 had received all possible courtesy and kindness 
 from the men in charge of the mine and also from 
 the trader, Mr. Ullman, who gave us carriers with 
 which to go on, for I had had to pay off the eleven 
 natives which had been loaned to me by the Broken 
 Hill Mine, so that I should have been badly off 
 had not Mr. Ullman been able to supply me with 
 boys and food. As we had a straight trek of one 
 hundred miles without a single kraal ahead of us, 
 it was necessary to take along a week's supply of 
 food for each carrier. 
 
 Seven miles from Kanshanshi we passed the 
 boundary between Rhodesia and the Congo State. 
 This boundary follows the line of the watershed. 
 It gives a man a new appreciation of the wonderful 
 economy of this world to stand on that boundary 
 line, almost midway of the continent from east to 
 
 101 
 
102 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 west, and realize that of the tiny streamlets which 
 are born only a few rods apart, some flow south- 
 ward into the Zambesi, down over those magnificent 
 falls, and at last empty into the Indian Ocean : 
 while on the other side the waters from those crystal, 
 cold springs flow northward by leaps and bounds 
 to the mighty Congo, Avhose muddy waters can be 
 seen six miles out in the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 In the matter of paths we now had a pleasant 
 change. A straight bicycle path had been cut and 
 cleared through the forest, so that travelers be- 
 tween Kanshanshi and Kambove could make the 
 whole 110 miles in one day on their bicycles. But 
 we could not have done it on ours. It had been 
 out of commission for three or four days before 
 we reached Kanshanshi, where Giff'ord got another 
 hind wheel, so that it had now two hind wheels. It 
 reminded us strongly of the impression made by a 
 small boy's home-made pants, hard to tell which 
 way he was going. 
 
 We had to make our first stop at Musofi, fifteen 
 miles from Kanshanshi, the fii^st government sta- 
 tion of the Congo State, in charge of a Mr. 
 Thomas, who could speak English sufficiently well 
 to render conversation easy. He showed us every 
 kindness and made much of the fact that jNIrs. 
 Springer was the first white lady to visit iSlusofi. 
 
The Tanganyika Concessions. 103 
 
 We were also interested to learn that he had a 
 sister and uncle living in Newark, New Jersey. 
 
 Mr. Thomas proved to be an unusually enter- 
 prising young man. The next morning (which 
 chanced to be his twenty -fifth birthday) he took 
 us down to his gardens. 
 
 The government post at Musofi is built on an 
 elevation 5,600 feet above sea level. A half mile 
 away and about 500 feet below runs the Musofi 
 River, a vigorous little stream of beautiful water. 
 This river valley, being well sheltered from cold 
 winds and frost, and capable of easy irrigation, 
 affords an ideal place for gardens. 
 
 Mr. Thomas had wheat, tobacco, Kaffir corn, 
 Indian corn, all kinds of table vegetables, straw- 
 berries, guavas, pawpaws, bananas, lemons, or- 
 anges, etc., growing to perfection. The wheat was 
 particularly fine and was grown during the rainy 
 season, without irrigation. The rainfall in that 
 section along the divide is very heavy; fifty-nine 
 inches were registered in 1906. Mr. Thomas's ex- 
 perience and that of others proves that this whole 
 district around here is well adapted to general 
 farming. 
 
 The one drawback is the tsetse fly. And when 
 the wild game is killed or driven off, that too will 
 disappear. Certain sections are clear of them al- 
 
104 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 ready. One Boer had trekked north and had set- 
 tled with cattle in British territory near enough 
 to Musofi so that he supplied Mr. Thomas with 
 milk. 
 
 Mr. Thomas informed me that in his entire 
 district, which was half as large as the State of 
 New Jersey, there were only 1,500 natives. This 
 plateau has been depopulated chiefly by slavers, 
 the Arabs of the north and east, and the Portu- 
 guese of the west. "The open sore of the world," 
 truly ! 
 
 Ten miles beyond Musofi we crossed the first of 
 the twin sources of the Lualaba River, and three 
 and a half miles further crossed the other. They 
 were vigorous little brooks, that could easily be 
 jumped, and the memory of their clear, cold water 
 often came back to our minds as in after days we 
 tramped hot, dusty, sandy plains or camped be- 
 side one of the muddy, stinking puddles to be 
 found in the far-away Songo country. 
 
 We were still traveling in an almost unbroken 
 forest. The trees were large and graceful, from 
 forty to sixty feet in height. jNIost of tlicm were 
 of the ordinary soft wood, useless for anything ex- 
 cept firewood and temporary timbering in mines 
 and huts. 
 
 Mr. Robinson, however, informed me that he 
 
The Tanganyika Concessions. 105 
 
 had recently come upon an ant- and borer-proof 
 variety, which is exceedingly valuable for mining- 
 timber, a very hard, red wood. There is also to 
 be found mahogany and African teak, and the 
 skilled native mechanics on the mines make some 
 very creditable furniture out of these. The coun- 
 try is well watered, so that we had no difficulty in 
 finding good camping-places. And for that Sun- 
 day between the two mines, we had a particularly 
 favorable spot for a Sabbath's rest. 
 
 As has been stated, every morning we had 
 prayers with the whole caravan before setting out 
 on the trail. As the carriers represented several 
 diff'erent tribes, I used English entirely. They 
 could only understand the spirit of the act, in any 
 case. 
 
 But on Sundays I tried to get a better means 
 of communication and hold a regular service. This 
 Sunday, having eighteen Wakaonda carriers along 
 with us, I was very desirous of at least conveying 
 to them who we were and what was our business as 
 missionaries. As far as the ordinary daily needs of 
 the trail were concerned, I was always able, with 
 the few words I could pick up in passing from 
 tribe to tribe, to make myself understood. But 
 when it came to conveying deeper thoughts, and 
 
106 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 especially spiritual ideas — why, that was an en- 
 tirely different proposition. 
 
 My heart went out to these Wakaonda, and I 
 determined, if possible, to impart to them some- 
 thing of the Gospel message. So I looked about 
 for an interpreter. Benjamin understood English, 
 and I could also talk to him in the Chikaranga. 
 But the natives could not understand him. We had 
 one carrier called Sjambok (pronounced Sham- 
 buck, and meaning a whip made of hippo hide), 
 who could understand Benjamin and who could 
 also with difficulty make himself understood fairly 
 well to the Wakaonda. And when it was seen that 
 they did not understand, usually the rest of the 
 caravan chimed in, and one after another gave his 
 version, until I think the Wakaonda got to know 
 that we were not prospectors, nor hunters, nor 
 merely explorers, but that we were teachers, who 
 had a Book from God, a book which tells men how 
 to live and how to die. We told them what they 
 knew, that God the great Spirit created this world, 
 and that He created men. But we also told them 
 what they did not know, and that was that He was 
 their Father and that Jesus Christ was their Savior. 
 We said that we were missionaries, and that by 
 and by there would come teachers into their coun- 
 try to teach them about God, and what to do, and 
 
The Tanganyika Concessions. 107 
 
 what to be. It was a crude service indeed, but it 
 left a few seeds of truth, and we may find in the 
 future years that some of these grains of truth 
 fell into good ground. 
 
 This was a country rich in big and little game, 
 but for three days the tall grass prevented our 
 getting a shot, although we were sorely in need 
 of more food for our caravan. But one day we 
 came to a burnt vlej, and there, to our delight, 
 sighted a whole herd of wart hogs. As the boys 
 came up with the guns, I seized the first one, which 
 was GifFord's, and started in pursuit. Soon I came 
 to three pigs about 300 yards away and fired three 
 times without hitting any of them. Then I found 
 I had no more cartridges with me, so I went back 
 to the trail and waited for the carrier who had the 
 ammunition, when I supplied myself, and, taking 
 two bo3^s with me, went back to the pigs. 
 
 But the three pigs were gone, and I wandered 
 on to the next vlej, where I saw a big sow and a 
 half-grown pig, and got them both. The big one 
 weighed about 160 pounds and the small one fully 
 60 pounds. We strapped the big one onto a pole, 
 and the two boys carried it between them, while I 
 shouldered the small one and walked on until we 
 overtook our caravan, which had been halted at the 
 first water and where Mrs. Springer and Gifford 
 
108 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 were waiting for me. GifFord had been out looking 
 for pigs too, but had failed to see any. 
 
 Our coming was heralded with shouts of re- 
 joicing, and there was little but the bristles and 
 bones of either pig that went to waste. We saved 
 a couple of small hams for ourselves, and more de- 
 licious eating would be hard to find. 
 
 As we nearcd Kambove the character of the 
 country changed, and the last day was very hilly 
 and the scenery majestic and magnificent. But it 
 is hard to enjoy even the most beautiful country 
 when toiling along steep roads on an empty 
 stomach. Although we did not know it, we had 
 taken the easier and the longer of the two trails 
 leading to Kambove, so that we had just ten 
 miles more that day than we had expected. 
 
 I had taken the bicycle and gone on ahead in 
 the morning, expecting to strike the camp after 
 fourteen miles, or probably an hour's ride. In- 
 stead of that I had twenty-four miles of such a 
 character that I did not arrive until one o'clock. 
 Knowing that our carriers were all hungry and 
 that the others would be used up with the extra 
 walking, I got the mine to give me six carriers, 
 and we went back to meet them. I found both Mrs. 
 Springer and GifFord almost exhausted and foot- 
 sore, while the carriers were hardly able to keep on. 
 
The Tanganyika Concessions. 109 
 
 and some of them utterly unable to carry their loads 
 any further from faintness. I bundled my wife 
 into the machilla, and six fresh men started off on 
 the run with her. Gifford got onto the wheel with 
 a sense of relief and the boys who were in the worst 
 condition had their loads taken from them, and so 
 we made the remaining four or five miles. As the 
 machilla neared the camp the word became noised 
 about that a white woman was in it, and soon an- 
 other crowd like the one at Kafulafuta was run- 
 ning alongside of it and the singing could be heard 
 a mile away. For here also she was the first white 
 woman to visit the camp. 
 
 As our caravan was so badly used up, and it 
 was already Thursday evening, we decided we 
 would have to remain over until the following Mon- 
 day. During that time we received every pos- 
 sible courtesy. The manager, Mr. J. G. Watson, 
 insisted on turning himself out of Mr. Grey's large, 
 comfortable brick house and taking up his abode 
 in a hut, while we occupied the house. Mr. Blane, 
 the secretary, hunted up and furnished some most 
 valuable maps, made by prospectors of the com- 
 pany, which were a great help to us on the latter 
 part of our journey, and, in every way, one and 
 all gave us all possible assistance and a warm 
 welcome. 
 
110 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 We were greatly interested to learn that the 
 first recorded mention of these copper fields was 
 made by Livingstone, who heard of them from 
 the natives during his travels. They told him of a 
 district called Katanga, in which there were two 
 mountains of copper, between which was a ravine, 
 from the sands of which gold Avas washed. 
 
 We were told that the promoters of these min- 
 ing companies were guided more by Livingstone's 
 notes than anything else, and they were encour- 
 aged by those notes to continue their search for 
 the Katanga country, of which he had written, 
 until the}' found it and its two mountains of cop- 
 per, Kambove and ]Msesa. 
 
 The first camp had been built at Kambove, but 
 shortly before our arrival a new camp had been 
 built and the five white men were being moved to 
 Msesa. Of the two mountains, Kambove is far 
 the richer. It is veritably a mountain of copper 
 malachite, a soft sandstone thoroughly impreg- 
 nated with copper. It has no reef like Kanshanshi, 
 nor has it such a variety of forms of copper. As 
 one of the men aptly put it, Kanshanshi is a per- 
 fect picture gallery. But Kambove has the ad- 
 vantage in size and workability. Even the scanty 
 soil on the surface of tlic mountains assays six 
 per cent pure copper. So when the smelting plants 
 
The Tanganyika Concessions. Ill 
 
 are up, this mountain will only need to be quar- 
 ried, sliced away by the cart-load, and smelted. 
 Shafts and cross drives have been made all over 
 it to the depth of one hundred feet, and it has 
 proved to be of varying richness throughout, 
 with an average yield of twelve per cent, and its 
 working will be most simple and inexpensive. 
 
 But while Msesa was found less rich, it is still 
 rich in copper. Even the grass is so tainted with 
 copper that no animals can live there. Mr. George 
 Grey has experimented with sheep, goats, pigs, 
 dogs, etc., we were told, but at the time of our visit 
 only one scrawny goat, a lean sheep, and a small 
 dog remained. The last of the pigs had been 
 named Violet. She seemed to thrive fairly well, 
 but finding that she could not live on grass, took 
 to dieting on chickens. When it was reported to 
 Mr. Grey that Violet was living on chickens, he at 
 once gave orders for her to be eaten. They were 
 hoping the sheep would survive long enough to 
 furnish a Christmas dinner. 
 
 Farther south in Rhodesia we heard the rather 
 fishy-sounding report that the early prospectors 
 had discovered mines with their field glasses. We 
 found the report to be true and easily explained. 
 The first party soon learned that a treeless kopje, 
 covered with scanty, sickly grass, would be almost 
 
112 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 sure to contain copper. So they would go to the 
 top of one copper-bearing hill and look tlu'ough 
 their glasses for a similar one and then make their 
 way to it, and, finding copper indications, peg 
 it out. 
 
 Very little prospecting was now being done, 
 and, excepting two or three mines, no development 
 was going on, everything waiting on the con- 
 struction of the railroad into the country. 
 
 But certain investigations were being carried 
 on, and for the next few weeks there was to be a 
 succession of parties consisting of engineers, sur- 
 veyors, medical experts to study the sleeping sick- 
 ness, etc. This latter subject presented a problem 
 which greatly affected the labor supply of the 
 mines. 
 
 The climate at Kambove is excellent and fever 
 almost unknown. The elevation of the camp is 
 about six thousand feet, the country is very hilly, 
 and the land well drained and well watered by 
 sparkling mountain streams. At present game 
 abounds. The day we arrived six zebra had been 
 killed, and brought into camp, and we found their 
 flesh very good eating indeed. The next day a big 
 antelope was shot and we were given a fine big 
 shoulder to roast and take along with us. 
 
 A garden maintained by the company par- 
 
The Tanganyika Concessions. 113 
 
 ticularly interested us. Here, under the direction 
 of a Swahili, an east coast native, were grown 
 all kinds of garden vegetables, several fruits, as 
 lemons, oranges, bananas, and pawpaws, wheat, 
 and quantities of all kinds of flowers, including 
 fine La France roses, California poppies, and giant 
 sunflowers. 
 
 Fifty miles to the east of Kambove is the 
 Garenganze Mission, at Nkoni Hill, established by 
 Mr. Frederick Arnot, twenty-three years pre- 
 viously. He belongs to and is supported by the 
 Open Brethren. Their work extends eastward and 
 northward of Nkoni Hill among a tribe whose big 
 chief used to be Msiri. 
 
 From Kambove we went nearly due west ninety- 
 four miles to the Ruwi mining camp. On the 
 second day we passed Mikoba's kraal, which was 
 the only one on the path between Kanshanshi and 
 Ruwi. The chief and his people came out to 
 us with copper knives, axes, hoes, etc., for sale. 
 They had themselves smelted the copper ore and 
 had beaten it into these various implements and 
 we bought all we could afford to carry, which were 
 but few. 
 
 It was no small credit to this chief, Mikoba, 
 that he had built for the company a bridge a mile 
 8 
 
114 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 long on simple trestles over a bad swamp just be- 
 yond his kraal. 
 
 The trail to Ruwi was, on the whole, a pretty 
 rough one, with hills, and swamps, and rivers. The 
 day before we reached Ruwi, ]Mr. Gilford was 
 quietly wheeling along when the path made a 
 sudden bend around an ant hill and he nearly came 
 onto a leopard which was preparing to lie down 
 in the path. He dismounted without any unnec- 
 essary delay and at the click of his pedal the huge 
 beast, without looking to see what the noise was, 
 bounded off at once into the forest. This was his 
 second leopard. 
 
 The first one he had seen while we were at 
 Kambove, when word was brought that the na- 
 tives had seen a leopard, and, as one had been 
 regularly visiting the hen coop, Mr. Blane de- 
 cided to go after it. Gilford gladly joined him 
 and soon we heard shots. Not long after our 
 friend appeared and I called out, "Well, who got 
 the leopard.'"' With a wry face, he laconically 
 replied, "I got the scare, but Blane got the 
 leopard." It seems that while crawling through 
 some thick jungle Gilford had put up the leopard 
 not more than six feet away, and the first intima- 
 tion he had of its presence was a savage snarl. 
 Instantly the leopard bounded from him to where 
 
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The Tanganyika Concessions. 115 
 
 Mr. Blane and the natives were on the search and 
 all hands opened such a volley that he was soon 
 dispatched. 
 
 June 21st is the shortest day in the year in 
 Southern Africa. On that morning we again 
 crossed the Lualaba River, which was no longer 
 "to the ankles," but it had become a deep, wide 
 river with a flow of 74,200 cubic feet of water per 
 minute. This measurement was taken in August 
 when the river would be lowest. 
 
 Twelve miles below our point of crossing is 
 the Nzilo Gorge, in which are several cataracts and 
 falls, one, the Lukaka Falls, having a sheer drop 
 of one hundred feet. Altogether within a few 
 miles the river drops approximately fifteen hundred 
 feet. This will give not far from 150,000 horse- 
 power. The Lualaba River cuts directly across 
 the copper belt, and these water powers lie be- 
 tween the copper and tin belts in a very rugged 
 country. 
 
 The glossina palpalis has been found in this 
 gorge. It is a curious fact that this and the 
 glossina morsitans, or cattle fly, confine them- 
 selves to restricted areas. The latter variety is 
 unusually bad between Kambove and this river, so 
 much so that white men usually go onto that trail 
 provided with mosquito net veils and heavy gloves. 
 
116 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Yet on the west side, toward Ruwi, there are no 
 tsetse flies, and only a few miles from the Lualaba 
 the company's cattle were grazing in perfect safety 
 and thriving well. 
 
 Ruwi camp is not so unlike that at Kambove, 
 or Msesa, as the new camp is named. Located in 
 the primitive forest, the same care has been taken 
 to preserve the shade and beauty of the natural 
 woods as much as possible. 
 
 We were kindly received by the acting man- 
 ager, Mr. Cookson, who took us to some comfort- 
 able guest huts along a sharp ridge overlooking 
 the Lualaba Valley and a stretch of flat country 
 fully forty miles to the northeast. 
 
 Of the seven white men at Ruwi, only two of 
 them were exclusively engaged on that mine, this 
 being the headquarters for the western group of 
 mines. It is near the western end of the copper 
 belt so far as is known. About forty miles north 
 of here is Busanga, on the Lualaba River. Bu- 
 sanga is the beginning of the tin belt, which has 
 been proved to exist almost without a break for a 
 distance of fully 110 miles in a northeasterly di- 
 rection. 
 
 Iron is also found in large quantities all about 
 the country. And besides the minerals mentioned, 
 a number of subsidiary metals, such as lead, vana- 
 
The Tanganyika Concessions. 117 
 
 dium, and palladium, have been found in limited 
 quantities. 
 
 Limestone is general throughout the country, 
 coal shale has been found, and expectations are 
 entertained of finding commercial coal, such as 
 has been found in large quantities in Southern 
 Rhodesia. 
 
 In smelting copper certain other elements are 
 necessary, such as iron and lime, and where they 
 do not exist in connection with the mines, they 
 have to be added. Several of these mines have 
 enough of these minerals combined with the cop- 
 per to be what is known as self-fluxing. So favor- 
 able are the conditions and so easily accessible 
 all the necessary elements in treating the ore, and 
 so near an abundance of electrical power, that one 
 of the men put it well when he said in all rev- 
 erence, "God made this country to produce copper." 
 
 Besides the copper mines in this vicinity, there 
 is an area of shed gold adjacent to the camp. 
 This gold they were able to recover by the primi- 
 tive method of washing in sluice boxes. One nug- 
 get washed out weighed nine ounces, sixteen penny- 
 weight. Up to September 30, 1905, there had 
 been over seven thousand ounces of gold washed. 
 This mine has been a producer of revenue for some 
 time. 
 
118 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Four diamonds have been found, and prospect- 
 ing is being carried on over a wide area to discover 
 their source. In short, no one yet knows what 
 the true wealth of the concessions is. In the lab- 
 oratory we saw samples of minerals from different 
 parts, and from Mr. Studt, the expert metallurgist, 
 we obtained much information about the entire 
 mineral belt, confirming and enlarging upon the 
 reports and information we had been gathering 
 along the way and what we had seen with our own 
 eyes. And we were also much indebted to Mr. 
 Studt for an excellent collection of representative 
 samples to take to America with us. 
 
 Our own observations and investigations had 
 convinced us of the existence within the territory 
 of the Tanganyika Concessions not only of a 
 "copper belt which will yet astonish the world," 
 but also of large deposits of other minerals as well. 
 The situation as a whole is well summed up in 
 an editorial which appeared in the "African 
 World" June 27, 1908, a year after our visit to 
 the Concessions: "Probably few people are aware 
 of the magnitude of Central African interests em- 
 braced in the negotiations now rapidly arriving at 
 final stages (which were completed and the agree- 
 ments signed early in July) between the powerful 
 groups controlling the Tanganyika Concessions, 
 
The Tanganyika Concessions. 119 
 
 and associated companies, and the great Rhodesian 
 railway interests. Slowly, but surely, the very 
 center of Africa has been brought to the point 
 that the iron links of which Cecil Rhodes dreamt 
 a quarter of a century ago will soon join up the 
 backbone of the Cape-to-Cairo project coastwards 
 west and east. Thanks to Mr. Robert Williams's 
 statesmanlike work in the past five years, the rail- 
 roads of three great and friendly nations will join 
 hands in Central Africa, which is only waiting for 
 the opportunity granted by rapid transit to blue 
 water to yield a mineral wealth undreamt of a 
 few years ago, but now proved to exist beyond all 
 possible doubts." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MINES AND MISSIONARY OPPOR- 
 TUNITIES. 
 
 Africa is unique among the continents. It is 
 the last to be thoroughly explored and made 
 known to the rest of the world. It has laid to 
 one side of the world movement, east and west, 
 along which the other nations have been moving 
 for centuries. 
 
 A very potent influence in the development of 
 the Aryan races has been their constant contact 
 and contest with other peoples, some similar and 
 some dissimilar to themselves ; also, the migration 
 from one country to another, the international 
 commerce of products and ideas, all greatly facili- 
 tated by the very contour of those northern coun- 
 tries and by their embayed coasts. 
 
 Africa, on the contrary, has but few harbors 
 and no great indentations on all its thousands of 
 miles of coast line, and though its northern shore 
 has been the stage of action of many nations, yet 
 
 120 
 
Missionary Opportunities. 121 
 
 the great Sahara has been more effective than a 
 Chinese wall in guarding the whole continent to 
 the south and keeping it in a state of continual 
 isolation. 
 
 Arabs and Phoenicians traded along the east 
 Coast for centuries, but have left little trace upon 
 the peoples of the interior. And except for these 
 small influences, the natives of Africa had prac- 
 tically no contact with the outside world for 
 centuries. 
 
 During the fifteenth century there came a pe- 
 riod of extensive exploration, in which Spain and 
 Portugal took the most active part. When certain 
 difficulties arose between the two countries, the 
 Pope interfered and appointed each a separate 
 province, Spain to the west and Portugal to 
 the east. 
 
 Thus while Spain made the great discoveries 
 in the western world, Portugal explored the coast 
 line of the great sphinx-like continent to the south 
 and penetrated some distance into the interior at 
 a few places. 
 
 Not the least valuable of the assets of Africa 
 was that of a physically virile, tractable, and 
 trusty people. The western world discovered by 
 Spain lacked just that asset, though its wealth of 
 fertile lands, as was early seen, was just waiting 
 
122 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 to be cultivated in order to yield rich returns. 
 Therefore, the various nations of Europe engaged 
 in the transportation of the unwilling, but de- 
 fenseless, natives of Africa to the western conti- 
 nent and islands. 
 
 But the vast interior of Africa, with its tribes 
 and peoples not near the coast, remained in their 
 isolation (save for the attacks of the Arab and 
 Portuguese slavers), participating but little in the 
 general world movement, neither advancing in the 
 scale of civilization nor achieving anything of per- 
 manence, and contributing practically nothing to 
 the development of the resources of the world, or 
 to the power and comfort of man. 
 
 On the contrary, they were broken and de- 
 teriorated by the slave trade, spending their years 
 in indolent existence, or following the warpath in 
 the ceaseless turmoil of tribes and the gratification 
 of a savage bloodthirstiness. 
 
 And so might Africa have waded on in blood 
 through future centuries, a few Dutch folk going 
 somewhat inland from the southern extremity in 
 search of broad valleys for their flocks, and a few 
 Britishers and other Europeans dwelling and 
 trading in the seaport towns. Railroads might 
 have crept slowly inland through decades, and the 
 more healthful parts of the southern end gradually 
 
Missionary Opportunities. 123 
 
 been settled by the whites, while all the rest were 
 left to the natives and the few missionaries who 
 might seek them out. 
 
 But such was not, is not, to be the history of 
 Africa. Livingstone's first book of travels turned 
 the eyes of the whole civilized world upon that 
 hitherto unknown continent and its possible 
 wealth, and started a tide of inquiry which has 
 sent out hundreds of explorers in his wake. 
 
 But it was not until the discovery of the dia- 
 mond mines at Kimberly and the gold mines of 
 Johannesburg, in the early eighties of the last 
 century, that the real exploitation of Africa began. 
 And now each year, and almost each month, but 
 adds new confirmation to the wealth of already dis- 
 covered areas, and extends the list of sections of 
 the continent which are found to be mineralized. 
 
 Gold has been found, and the world clamors 
 for gold ; copper has been found, and the electrical 
 age must have copper; rubber is there in immense 
 quantities, and never were there so many uses for 
 rubber, so much so that the demand is still greatly 
 in excess of the supply ; the wealth of Europe and 
 America has so increased as to make a ready market 
 for the luxuries of ostrich feathers, ivory, dia- 
 monds, and other precious stones. 
 
 What the world wants of a material nature the 
 
124 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 world is bound to have, and thus the great activity 
 of prospecting, building railroads, and the general 
 development of the resources of South Africa. 
 
 Railroads are absolutely aicccssary to the de- 
 velopment of the interior of Africa. But as a 
 certain magnate once said to a delegation which 
 waited on him, "Railroads are not built on senti- 
 ment. But," he added, "wherever a mineral belt 
 or any other industry gives promise of traffic to 
 warrant it, there you can count on it we will build 
 a railroad." 
 
 The mineral wealth of Africa, then, is the 
 lodestone which is attracting the extensive immi- 
 gration of Europeans to all parts of the continent, 
 of whom there is now estimated to be about one and 
 a half million permanent settlers in South Africa 
 alone. And these numbers will steadily increase, 
 as the climate is far more salubrious than the cli- 
 mates in which most of the immigrants have been 
 born. Directly or indirectly, it is the mine which 
 contributes to the support of all of these, whether 
 they be directly employed in mining, trade, or 
 agriculture. 
 
 A study of the situation will soon convince one 
 of the natural relation between the development 
 of the mineral wealth and the industrial develop- 
 ment of the natives. The natives will be employed 
 
Missionary Opportunities. 125 
 
 on the mines, farms, railroads, in the stores, and 
 shops under the supervision of skilled white men. 
 
 The necessity of reducing the working cost 
 to the lowest possible figure, and the highly in- 
 flated salaries which have been paid in South Africa 
 to the white men, leads each mine or other busi- 
 ness to give attention to the training of the 
 brightest native employees to do much of the work 
 of drilling, running engines, time-keeping, etc. — 
 work that has formerly been done by whites. 
 
 This results in the raising up of a large band 
 of natives as industrial agents, at the same time 
 increasing their pay and their earning power. 
 
 In a certain sense, every mine becomes an in- 
 dustrial training school for the natives. If the 
 number of applicants for work are insufficient, the 
 mine sends out agents to remote, distant, and often- 
 times unhealthy sections to recruit labor for the 
 mines. 
 
 They house, feed, and control them; they give 
 them that fundamental discipline of regularity and 
 continuity of labor, of working for what they re- 
 ceive, of fulfillment of contract, and demonstrate 
 on pay day that a man is compensated according 
 to the results he has produced, besides not a few 
 other wholesome lessons of respect for others, of 
 honor, and of honesty. To be sure, on some mines 
 
126 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 there have been, and doubtless will be, certain un- 
 desirable and unfavorable conditions for the na- 
 tives. Yet, on the whole, the great majority will, 
 from self-interest, if nothing more, deal fairly and 
 justly with the native. They have learned to do 
 this, so that when the native returns to his section 
 of country his good report will induce his friends 
 to go to work at the same place, and in a few 
 months or a year's time he will return to work, 
 bringing a party of his friends with him. 
 
 This industrial training, as far as it goes, is 
 excellent and important in the elevating of a 
 savage race, but it does not go far enough. 
 
 "The inefficiency of exclusive industrial and 
 educational work may be illustrated by a single in- 
 cident. Bishop Colenso, sharing the opinion often 
 expressed by captious critics, that civilization 
 should precede Christianity, selected twelve boys 
 from among the superior race of Zulus. He con- 
 scientiously and persistently devoted himself to 
 their education and training, without a word or a 
 suggestion of religion. They were bound over to 
 him for a term of years on this condition. The 
 susceptible Africans made rapid progress. When 
 at last the good bishop thought they were civ- 
 ilized, he told them that all he liad done was simply 
 preliminary and was incomplete without the im- 
 
A xMuKAoNDA Chief and Attendant— 
 THE Men to be Reached. 
 
Missionary Opportunities. 127 
 
 measurably greater thing — the acceptance of 
 Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and of His 
 Gospel as their rule of life. The next morning 
 all that was left of his promising proteges was 
 their 'civilized' clothing. They had donned their 
 loin-cloths and gone — back to their pagan homes, 
 back to their pagan customs."* 
 
 Thus while the mines have a valuable part in 
 the physical and mental training of the native, 
 the Church is needed to give the all-important 
 spiritual training, without which the other is of 
 no particular significance to them and is a mini- 
 mum of benefit. 
 
 And here the Church finds a wide opportunity 
 by opening up night schools for the natives who 
 work on the day shifts and day schools for those 
 on the night shifts. The natives are attracted by 
 the opportunity of learning to read and write Eng- 
 lish. They have considered that much of the 
 ability and superiority of the white man is trace- 
 able to his ability to read and write. And their 
 excessively imitative natures lead them to desire 
 to learn to read and write also. 
 
 But while they enter the schools from this 
 motive, the evangelistic spirit and exercises at the 
 opening of the school, the Christian hymns in the 
 vernacular, awaken their religious natures. 
 
 * " Daybreak in the Dark Continent," Naylor. 
 
128 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 On the Sabbath, evangehstic services are held 
 in the mine compounds, and, though the audience 
 is a constantly shifting one, yet experience has 
 demonstrated the value of such services, and num- 
 bers are reached and converted in just this way on 
 the mines at Johannesburg, Kimbcrl}^, Old Umtali, 
 Penhalanga, and elsewhere. 
 
 The schoolhouses or, as at Kimberly, the rooms 
 are used for regular services on Sundays, and 
 through the week for class-meetings and inquirers. 
 
 When a native young man on the mines steps 
 out and becomes a Christian it usually means that 
 he has counted the cost and means business. Such 
 a young man at once begins to do the most ef- 
 fective preaching, after the manner of the early 
 Christians, by simply testifying to his fellows of 
 what he has experienced. 
 
 Certain of these young men will develop 
 marked ability in the soul-saving line and feel 
 the call to devote their lives to it. These need the 
 help of special training in the study of the Scrip- 
 tures. Hundreds of the ordinary men will return 
 to their own people, carrying with them a portion 
 of the Bible in their own tongue, there to begin 
 the seed-sowing which shall reap a fruitful harvest. 
 
 Let me give one example: Many years ago 
 two men from the Blaauw Berg Range, in the 
 
Missionary Opportunities. 129 
 
 northwestern part of the Transvaal, traveled some 
 seven hundred miles to work at Port Elizabeth, 
 which was practically the head of civilization fifty 
 years ago. Here they worked on the docks shovel- 
 ing coal by day and attending the Wesleyan night 
 school evenings. They were both converted, bap- 
 tized, and joined the Church. 
 
 When, after three years, the time came for 
 their return to their own people, they asked the 
 missionary if he would not send a teacher to their 
 country. "We have heard and received the Good 
 News," they said, "and now we must go back to 
 our people who know nothing. We are as chil- 
 dren : we only know a little. Will you not send 
 us a teacher who will show us and our people the 
 good way of God.'"' 
 
 The missionary promised them he would do 
 his best and send them the first missionary avail- 
 able. But the years wore on, and the missionaries 
 were few, and each one was needed elsewhere more 
 than there. And then the man of God who made 
 the promise died and the men from the Blaauw 
 Bergs were long since forgotten. Twenty-five 
 years later a young man by the name of Lowe was 
 passing through that district to open up new work 
 under the Wesleyans. As he approached one kraal, 
 the people came thronging out to -meet him with 
 9 
 
130 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 shouts and excitement which left him in doubt 
 whether it meant peace or war. 
 
 Calling his interpreter, he asked the cause of 
 all this demonstration. The interpreter talked with 
 two elderly men and after awhile got their story. 
 The}' were the same two men who, a quarter of 
 a century before, had left Port Elizabeth for the 
 perilous journey to the interior, past hostile Boers 
 and unfriendly tribes. 
 
 "We knew God would send us a missionary," 
 they exclaimed with deep emotion. "All these 
 years we 've been praying for a teacher to come 
 and ever}- day Ave have watched this trail for him. 
 We knew he would come, and now he has." And 
 their delight knew no bounds. 
 
 He went into the kraal and found it unusually 
 clean and tidy. The huts were comfortable and 
 it was noticeable that all the women were neatly 
 and decently clothed in calico. 
 
 He found that all the men and boys had been 
 taught to read and write, that they had kept the 
 Sabbath, had refrained from having more than 
 one wife, and, in short, had become a Christian 
 village. 
 
 Later on they came to liini m itli their Zulu 
 Bibles and asked if he thought they could get 
 new ones. These and a couple of primers were 
 
Missionary Opportunities. 131 
 
 all the books they had taken back with them. The 
 Bibles (I am not sure they had more than the New 
 Testament) were carefully tied up in red ban- 
 dana handkerchiefs, as they had been used until 
 every leaf was separated from the binding. And 
 as he looked them over, he found many pages so 
 well thumbed that the print was indecipherable. 
 But it hardly mattered, as they knew those pages 
 by heart. 
 
 When he looked among his books to get out 
 new ones, they said humbly, "And could we please 
 have a little larger print.'' These eyes of ours are 
 dimmer than they used to be. But they have seen 
 the missionary whom we knew God would send us 
 and now our hearts are white and glad." 
 
 There have been hundreds of similar cases, only 
 let us hope that in few the faithful eyes had time 
 to grow dim as they watched the trail on which 
 they knew the missionary would surely come. 
 
 Now, in view of the foregoing facts, it goes 
 without saying that there is a wonderful oppor- 
 tunity open in the mining districts of Central 
 Africa not only to reach the thousands in the com- 
 pound work on the mines, but to have a large train- 
 ing center where the more promising class of con- 
 verts may get a higher education and training for 
 Christian service and to be fitted to adapt them- 
 
132 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 selves to all the conditions of the complex civiliza- 
 tion which will soon sweep into that country like 
 a great tidal wave. 
 
 There should be kindergarten and primary 
 schools for the little children, Bible and theological 
 training schools, a printing press for the publica- 
 tion of books and papers in the vernacular, etc. 
 
 A look at the map makes it perfectly obvious 
 that this rich mineral field is a strategic center for 
 missionary work, a point from which the Gospel 
 influences will spread and radiate to all parts of 
 the continent. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 IN CONGO TERRITORY. 
 
 It had been our original purpose to proceed 
 due west from Ruwi to Malange, which would have 
 taken us along the proposed line of extensions of 
 our missions in Angola, right through the Lunda 
 country and also that of the Bangala tribe, a dis- 
 trict that has not yet been explored to any great 
 extent, and many parts of which no white man 
 has ever penetrated. 
 
 The district lying between Ruwi and the Kassai 
 River is one of the most remote sections of the 
 Congo State. It has never been effectively oc- 
 cupied by the government and the tribes there have 
 the reputation of being rank cannibals, partic- 
 ularly in time of war, when they feast on their 
 enemies. 
 
 However, in times of peace, the ordinary (not 
 belligerent) white man might go among them and 
 by careful conduct might pass through with safety 
 for himself and his carriers. 
 
 133 
 
134 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 This had been one reason why we wanted car- 
 riers from Broken Hill to go right through to the 
 west coast with us, as we wished to go through 
 these tribes without fear of our carriers either de- 
 serting us or of their proving offensive. We knew 
 that we could not on any account induce carriers 
 from a near-by tribe to venture onto the ground 
 of their sanguinary enemies. 
 
 More to be feared than the cannibals them- 
 selves was a roving band of revolted soldiery from 
 the Congo State. Recruited themselves from can- 
 nibal tribes, they had deserted with their guns and 
 ammunition, and had for two or more years ter- 
 rorized this corner of the Congo State, raiding the 
 towns, capturing slaves for the west coast mar- 
 ket, disposing of the slaves to traders, who paid 
 them in rifles and ammunition, etc. They were 
 a desperate band of robbers, plunderers, and 
 slavers. 
 
 We met one white man at Broken Hill who 
 was captured by them and held ten days. He had 
 a rough experience at their hands and considered 
 himself lucky to have escaped with his life. 
 
 At Kanshanshi we first heard that hostilities 
 had broken out between the government and the 
 natives west of Ruwi. At Musofi, Mr. Thomas 
 confirmed the report and refused to give us per- 
 
In Congo Territory. 135 
 
 mission to go that way. At Kambovc we learned 
 that the matter was so serious that one of the Con- 
 cessions camps had been fired on not far from Ruwi. 
 And so we had to give up all idea of proceeding 
 bj the due west route. 
 
 We had, therefore, to make for Nanakandundu, 
 or Njakatoro, where there is a mission station and 
 a Portuguese fort. There was another mission be- 
 tween Ruwi and there, called Kalene Hill, a new 
 station, under Dr. Fisher. No one at Ruwi could 
 tell us the way, nor could we get any guides. But 
 it was thought to be about a week's journey. So 
 when the mine kindly supplied me with the eleven 
 carriers I needed, they insisted that I take food for 
 a week along with me and that I see to it that the 
 men had a week's food from Kalene Hill to bring 
 them back in safe and good condition. Moreover, 
 as Mr. Cookson had just shot three hippo, he 
 generously gave a big chunk of the flesh to each 
 boy. Dr. Massey supplemented our rapidly di- 
 minishing stock of medicines, and Mr. Gillespie, 
 the storekeeper, let us have the few things this 
 "last chance" warned us to get, so we set out on 
 the 24th of June. 
 
 There was a wagon road, twelve hundred miles 
 in length, which had been opened up by Mr. H. I. 
 Brown and Major Boyd Cunningham two years 
 
136 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 before to transport loads from Benguella to Ruwi. 
 Several wagon loads of heavy machinery, rails, 
 trucks, battery, etc., had been brought over this 
 road. But as it had followed the watershed and 
 avoided rivers and swamps, it was much longer 
 than to go by native paths. Moreover, it was so 
 overgrown with grass that walking on it would 
 have been very difficult. 
 
 Within twelve miles, after leaving Ruwi, we 
 passed three copper mines of the Concessions. As 
 we neared the third and last we had to cross a 
 rather wide, shallow stream, whose emerald bed of 
 copper malachite gleamed beautifully under the 
 crystal waters. 
 
 Sixteen miles out we came onto a wide, deep 
 swamp for which we were wholly unprepared. 
 Owing to a late start, it was now time to camp. 
 But there was no suitable place and, besides, neither 
 we nor our carriers wanted to wade in icy waters 
 the next morning. Mrs. Springer prepared to 
 wade if it were necessary, and, with her eight boys 
 all around her, got into the machilla while GifFord 
 and I waded ahead. It took nearly an hour to 
 cross, as it was one of the deepest, foulest swamps 
 of our whole journey. And then when we got to 
 the other side we had to travel nearly two miles 
 further to reach wood, so that the sun had set 
 
In Congo Territory. 137 
 
 before we pitched camp and got a fire. I had been 
 up since early that morning, packing loads, dis- 
 tributing food, assigning loads, and dealing with 
 mutinous carriers, so that I had been almost ready 
 to drop from sheer weariness before we got to the 
 swamp. Then with that wading in cold mud and 
 water added and getting chilled, I soon went to 
 bed with the first and only fever all the time we 
 were on the trail. While at Broken Hill we had 
 been strongly advised by several to take five grains 
 of quinine a day. So at the close of our evening 
 meal each day we had all religiously taken what 
 we called our "dessert." This dessert was a bitter 
 one, indeed, but whether we owed to it our freedom 
 from fever or not, I am unable to say. Certainly 
 we crossed enough swamps and lowlands to expect 
 fever. But that one night was the only time any 
 of us whites had fever, though our carriers had 
 it frequently. On another such journey I should 
 take along sufficient quinine to give a regular dose 
 to each carrier daily. And not only were we free 
 from fever on the trail, but also when we reached 
 the coast and throughout the sea voyage, and we 
 arrived home in excellent health, and have not had 
 the slightest touch of fever since. 
 
 That next morning, however, I still had a 
 temperature and was sick enough to stay in bed, 
 
138 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 but felt we must get on if possible. So I dressed 
 and by 8:30 was on the trail. We had expected 
 to reach the Government Post by noon that day, 
 but when we did reach it, found it deserted, and 
 all we could learn from the native left in charge 
 was that a new one had been built further on and 
 that we would reach it late in the afternoon. With 
 this hope we kept going, until we had covered 
 twenty-one miles and no sign of the "Boma"* yet, 
 nor of water, either. The caravan stopped and we 
 all began a search for water, while GifFord rode 
 ahead and found some stagnant water in a vlej 
 a mile or so ahead. It was bad, but the sun was 
 sinking and we had to stop where we were. 
 
 So, in spite of my fever, I had made nearly 
 twenty-three miles. The morning had been very 
 cold and I had ridden some four miles in the 
 machilla. Then I tried the wheel in the after- 
 noon, for the sun was scorching. I had not gone 
 far when I struck one of the many little stumps in 
 the path, took a header, and practically finished 
 the machine by hopelessly twisting the fork. 
 
 As the paths were now getting worse and 
 worse, we were hardly able to ride at all. Nor could 
 
 *Note: The capltol of the Congo Free State Is Boma, mean- 
 ing In Kikongo a boa constrictor. So the name has gone Inland 
 and the natives call nil government stations a "Boma." And 
 losing its original meaning, the word has been passed on Into 
 Rhodesia to mean any station with white people on It. 
 
In Congo Territory. 139 
 
 we have had much use of the best wheel from this 
 time on, while this one had now got its death blow. 
 And for a few minutes I thought I had, too. In 
 my weakened condition I thought I never could 
 walk in that hot sun, but I had to do it, and when 
 I reached camp the fever was gone, not to return. 
 
 As for the Government Station, we had to go 
 four miles the next morning before we came to it. 
 We had to report to a Belgian who did not under- 
 stand English, and as we did not speak French, 
 we held our conversation in the sign language 
 mostly. He looked over our papers, endorsed 
 them, and signified that he accepted us as proper 
 persons. He also served us with tea and made us 
 to understand that he would be pleased to have us 
 remain over the night. We had hoped here to 
 get some information about the trail ahead, or 
 at least to secure a reliable guide, but in that we 
 were disappointed. We got a guide for a day, 
 but as he had never heard of Kalene Hill and did 
 not know the path to Nanakandundu, he only got 
 us lost. 
 
 But the guide, whose clothing was a minimum 
 amount, had some notions in his head and began 
 taking us through kraals, out of the direct course, 
 for no other purpose that we could see than to 
 show us off to his friends. I then called him to me 
 
140 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 and, pointing due southwest, sought to impress 
 upon him that I wanted to go in that direction 
 and no other. He led us that way for awhile, but 
 ere long turned north and soon landed at a kraal 
 hidden in thick bush. The chief rushed out, gun 
 in hand, thinking that the "Bulamatadi,"* or the 
 slave raiders, were upon him, and ready to fight 
 in either case. 
 
 When we made the chief and his armed men 
 understand that we were harmless "Nglezi," or 
 English, their excitement abated and they told us 
 we were clear off the Nyakatoro trail. So I paid 
 off the other fellow and sent him back. Even had 
 he known the trail, his presence as representing 
 Bulamatadi was a source of danger. 
 
 I then got the chief to put us on the right 
 trail. We had to retrace our steps about a half 
 mile, and then turn abruptly, and descend a high, 
 steep bank to the Rufupa River, which was deep 
 and fairly wide. A rude bridge had been made by 
 cutting large trees on either side and letting their 
 branches interlace mid-stream. It was not an easy 
 one to cross, but quite a common type of bridge 
 during the next five hundred miles where a river 
 was too deep for fording. 
 
 *Thls term, which means Breaker-of-Rocks, was first given 
 by the natives of the lower Congo to Btanley who was blasting 
 a road. It is now extended all over the State to designate any 
 and all of King Leopold's offlciala. 
 
In Congo Territory. 141 
 
 It took quite a while for all our men to cross 
 and I did not dare leave any of them behind. 
 While we were waiting on the bank a woman came 
 down in a state of great excitement, shrieking and 
 gesticulating in a most alarming manner. I did not 
 know what new trouble might be in store for us. 
 The chief listened and at first assumed an expres- 
 sion of tragic horror, when shortly he clapped his 
 hands softly over his mouth and began to laugh. 
 I was relieved at that, and, when some of our 
 carriers began to understand, they laughed. Only 
 the woman did not seem to see the joke of it. I 
 inquired into it and learned that this woman and 
 the others of the kraal had been working in their 
 gardens when a lion had boldly made a charge and 
 carried one of them off and this one had run to 
 notify the men. But it was only a woman who 
 was taken. It was rather a joke on her husband 
 to thus lose one of his wives, but so cheaply is 
 human life, and especially woman life, held, that 
 it meant no more to most of them than the news 
 that a goat had been eaten. Nor was there any 
 move toward a possible rescue, although the woman 
 was evidently urging it. The chief proceeded with 
 us for another two or three miles, until we came 
 to the right trail and on to the next chief, to whom 
 he introduced us and probably vouched for our 
 
142 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 character. I gave him two yards of cloth and a 
 bit of salt for his services, whereupon he pleaded 
 that he was a big chief and ought to have more, so 
 I gave him a little more salt and he went back 
 happy. 
 
 The chief here was very friendly and sold us 
 plenty of sweet potatoes. The next morning he 
 set out with us, accompanied by one of his men, 
 both armed with old flintlock, muzzle-loading 
 blunderbusses, which were highly ornamented with 
 brass-headed tacks and highly valued by the na- 
 tives. Loaded with flint stones or iron slag, these 
 guns could do a bit of damage. 
 
 In Rhodesia natives are not allowed to own a 
 gun. And the rule is a good one. But in the 
 Congo State and in the Portuguese territory, on to 
 the end of the trip, we seldom met a man un- 
 armed, and in the villages each man's gun was 
 within handy reach, leaning up against the huts 
 or stockades. They are ineff^ective beyond a hun- 
 dred yards, but even so by them the game of the 
 country — that is, the eatable animals — had been 
 practically exterminated. Now and then I saw 
 a buck hide drying on the ground at the kraals, 
 and I noted in every case it had two ragged holes 
 made by these home-made bullets. 
 
 We were far off the main trail between Ruwi 
 
In Congo Territory. 143 
 
 and Nanakandundu, so for miles we were taken 
 over trails so dim that only the men who knew 
 them of old could have followed them. The 
 country was rugged, and varied, and beautiful. 
 Now we went for miles in a park-like forest, un- 
 dulating, seamed with deep ravines, some dry and 
 others having cold mountain streams coursing at 
 the bottom, the banks lined with tall trees, graceful 
 vines and delicate ferns in luxurious profusion. 
 Now we crossed broad stretches of perfectly flat 
 vlej, where the sun beat upon us pitilessly, or soft, 
 spongy land which only needed a rain or two to 
 turn it into soft bog. 
 
 These men took us on to the next kraal, which 
 was also hidden away and heavily stockaded. We 
 could only get guides from one kraal to the next, 
 as we were held in suspicion until it was found 
 out that we were "English." 
 
 We passed the abandoned sites of several large 
 kraals, the heavy stockades of which showed that 
 until recently the natives had been much more 
 insecure than at present, as the British in Rhodesia, 
 and Gray's men, in the last two years had been 
 making it pretty hot for the slavers. Several slave 
 caravans had been captured, the slaves freed, and 
 the trading goods, with which to buy more, burned. 
 
144 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 The third day out from Ruwi we nearly boxed 
 the compass. No one seemed to know the trail 
 to Nyakatoro, but each guide would take us to 
 some kraal farther on, until we were almost in de- 
 spair. But that evening we found a man who said 
 he knew "Totola" (Doctor Fisher). Not knowing 
 the Doctor's native name, we had about an hour's 
 discussion before I could be sure I was getting a 
 guide who knew where I wanted to go. 
 
 This man, Nyamba, however, agreed to go 
 with us two days and so set forth the next morning. 
 From his military bearing, his effusive politeness, 
 and rascally countenance, I am sure he had served 
 as a soldier under the Portuguese and probably 
 had had his own part in many a slave raid. He 
 took his small son with him to carry his spear, 
 and the second day he was accompanied by two 
 other armed men. 
 
 We had a hot two or three miles in the Lubudi 
 Valley that day. In the rainy season I should 
 judge the river would be a mile to a mile and a 
 half wide, for more than that was covered with 
 reeds and rushes growing to the height of ten to 
 fifteen feet. As we made our way through them, 
 along the low, narrow trail, it was like being in a 
 steam bath. In the center lay the river, not very 
 wide, but deep, over which we had to cross on a 
 
In Congo Territory. 145 
 
 single log. I feared for our loads and waited 
 behind until I saw the last one safely over. 
 
 We stopped for lunch at the kraal of Kashaka. 
 Imagine our relief when a party of natives came 
 up to me and handed me a letter to show where 
 they were going and I found they were from Dr. 
 Fisher, bound for Nkoni Hill, via Ruwi. From 
 them I learned the names of the kraals at which 
 we would be likely to stop noons and nights, and 
 my guides also learned the trail we wished to follow. 
 This was a satisfaction after four days of wan- 
 dering in all directions of the compass. Among 
 these boys was one who had been sent from Ruwi 
 to Kalene a year previously. He had eaten some 
 of the green manioc root, the flour of which is 
 the chief sustenance of the country, and had nearly 
 died in consequence. He had been under the 
 doctor's care for a year and was now just re- 
 turning. 
 
 On leaving Ruwi we traveled three or four 
 days among the Baluba and now were among the 
 Balunda. We noticed that the further we ad- 
 vanced toward the west coast the more evidence 
 there was of superstition among the natives. This 
 is evidenced by the charms upon their persons and 
 about their kraals. As we went along, we noted 
 charms for the keeping away of evil spirits over 
 10 
 
146 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 the entrance to every kraal and usually at the 
 forks of roads. Along the path we would see fre- 
 quent little shrines, in which could be seen old 
 native pots containing dirt. Whether they had 
 ever held food or beer, I can not say. But by 
 the springs were little shrines with wooden troughs, 
 which the people kept filled with water. 
 
 These Lunda people were an offshoot of the 
 great Lunda tribe, which is located for hundreds 
 of square miles on either side of the Kassai River. 
 In Livingstone's day Mwata Yambo was the big 
 chief. He was very friendly to the white man 
 and was ready to send out an expedition against 
 the Bachiokwe, to punish them for the annoyance 
 they had given to Livingstone. The best informa- 
 tion I could get was that there are now two sons 
 of Mwata Yambo who rule in his place. 
 
 We found all these people very timid, but 
 growing milder in character as we approached the 
 Rhodesian border. On sight of us an alarm was 
 usually given, and the men, women, and children 
 could be seen fleeing for their lives into the thick 
 underbrush which surrounded each kraal. 
 
 When Nyamba shouted to them and reassured 
 them in their own tongue, they would return, 
 whereupon Nyamba chafed them for running 
 away from such harmless individuals as ourselves. 
 
In Congo Territory. 147 
 
 And then the women and children would set up a 
 cry, which was not altogether unmusical, although 
 a doleful minor, and they kept up this singing as 
 long as we were in sight. 
 
 The night at Mwana Uta's kraal was mem- 
 orable for two reasons. That evening there was 
 the first and only real row between our carriers. 
 This was remarkable, as from the very first I 
 had as many as five or six tribes represented. 
 Among these were six Awemba and the eight 
 Angoni. From time away back there had been 
 bad blood between these tribes and the Angoni had 
 simply let the others alone on this trip. But the 
 Awemba were quarrelsome and had given me 
 trouble all the time from our very start at Broken 
 Hill. 
 
 This evening they began to hunt trouble in 
 the Angoni camp, but the Angoni refused to pay 
 any attention to them until, in an exasperation of 
 temper, a Muwemba made a charge. Then the 
 fighting Angoni rose to the occasion and in almost 
 less time than it takes to tell it, the Awemba beat 
 a retreat, worsted and bleeding. Three of them 
 were considerably bruised, with cuts on their shins, 
 backs, and heads. They came to me breathing out 
 slaughter against the Angoni and vowing they 
 would not travel with them another day; no, not 
 one. 
 
148 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 I bound up their wounds and assured them 
 they would be all right in the morning. On in- 
 vestigation I learned that a very cheeky Wemba 
 youth had only got his just deserts, and so dropped 
 the matter. 
 
 Another thing about the camp was the cold. 
 We had had the thermometer ranging from 32 to 
 50 degrees at night ever since we left Broken Hill. 
 None of the nights was warm, but this night of 
 June 28th we could hardly sleep for the cold. In 
 the morning we found nearly a half inch of ice 
 in all the water utensils, and the thermometer reg- 
 istered 23 degrees Fahrenheit. 
 
 As we ached with the cold these nights, and 
 shivered around the fire mornings and for the 
 first hour on the trail, we were wont to grimly 
 recall the popular idea in England and America 
 that the heat in Africa is everywhere and at all 
 times all but unendurable. However, though the 
 evenings, nights, and mornings were so very cold, 
 the mid-day sun was fierce whenever our path lay 
 outside the shady forest. 
 
 The night had also served to cool off the tem- 
 pers of the combatants, who shouldered their loads 
 next morning without a word. 
 
 Just after mid-day we passed by an ant hill 
 where two natives were engaged in smelting iron 
 
In Congo Territory. 149 
 
 ore, which is general in the country. The clay 
 of the ant hill is particularly hard. This had 
 been worked with water, molded, and evidently sun- 
 dried. The furnace was circular in shape, char- 
 coal had been made for fuel, and two goat skins 
 were used for bellows. Whether the iron was placed 
 in crucibles or on the charcoal, I can not say, but 
 am inclined to think the latter. The natives 
 throughout Africa are more or less acquainted 
 with the processes of smelting and working iron ore. 
 
 We were now approaching the water-shed 
 again. The country was mostly flat or undulat- 
 ing and marked by frequent streams and spongy 
 vlejs. Some of the streams had worn out deep 
 channels for themselves, but there was less of this 
 as we approached the actual divide. 
 
 We were traveling through an immense tract 
 of unrelieved heathenism. Behind us, to the east, 
 there was no mission station for nearly four hun- 
 dred miles. To the southwest of us were two mis- 
 sions, ninet}^ miles apart, but the next beyond them 
 was 250 miles away, at Muchiko, after which 
 another break of 250 miles to the group of mis- 
 sions around Bihe. To the south, some three 
 hundred miles away, was a little group of mis- 
 sions surrounded by an immense field totally un- 
 touched. 
 
150 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 This water-shed is the southern boundary of 
 a strip of country six hundred miles in width, 
 which, beginning at Kanshanshi and extending 
 one thousand miles to the Atlantic Ocean, has not 
 a single mission or missionary except those of our 
 own church in Angola, while all the thickly pop- 
 ulated sections of that interior are still unrelieved 
 heathenism. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 TO THE KASSAI. 
 
 On the morning of July 1st we crossed the 
 wagon road on the divide and soon came into 
 Northwestern Rhodesia again. Our carriers were 
 dehghted to be back again in British territory, 
 and we shared their sense of rehef and security. 
 For, whatever its imperfections, British rule is far 
 superior to any other in all Africa. 
 
 We soon crossed the Zambesi, only twenty miles 
 from its source. It seemed a pity that our lim- 
 ited time prevented our visiting the source itself, 
 but "the King's business required haste," and we 
 were not out on a pleasure trip. The river at 
 this point was a vigorous, sparkling stream about 
 twenty-five feet wide, and we crossed it on poles 
 laid across for a bridge. 
 
 We were a hard-looking party, indeed. We 
 had had no opportunity for having any washing 
 done since leaving Ruwi, and for a good share of 
 the time we had to walk through burnt or burning 
 veld. Our clothes were also beginning to show 
 
 151 
 
152 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 decided signs of wear after six weeks' steady 
 trekking. Thorn trees are everywhere in Africa 
 and had left their marks on us. My trousers had 
 good-sized patches on the knees, taken from the 
 legs of another pair. GifFord had had to cut off 
 about ten inches of frayed and torn ends from 
 his pant legs, which gave him the style known as 
 "Congo pants," reaching just to the knees; while 
 Mrs. Springer's short khaki walking skirt was 
 fringed, like an Indian's, with rags. 
 
 At Kalene Hill we were heartily welcomed by 
 Dr. and Mrs. Fisher, their niece, Miss Darling, and 
 Miss Ing, a trained nurse. There were also two 
 white children on the station, two-year-old Charlie 
 Fisher, and the six-year-old daughter of the 
 Schindlers, whose station is ninety miles away. 
 
 Kalene Hill is quite high, overlooking a vast 
 area of flat, poorly drained country, which is very 
 unhealthful on that account. So this site was 
 chosen primarily for a sanatorium for the workers 
 in the Arnot Mission. It is only about fifteen miles 
 from the Portuguese border to the west of them. 
 
 Only the previous October near here the British 
 had caught and convicted three Portuguese of 
 selling gunpowder in Rhodesia, and of being en- 
 gaged in the slave traffic. It was not very far 
 from here that, two j^ears before, a man named 
 
To THE Kassai. 153 
 
 Bracken had overtaken a slave caravan, had freed 
 the slaves, and burned all of the trading goods 
 connected with it, while the offending Portuguese 
 fled, and hid in a little cave close to the present 
 mission site, and remained there until he could 
 make his escape. And there will be more lively 
 times yet ere this hydra-headed monster, the slave 
 traffic, is utterly dispatched. 
 
 Mr. Bracken was an expert hunter. He had 
 killed nine leopards. One day he fired on a tenth, 
 but only wounded and infuriated the animal, so 
 that it sprang on him, mauling him fearfully. He 
 got free somehow and jumped into a river nearby, 
 where he had to stay, in the meantime being 
 tantalized by the beast, until his friends found him 
 and killed the leopard. They took him to the 
 Broken Hill Hospital as quickly as possible, but 
 he died from the wounds and the shock, and was 
 the first white man to be interred in the little 
 cemetery at Broken Hill. 
 
 While at Kalene Hill we had the pleasure of 
 meeting Mr. Woest, who had just passed there 
 with a drove of one thousand head of cattle. Dr. 
 Fisher sent word to jNlr. Woest that we had just 
 arrived from Ruwi and he rode back to see us. 
 He and his partner were originally from Cape 
 Colony, Some years ago they had come up into 
 
154 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Northwestern Rhodesia, bought cattle of the 
 Barotse, and had been doing a big trading and 
 transport business. With the coming of the rail- 
 way much of their business at Kalomo had died 
 down. There was also a demand for transport 
 from Benguella to the Tanganyika Concessions, so 
 they entered into a contract with the company and 
 had set forth in December, 1906. In order to 
 reach the section of the country nearest to Kan- 
 shanshi and yet west of the fly country, they had 
 had to make a wide detour of about nine hundred 
 miles in order to avoid all sections where they would 
 meet the tsetse fly. The bringing of one thousand 
 head of cattle, most of them milch animals, and nine 
 wagons through unbroken country was a difficult 
 and heroic undertaking. At Nankandundu they 
 had parted company, Mr. King taking seven 
 wagons to the coast, for loads bound for Ruwi, and 
 Mr. Woest proceeding with two wagons and the 
 main herd to locate in Northwestern Rhodesia, as 
 near to Kanshanshi as the fly would allow. In over 
 seven months' trekking through the unknown they 
 had lost but about sixty animals from lions and 
 sickness, most of these being young. 
 
 We had a most enjoyable visit at Kalene, and 
 left there the Fourth of July much refreshed. At 
 first we had been rather depressed by the news 
 
To THE Kassai. 155 
 
 given us of the Bachiokwe country, through which 
 we felt we ought to pass. Our friends considered 
 that the undertaking was most hazardous, if not 
 utterly impossible. The Schindlers had come 
 through there once from Malange at a time when 
 war prevented their coming by the regular caravan 
 route from Benguella, but as their carriers wanted 
 to get to their own homes in the interior, they 
 brought the party through. It was considered 
 almost a certainty that if we made the attempt to 
 go through, our carriers would desert us and we 
 would all run the risk of being pillaged and killed. 
 In fact, we were strongly advised to keep to the 
 old slave-route to Bihe, which is now perfectly 
 safe, and to let the Bachiokwe alone. Under the 
 same circumstances we should give the same advice. 
 It was the most reasonable thing to do. Neverthe- 
 less we felt more than ever, after our evening 
 prayers that night, that we should go through the 
 Bachiokwe country and come out, we and our 
 carriers, in safety. 
 
 As I had brought eleven men from Ruwi, I 
 sent them back, and now found myself in need of 
 other carriers. The doctor had sent out to the 
 nearest village for them, but at nine o'clock that 
 morning I was still four men short. This delay 
 
156 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 was very perplexing, but was most unexpectedly 
 solved. Suddenly we saw the familiar face of a 
 white man whom we had left at Broken Hill, a 
 young man by the name of Kendall, The pleas- 
 ure of meeting was mutual. He had left Broken 
 Hill two weeks after us and had come by the short- 
 est and most direct route, right through the heart 
 of the Wakaonda country. He and two other 
 white men were taking 120 natives over to work on 
 the Benguella Railway. 
 
 He informed me that he was a day's march in 
 advance of his party and that they were going so 
 light they would soon overtake us on the trail. 
 So I left four loads for them to take on to Nana- 
 kandundu, and we left. 
 
 The next day at noon Mr. Kendall again over- 
 took us and went with us for a few miles. He 
 ate lunch with us and asked all about our route. 
 We told him of our intention of going through 
 that Bachiokwe country, and he said, "I do n't 
 know but what I '11 go through to Angola with 
 you." As this involved many questions, we made 
 it a serious matter of pra^^er for the next few days. 
 
 Once more we crossed the Zambesi, now about 
 a hundred miles from the source. Here it was a 
 broad, beautiful river, over which we were ferried 
 in canoes. And from now on, for several hundred 
 
To THE Kassai. 157 
 
 miles, we had practically flat, swampy or sandy 
 country all the way. 
 
 As we stopped for lunch the day we reached 
 Nanakandundu, we saw a sight never to be forgot- 
 ten. There was no running water on that vlej, 
 but water could be found only a few inches from 
 the surface almost anywhere. So the vlej was 
 dotted with numerous holes from one to two feet 
 deep, into which the water seeped and from which 
 the kraal was supplied. 
 
 As we sat there, under the scanty shade of a 
 scrubby tree, an old woman came down with a small 
 jar to get water. She was blind and a Avalking 
 skeleton, her only clothing being an infinitesimal 
 scrid of cloth worn in front. It was the most pain- 
 ful sight to see that poor old soul groping her way 
 to get the needed drop of water with which to cook 
 her own scanty meal, her emaciated condition be- 
 ing due, no doubt, to neglect and starvation. But 
 what most impressed me was that her miserable 
 condition elicited not one word of sympathy from 
 the natives, but rather ridicule. The spirit that 
 old people have no right to live is heathen to the 
 core and flourishes its best on heathen soil. 
 
 During the week Kendall's party and ours had 
 several times passed and repassed each other, so we 
 arrived at Mr. Schindler's mission station on the 
 
158 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 same day. And here we made the final arrange- 
 ments to go from there on together. I was to have 
 a certain number of his boys to carry for me. I 
 wanted sixteen, but when we came to start some of 
 his had bolted and joined the main party, and I 
 was only able to get ten for myself, while he had 
 to have seven for himself. The whole caravan 
 which left Nanakandundu was but tliirty. 
 
 On all our journey we had an unusually small 
 caravan. There were three whites of us, and eight 
 of the men belonged to Mrs. Springer's machilla, 
 and was only half a team at that. We were told 
 in the Concessions that a solitary prospector go- 
 ing out for only a couple of weeks would take 
 along fort}^ or fifty carriers. Had I been going 
 alone, I could have done with twenty, but each 
 white person adds to the amount of luggage and 
 food supplies needed on the way. 
 
 * Our caravan was now too small by four men 
 and caused no little inconvenience for over a week, 
 for we had to try and get other carriers along the 
 road, and with little success. 
 
 On arriving at Kavungu we were met by Mr. 
 Arnot, who was just setting out to keep an engage- 
 ment for Bible reading with some Portuguese 
 traders. Through the influence of the missionaries 
 and the reading of the Bible one of these traders 
 
To THE Kassai. 159 
 
 had been converted, and he had been interesting 
 the two or three other traders thereabouts. These 
 men had never had the Scriptures before, and to 
 them they were a mine of wonders. 
 
 These missions were started by Mr. Arnot. He 
 was a schoolmate of Livingstone's children in Scot- 
 land. Through them he became keenly interested 
 in Africa, and especially in the Katanga country 
 mentioned in Livingstone's letters. He felt called 
 to devote his life to opening up that section to the 
 Gospel. 
 
 In 1881 he sailed for Africa. He landed at 
 Port Elizabeth and tried to get to the Katanga 
 country that way, but only reached Basutoland, 
 where King Lewanika absolutely refused to let him 
 go farther north "to teach his dogs." 
 
 However, he went northwest to Benguella, on 
 the west coast, and from there made his way east- 
 ward through Bihe and Nanakandundu to Nkoni 
 Hill. It took him just three years from the time 
 he left England to arrive at his destined point. He 
 remained in the Garenganze country a year, and 
 then returned to Benguella to meet reinforcements, 
 and while there he heard that Bishop Taylor and 
 his party had landed at Loanda, 250 miles north, 
 to start a chain of missions inland from that point. 
 
160 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 After about twenty years on the field, during 
 which time several excellent stations had been 
 opened and established, he was, while home in Eng- 
 land, chosen to succeed George Miiller at his death. 
 However, he did not feel himself called to that par- 
 ticular work and had returned to Africa to visit 
 the stations he had founded. Recent news states 
 that, on account of health, he had to leave Central 
 Africa again at the close of 1907. 
 
 Our stay at this mission was much too short, 
 but necessarily so. We enjoyed the hospitality of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Schindler to the full. They spared 
 no pains to do all in their power for us, as indeed 
 they do for all the way-worn travelers who come 
 to that far-inland post. 
 
 There la^'^ ahead of us some six hundred miles 
 of wild country and savage peoples, with no other 
 white station of any kind until we should reach 
 Malange. The Schindlers had once come through 
 that way, with no little danger to themselves, but 
 they agreed with us that if God had called us to 
 go He would take us through in safety. 
 
 We left this very last outpost of friends on 
 July 12th. Mr. Arnot went a little way with us, 
 and then, after commending us to the care and pro- 
 tection of our Heavenly Father, went back, and we 
 turned our faces westward again. 
 
To THE Kassai. 161 
 
 Our four Valovale secured at the mission were 
 to act as guides the five days they were with us. 
 Their idea of traveling is to make ten miles a day, 
 or less, and then stop. So the second day they 
 assured us that we would have to stop at a certain 
 kraal, as there was no water ahead. Now, our time 
 was precious, our provisions few, and it was abso- 
 lutely necessary that we should average close on to 
 twenty miles a day every day except Sunday. So 
 we positively refused to stop at near noon, and our 
 other carriers laughed derisively at the tale of no 
 water ahead. It is one of the most threadbare ex- 
 cuses of guides along the way. 
 
 So we went on and, two miles farther, came 
 to one of the nastiest bogs we had to cross on the 
 whole journey. Our carriers had their jokes on 
 the Valovale, and we joined in, but we realized that 
 if we had been obliged to depend on Valovale men 
 alone it would have meant serious business. In 
 fact, I doubt if we could have got them through 
 at all. 
 
 I could not trust these men at all, and from 
 this time on I had to stay right at the head of the 
 caravan, with a compass constantly at hand, and 
 choose the paths even when I had guides. None 
 of them could be trusted wholly. The caravan 
 had to be entirely reorganized. I had to have my 
 11 
 
162 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 faithful Angoni Capitao with me at the head of 
 the caravan, and another trusty man to bring up 
 the rear. It was no easy task, and grew increas- 
 ingly^ difficult as the days went by, to get informa- 
 tion and food from the villages through which 
 we passed. A map of Mr. Constable's, which was 
 given me at Kambove, was helpful for a couple of 
 weeks in securing information. 
 
 The country was now as flat as a pancake and 
 either deep sand or deep swamp. At Sambasamba's 
 kraal we found the chief holding court, having a 
 woman on trial. This was the fourth day for our 
 Valovale men, but as they had only intended mak- 
 ing ten miles a day they were sullen and stubborn, 
 insisting that they did not know the way any far- 
 ther and should be paid off and allowed to return. 
 
 I told them that the understanding had been 
 that they were to cross the Lutemwa River with 
 us, and across the Lutemwa they should go. But 
 we needed a guide to take us through the bad 
 swamps, of which we were having three or more a 
 day. So I asked Sambasamba to give me one. 
 He ordered a young man to go with us, but the 
 youth flatly refused to go. The other head men, 
 wishing to be rid of us and go on with the trial, 
 joined the chief, but it was nearly an hour before 
 we could, all of us combined, get the youth started, 
 and even then he was not in good humor. 
 
To THE Kassai. 163 
 
 This was the first time I had ever seen such 
 disregard for the word of a chief. Usually a 
 young man, when told to do a thing by his chief, 
 will obey promptly. But all along here we found 
 this same spirit of surly disregard of tribal 
 authority. 
 
 While waiting for the guide we found some 
 excellent specimens of native decoration on the wall 
 of a hut and took a photograph of them. We had 
 left the round huts of Central Africa, and found 
 the square ones which prevail toward the west coast. 
 Although we had this guide, we got on the wrong 
 trail, and when we had gone into the swamp about 
 a quarter of a mile the natives from the nearest 
 kraal shouted out that by that route we could never 
 get over, as the water was too deep at the river. 
 This made long delays. I went back to investi- 
 gate the meaning of the shouting, and had to call 
 them all back and cross the river by another path. 
 We had about two miles of wading in foul mud 
 and swamp that day. And although we had sev- 
 eral swamps and marshj' places ahead of us, yet 
 the badly swampy country which we had had al- 
 most from the last crossing of the Zambesi was 
 over, and we were now to have sand instead for 
 steady traveling. 
 
 For a day or two we had also been interested 
 
1G4 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 in the native graveyards all along the trail. Each 
 grave was surrounded by a roofed-over fence and 
 decorated with white cloth flags tied on poles in 
 the center. These fences are not very secure, and 
 we saw one place where the voracious hyena had 
 dug down to the body to have a horrible feast. 
 
 The personal appearance of the natives, their 
 villages, their habits, their customs and country, 
 was diff^erent in every way from those of any part 
 of Rhodesia. For looseness of morals the Valo- 
 vale are hard to excel. We were told that many 
 of the men encourage their wives to immorality. 
 If a caravan comes in their vicinity they will send 
 their wives out to it, and then come in angrily de- 
 manding heavy fines off the victims. And such 
 loose lives mean that the whole moral nature of 
 the tribe is one of the lowest. Lying, thieving, 
 slave-dealing, and all other forms of dishonesty 
 prevail among them. Physically thej' are large 
 and well built, but the women are not prolific as 
 in most of the tribes, and the absence of little chil- 
 dren in the villages was notable. 
 
 When the slave trade is finally killed, as it is 
 bound to be in spite of its tenacity, the Valovale 
 must cither become converted and leave their pres- 
 ent mode of life or they will die out of their own 
 excesses. 
 
To THE Kassai. 165 
 
 On reaching Chisonga, the first kraal on the 
 west side of the Lutembwe, our guide positively 
 refused to go a step further. So did the other 
 four men, although they had agreed to go with 
 us to the next kraal and were paid for it. We had 
 only gone nine miles, and tried our best to get on. 
 Never a bit of it. The men had done four days' 
 work in succession, and they wanted a rest and 
 were bound to have it. Under the circumstances, 
 we had to camp. 
 
 The reason why Chisonga's men refused to go 
 on with us that day was that they saw in us an 
 opportunity for a brisk trade. As soon as we 
 had camped they came with potatoes and beans 
 in large quantities, and limited amounts of meal. 
 One of them brought out a steamer chair, which 
 I bought. It was home-made, of native mahogany, 
 not badly carved, and an excellent imitation of a 
 steamer chair. All along here we were offered 
 small stools, and bought two or three. They were 
 made of a neatly carved framework about a foot 
 high, over which was stretched dressed leather. 
 
 Chisonga and his men were remarkable for two 
 things. First, they were unusually short of stat- 
 ure; and, secondly, they wore their hair in a most 
 elaborate copy of the "waterfall" of thirty years 
 
166 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 ago. Their imitation of the corkscrew curls was 
 accompHshed by a generous use of grease and 
 black clay. 
 
 When I went for my promised guide in the 
 morning, the smallest man in the lot was given to 
 me. As it was necessary for him to carry a sev- 
 enty-pound load, I was dismayed. But when he 
 transferred the whole load to the head of his 
 little son, who did not look to be more than ten 
 years old, and he himself set off loadless as our 
 guide, I interfered. I made him carry fifteen 
 pounds himself, but in spite of me the youngster 
 had to carry the rest for twelve miles that day. 
 
 This shows another difference from what we 
 were used to previously. We had reached the 
 country where men are trained for the trail and 
 who refuse to do any other work. These Valovale 
 will carry loads — now, though they did not do 
 that nmch when the missionary first arrived — and 
 the time will come when they will learn that other 
 work must be done by freemen also. But as long 
 as they can own slaves and women they will not 
 do it. 
 
 Our path this day took us through an almost 
 endless succession of kraals. We passed from one 
 cassava field into another. We were just north of 
 Lake Dilolo, in a flat country of white sand, and 
 
To THE Kassai. 167 
 
 we must have passed at least twenty kraals and 
 saw many more to one side. 
 
 We were getting used to the cassava meal now, 
 having had more or less of it for three weeks. The 
 natives here raise little or no millet or corn. A 
 few sweet potatoes and beans and the castor oil 
 plant are their chief products. They are very fond 
 of the castor oil, which they use for anointing 
 their bodies and dressing their hair. 
 
 After gathering the oil beans they roast them, 
 pound them to powder in a mortar, and then boil 
 the meal, skimming off the oil. They have pro- 
 duced such large quantities of castor oil that the 
 missionaries use it in their lamps, which purpose it 
 answers very nicely — ^that is, in the student-lamp 
 style. 
 
 The cassava meal is prepared thus: The root 
 is dug from the ground when it is about the size 
 of a large sweet potato. The bitter cassava is 
 mostly cultivated. The bitterness is caused by the 
 presence of prussic acid, so that, if the root is eaten 
 raw, a case of serious poisoning often follows. To 
 get rid of this, the root is soaked for about ten 
 days. It is much better, according to Occidental 
 taste, when soaked in a clear stream of running 
 water. But evidently the native differs in his 
 opinion, and so the women hunt up some sluggish 
 
168 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 spring, some stagnant pool, or swampy mud-hole, 
 in which to soak and, incidentally, flavor the pre- 
 cious root. 
 
 When it is soaked soft, or, as a heartless Euro- 
 pean would put it, "rotten," the women wade into 
 these holes. We saw them frequently standing in 
 the mud and water nearly up to their waists, while 
 the odor from these mud-holes reminded me of the 
 familiar pig-sty smells of my boyhood days. The 
 women take the root out, peel it then and there, 
 and place it in baskets, which they carry on their 
 heads back to the kraals. Here the root is placed 
 on the roof to dry, after which it is pounded and 
 sifted and pounded again until it becomes flour. 
 When cooked it resembles thick, minute pudding, 
 but has the color and a bit of the consistency 
 of India rubber, and a decidedly sour taste. When 
 we first came to this our carriers made a great fuss 
 and declared they could not eat it. But when they 
 found we were eating it they subsided. 
 
 And we did eat it, and were glad of the chance. 
 Nevertheless, when wc reached ^Nlalange and were 
 able to get other food, I do not recall that any of 
 us regretted leaving the "fungi" behind. It is 
 nutritious ; and having said that, there is little 
 more to say. 
 
 Once more we were nearing the water-shed. We 
 
To THE Kassai. 169 
 
 camped near Chawo's kraal, and in reply to my 
 messenger Chawo sent back word that he did not 
 intend to come out to see the white man. Later on 
 he thought better of it and came down with a 
 number of his people, bringing a present of meal 
 and a tiny fowl. 
 
 I arranged with him for a guide the next day 
 and for three carriers. To my surprise ten young 
 bucks, all done up in castor oil and red ochre, ap- 
 peared. Kendall took on the others. The chief 
 made me promise that I would not strike one of 
 the men before he let them go. To them a blow 
 is the brand of slavery, and they are mortally 
 afraid of it. 
 
 We moved on at a most cheering pace for six 
 miles, when we came to a kraal and a dead stop. 
 The new men said they wanted water, so all hands 
 went to a clump of trees and drank from a spring. 
 Then they told me that the chief had instructed 
 them to sleep there that night, as the next water 
 was far, far ahead. It was like the old cry of 
 wolf, and I did not believe them ; but this time they 
 were right. 
 
 However, I could not stop there, and so I in- 
 sisted and persisted until I finally got them to 
 shoulder their loads and go on. We were now on 
 
170 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 the water-shed again, crossing it for the third and 
 last time. 
 
 We were also on a treeless plain, which is known 
 as the Kifumagi Flats. When we had made five 
 miles more and noon time came, we looked in vain 
 for a tree, which should be the sign of water. 
 
 At length we came to a hole about two feet 
 deep, in which was some rather dubious-looking 
 water, but hard travel does away with over-fas- 
 tidiousness, and we were glad for what water we 
 could get while we had our simple lunch. I had 
 never before in my travels in Africa seen a country 
 like this. It reminded me very forcibly of the 
 Dakota prairies when we first moved to them in 
 the eighties. There was the same mirage effect 
 and the same haze. 
 
 The sun beat down pitilessly that day, and 
 we all suffered greatly from tliirst. We found one 
 other water-hole before night, but the water was so 
 muddy that we left it to our carriers, who drained 
 it eagerly to the very bottom. 
 
 Then we caught a glimpse of trees ahead, at 
 the sight of which our boys burst into singing. 
 But we found ourselves under that same illusion as 
 to distances that we liad been familiar with in 
 Dakota. The trees meant water, but we had sev- 
 eral weary miles before we reached it. 
 
To THE Kassai. 171 
 
 When we had stopped at the little stream in 
 the morning we drank from one of the contribu- 
 tors to the Zambesi, and when, just about sunset, 
 we reached another living stream, it was one of 
 the tributaries of the Kassai, wliich empties into 
 the Congo. 
 
 Just a few rods before reaching these springs 
 of the Katala River we crossed the wagon track 
 between Benguela and Ruwi. Despite the fact 
 that no wagon had passed that way for weeks, 
 the very sight of wheel tracks gave us a delight- 
 ful sensation of companionship in strong contrast 
 to the feeling of strangeness that comes from 
 weeks among a savage and inhospitable people, ,^ 
 
 In two or three years the railroad will be laid 
 on or near this wagon track, which follows the al- 
 most level water-shed for hundreds of miles. Rail- 
 road construction will be an easy matter along this 
 water-shed, where it has been estimated that there 
 are about 450 miles in one stretch where there will 
 be no need of a bridge or culvert. 
 
 An amusing incident occurred as we reached 
 the water that day. Our thirsty carriers dropped 
 their loads and not only began to drink, but 
 plunged into the springs, dashing water all over 
 their bodies. The most fastidious of the two white 
 men with us, forgetting in his severe thirst that 
 
172 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 the stream was flowing north, went a Httle distance 
 beyond them and, not being able to wait for his 
 drinking-cup to arrive, took a gourd from one of 
 his men, carefully washed it, and then drank to 
 his heart's content of the cool waters. 
 
 As soon as his burning thirst was allaj^ed he 
 looked around and discovered a dozen carriers bath- 
 ing in the stream j ust above him. At another time 
 he would have been furiously indignant, but this 
 time the humor of his carefully-washed gourd ap- 
 pealed to his risibles. The fact was, he said, he 
 had never tasted such good water in all his life, 
 even if the natives had bathed in it. 
 -^ That night the Chawo carriers complained a 
 good deal about their backs, and we wondered if 
 they would go on. We had done in one day what 
 they had planned to do in two. But the next morn- 
 ing, although they were a bit slow about cooking 
 and eating their breakfast, they shouldered their 
 loads and started. Four miles on, however, they 
 wanted to stop for the day. I got them to go on for 
 another mile. We had just crossed a small stream, 
 when they laid down their loads and absolutely 
 refused to proceed further. Talking and promises 
 were of no avail ; they would n't budge, and there 
 was no getting them further, so I had to rearrange 
 loads, take machilla men, and get on to the next 
 
To THE Kassai. 173 
 
 kraal, three miles away, as best I could. Here I 
 was able to get three men to go on with us. 
 
 At noon one of these new men insisted that 
 there was no water ahead, and I learned later that 
 that was true as regards the direct trail. But I 
 had heard that excuse so often I was skeptical, so 
 I made him take us along. He soon turned off 
 the direct trail and took us to a group of kraals, 
 where we had a good camp for Sunday and were 
 able to get a fair amount of food. 
 
 For three more days we traveled on the south 
 side of the Kassai River, not being more than ten 
 miles distant from it at any time. I understand 
 from the maps and the natives that the Kassai 
 parallels the water-shed for about three hundred 
 miles or more, and in all that distance is never far 
 from it. 
 
 It is fed by a number of springs which rise 
 on the edge of the Kifumagi Flats, but its greatest 
 supply comes from the higher lands on the north 
 side. 
 
 On the night of the 23d of July we camped 
 at the kraal of Chilalo and the next morning 
 crossed the Kassai at the famous Muwewe, an out- 
 crop of solid rock through which the river has worn 
 a narrow channel about ten feet wide. The natives 
 
174 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 had thrown a lot of poles across, thus making a 
 bridge, over which our caravan safely crossed. 
 
 There are no falls here that we could see, but 
 there are considerable rapids above and below 
 Muwewe. The river takes an easterly course for 
 about two hundred miles below Muwewe, and then 
 bends abruptly to the north, where it flows through 
 the heart of the Lunda country. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 AMONG THE BACHIOKWE. 
 
 We were now but a day's march from the 
 dreaded and dreadful Bachiokwe. From the days 
 of Livingstone, who had so much trouble with 
 them, this tribe has earned and maintained a thor- 
 oughly bad name. They gave Livingstone more 
 trouble than any other tribe through which he 
 passed. Every chief tried to rob him, and in one 
 case he and his little band were surrounded, and it 
 was evident that murder and plunder was the ob- 
 ject. For hours Livingstone sat with his double- 
 barrelled gun across his knees, ready for action if 
 absolutely necessary. Once he did have to point 
 the gun at a native. But after he had been fairly 
 robbed by fines, he and his men managed to get 
 away without bloodshed. 
 
 But every chief held him up in the same way, 
 so that it is with satisfaction that we find one in- 
 stance where Livingstone's party got the best of 
 these villainous savages. He says: "One of the 
 oxen we offered the Chiboque [as he calls them] 
 
 175 
 
176 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 had been rejected because he had lost part of his 
 tail, as they thought it had been cut off and some 
 medicine inserted; and some mirth was excited by 
 my proposing to raise similar objections to all the 
 oxen we still had in our possession. The remaining 
 four soon presented a singular shortness in their 
 caudal extremities, and though no one ever asked 
 if they had medicine in the stumps or no, we were 
 no more troubled by the demand for an ox." 
 
 So from the time we reached Broken Hill and 
 mentioned going through the Bachiokwe country, 
 we had been warned against it. To be sure, Mr. 
 Schindler had come from Malange by that route, 
 but he found it almost impossible to get food, and 
 his party was met with open hostility. At the 
 best, he had "to buy his way through." As we 
 had nothing to pay, this mode was impossible. We 
 did not have oxen, like Livingstone, nor a large 
 stock of cloth, like Schindler. Another reason why 
 we were warned was that Mr. Boyd-Cunningham 
 had been killed by them in 1905, and no punish- 
 ment had been meted out to them for the murder, 
 by the Portuguese. But as they have never yet 
 been subdued by the Portuguese, such a punish- 
 ment would have been impossible. Nevertheless it 
 was true that the murder of one white man did not 
 add to the safety of another. 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 177 
 
 When we had arrived at Malange we were told 
 a story about a former "Governor of the Lunda 
 Country," which is the title still enjoyed by a man 
 whose residence is at Malange and who has never 
 been among either the Balunda nor the Bachiokwe. 
 This former governor really had an ambition to 
 be a governor indeed, and so made a journey into 
 the Bachiokwe country. He was "warmly" re- 
 ceived. When he sat dawn to his sumptuous re- 
 past the Bachiokwe gathered around him and with 
 openly insulting insolence snatched the food from 
 his table and ate it themselves. It was clear to him 
 at once that his official residence had better be kept 
 in Malange and the fierce Bachiokwe should not be 
 forced into paying taxes. However, as most of 
 the Portuguese officials are in Angola to recruit 
 their fortunes, they have found this very Bachiokwe 
 country yielding great profits through its rubber 
 and slave trade. Though they may not go there 
 themselves, they send their native emissaries to buy 
 the rubber and slaves for them. 
 
 It should be stated that the laws and the gen- 
 eral public opinion of Portugal are strictly against 
 slavery and the oppression of the natives. 
 
 However, capital punishment is not adminis- 
 tered in Portugal, the convicts being deported to 
 the Colonies, particularly to Angola. Thus it comes 
 12 
 
178 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 to pass that when the terms of many of these con- 
 victs are finished, some go into business as traders 
 and others are not infrequently given official po- 
 sitions in the government. 
 
 Thus Portugal has the misfortune of being 
 most commonly represented in Africa by ex-crim- 
 inals, who do not scruple to engage in the slave 
 trade nor to defraud and prey upon the natives in 
 every way that greed and lust might suggest. 
 
 While slavery is illegal, those so disposed find 
 a way to circumvent the laws and carry on an 
 actual slave traffic under the regulations relating 
 to "indentured laborers," aided in many instances 
 by officials who doubtless share in the profits. 
 
 Though often denied, that such a traffic in 
 human beings does actually exist at the present day 
 was frankly admitted to me by a most estimable 
 Portuguese gentleman who had been governor of 
 one of the Portuguese colonics in Africa and who 
 had traveled extensively in Angola. He spoke of 
 it with deep regret and expressed the hope that the 
 opening up of Africa at large would destroy the 
 slave trade and put Angola on a sound business 
 footing like the British possessions. 
 
 The planters make no bones of having slaves, 
 and in fact traders and other individuals speak 
 freely of their slaves. 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 179 
 
 The "Indentured laborer" theory certainly 
 needs investigation when the victims have to be 
 brought from the interior bound with the heavy 
 logs and chains, as we frequently saw them on our 
 journey. 
 
 After crossing the Kassai we had but one day's 
 march along sandy trails in a sparsely settled coun- 
 try before we came to the Bachiokwe. We had not 
 been able to get any Balovale men to go with us 
 as guides, there being no more fellowship between 
 the two tribes than between the Jews and the Sa- 
 maritans. The Balovale were not risking their 
 necks to the Bachiokwe slave yoke. 
 
 Nor were we able to get the Bachiokwe them- 
 selves to act as guides. For this tribe, although 
 large and powerful, does not owe allegiance to any 
 one chief, but each little district has its own. chief 
 and is a law unto itself. During the three weeks 
 that we were passing through the Bachiokwe coun- 
 try I was able to get guides for only two days. 
 
 It was, therefore, with serious minds that we 
 found ourselves approaching the territory of this 
 hostile and independent tribe. Taking my com- 
 pass, I proceeded in a general westerly direction. 
 We had camped that night in a rubber forest, be- 
 side a little stream of clear, cold water. Nearby 
 was a kraal whose people were friendly and 
 
180 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 brought us plenty of food to buy. When we 
 awoke in the morning, the vlej through which this 
 stream runs was all white Avith hoar frost — an 
 almost daily experience with us in the Bachiokwe 
 country. 
 
 We had learned that the next village we found 
 would be Bachiokwe. It was a new experience. 
 Heretofore we had either known that the natives 
 were friendly or had been blissfully ignorant of 
 what they might be. Now we were well aware of 
 the desperate character the people ahead bore, and 
 although we did not for a minute doubt that we 
 should go through in safety, it could not be other- 
 wise than that silence fell upon us. 
 
 After about three miles, as we came to an open 
 vlej, we saw cattle grazing, and just beyond them 
 fantastically dressed men uttering peculiar cries to 
 frighten us. At that moment ^Irs. Springer was 
 more afraid of a particularly inquisitive cow than 
 of the fiercest band of savages, and my attention 
 had to be given to the wondering cattle. For, 
 though these seemed tame, some of the native cat- 
 tle are belligerent enough. 
 
 As we drew near to the men, they hesitated, 
 half in curiosity and half in defiance, still uttering 
 their shrill cries. There were three of them, clad 
 in long, grass-fringed belts, hideous masks and 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 181 
 
 headgear, their bodies smeared with grease and red 
 ochre, and their footprints showed that they had 
 some kind of rubber soles on their feet. They had 
 bells, which they jingled in accompaniment to their 
 cries, and it was evident that they intended to fill 
 us with terror. But the distant sound of a drum 
 was more formidable. The apparition of the witch- 
 doctors and the sound of the drum signified that 
 a devil dance was on hand, the depth of wickedness 
 of which is beyond description. 
 
 A fourth witch-doctor had started to cross the 
 vlej, when a young man ran out and shouted des- 
 perately for him to stop. This he did, much to 
 our regret, as we would have liked a closer view of 
 his costume. But, although he was a long way 
 off, we could see that his hat (if such it might be 
 called) resembled a boat, on the top of which was 
 a large white disk. 
 
 It was with a sense of relief that, having passed 
 this group of villages, we heard the sounds 
 of the drum dying in the distance. The country 
 was more broken now, and our general trail par- 
 alleled the Kassai, which wound in and out between 
 two ranges of low hills. 
 
 As we passed through the kraals I would ask, 
 "Which is the path to Malange?" For the most 
 part the question was met with sullen silence, as if 
 
182 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 it had not been heard at all. In one of the several 
 kraals a man sprang up and led us out onto the 
 right path, and was very courteous, but the most 
 of them would do nothing. 
 
 It is not so hard to travel by the compass, once 
 you get started aright from a kraal, but at each 
 kraal there are so many garden paths, water paths, 
 and all sorts of paths which have only a local value, 
 that it is very hard to know which way to go out 
 of a village. 
 
 During the day we made twenty-two miles and 
 must have passed some twenty kraals, most of them 
 being Bachiokwe, or, as the people in the southern 
 half of their country call themselves, Bachioko. 
 
 The next day, Saturday, was a sharp contrast 
 to this. Instead of following the river wc went 
 away from it and spent nearly the whole day in 
 parched, empty country. The very forests had 
 been burned, and presented a charred, inhospitable, 
 funereal aspect for long, weary miles. During the 
 day we came to only three kraals, and the men in 
 them refused to act as guides and would hardly 
 show us the path out. 
 
 More than once we got on tlie wrong trail, as 
 wc judged from the compass, and once had to 
 march a ways over the blackened veld. Our throats 
 were parched with thirst. About noon the sun was 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 183 
 
 powerful, and still we had to march wearily on 
 through this desolate wilderness with only deserted 
 and burned kraals to mark what had been a lively 
 community last year. It may have been some slave 
 raid that had done tliis work. We could not learn 
 from the natives. 
 
 It was Saturday, and two things we must have : 
 food and water. At last we halted near signs of 
 human habitation, while I started out with my 
 capitao, determined in desperation to camp near 
 water if I could find it, and then move on again on 
 the morrow if no kraal was within reach. The 
 whole caravan was done out. For nothing will use 
 up a caravan quicker than to be short of water. 
 They can go without food, but not without water. 
 
 Fortunately we soon found an old man, who 
 led us to a good camping-place on the banks of a 
 steep ravine. He made us understand that his 
 kraal was not far away and that we could get 
 food. So I returned to the others, who were sit- 
 ting around dejectedly on stumps and logs, and 
 we all thanked God and took courage. 
 
 Our Sunday services were rather unique and 
 not most satisfactory. We sang hymns in five dif- 
 ferent languages, including English, and had 
 prayer in three. When it came to preaching it 
 took three or four different interpreters, and I con- 
 
184 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 fess I have m^^ doubts about the clearness of the 
 message as it passed through so many mouths. 
 Here and all through the Bachiokwe tribe I made 
 it my great point to get them to clearly under- 
 stand, though often with difficulty, that we were 
 missionaries, and not slavers. This was made easier 
 by the fact that nearly everywhere I would find 
 some one who either knew of or who knew some one 
 else who had known one of our missionaries at Ma- 
 lange or Quionga. 
 
 In the days of Bishop Taylor, when our mis- 
 sionaries used to trade extensively for wax and 
 rubber, they were widely known among these in- 
 terior tribes for their honest dealings and because 
 they did not deal in rum. The native from the far 
 interior liked to go where he could be sure of 
 getting a good price for liis bees-wax and rubber 
 and where he could get a goodly quantity of bar- 
 ter to carry back instead of a howling drunk and 
 a sore head. 
 
 One reason for our friendly reception here b}^ 
 this kraal was that one of the men had once known 
 a missionary, and therefore vouched for it that we 
 were all right. So fearless were they that one man 
 offered to become our guide the next day, and it 
 was a day when we needed a guide badly ; another 
 man offered to go also and carry a load. 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 185 
 
 Monday night we camped near a kraal where 
 preparations were going on for a big dance. The 
 people were all hideous in red and white paint, with 
 fantastic head-dress, and very little other dress. 
 They would not come to our camp with food, and 
 so I had to go to them. The chief was very sour 
 and surly. He would give me no present, but kept 
 bringing out bits of meal in his hands, for which 
 he wanted a big price in beads. His people, too, 
 were very independent, evidently selling only just 
 to be rid of us, so that the dance could begin. 
 
 As the yelling and howling reached our ears 
 we felt a bit uneasy. It would be an easy matter 
 for a drunken crowd like that to wipe out a little 
 band like ours. It was a noteworthy fact that our 
 guide and his companion did not go up to the kraal 
 at all, but camped with our men. Once during the 
 first part of the night the singing grew plainer 
 and we feared a visitation, but the noise quieted 
 down again and we were left In peace. 
 
 In the morning the two men said they had 
 done two days' work and wanted pay for it, so I 
 had to pay them and let them go. The first man 
 had required his pay for a day in advance before 
 we started out. This is characteristic of the 
 Bachiokwe. They trust no man, whether friend or 
 foe, of their own tribe or another. At least this 
 
186 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 is the impression they give a stranger passing 
 through. They go about armed, and even in the 
 kraals we noticed the men kept their guns within 
 easy reach. There must be a reason for such an 
 atmosphere of constant distrust and suspicion, and 
 there is: it is to be found in the still-existing, 
 hydra-headed slave trade. 
 
 The rest of the week was about the same story 
 of steep climbs and descents, miles of travel through 
 beautiful rubber forests, crossing vigorous streams 
 of fine, cold water, and struggling to get enough 
 for our boys to eat each night. It was a con- 
 stant effort now to do this. Indeed, we found that 
 we must not depend on any one kraal, and much 
 time was spent daily in trying to buy at each 
 village through which we passed. Now and then 
 I could give my earners a decent meal, but oftener 
 they had short rations. 
 
 Our own food was scarce and we had to share 
 with our boys in going hungry and in eating the 
 sour cassava meal mush, which was the only thing 
 we could get in this country. The nights were 
 biting cold and the days hot, so, take it all in all, 
 we were not in the most cheerful mood. During the 
 week we crossed the Kwangu River about twenty- 
 five miles above the falls, and so mountainous is 
 that section that we had to cross the river tliree 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 187 
 
 times in about two hours, each time on native 
 bridges of poles. 
 
 The next Saturday was a very hard day. We 
 got on the wrong trail at a deserted kraal and 
 soon found we were going southwest instead of 
 northwest. The trail then led us to a recently 
 burned kraal, where all traces of a path in our 
 direction were wiped out. After much loss of time 
 I once more started on a very faint old trail 
 through the forest. It was hard for my men to 
 follow me and we got badly scattered and divided. 
 
 Hearing a party of hunters in the woods above 
 us, I sent a boy to inquire about the trail, but at 
 the sight of him they abruptly fled and we had 
 no alternative but to keep on until we found a 
 fresh path, which we did after about four miles. 
 This landed us at Kapiya's kraal, where the people 
 lied so outrageously about everything that we could 
 not tell really where we were. 
 
 But as it was a large kraal I decided that we 
 would not go farther, but stay here over the Sab- 
 bath. The gardens showed that there was food 
 in plenty. We asked them to show us a camping- 
 place and they took us out a little way past a 
 trader's temporary hut, near which was an old 
 Mambunda camp, where I counted more than three 
 hundred huts. I made inquiries about these Mam- 
 
188 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 bunda, and they told me they were traders who 
 bought rubber and wax. Did they ever buy 
 slaves? Injured innocence insisted loudly, no. 
 Nevertheless the silent ruins contradicted the as- 
 sertion. There were the huts, with the place for the 
 slave and the place for the guard who should 
 sleep with him. 
 
 After we had made our camp the men began 
 to come down to visit us, and soon a native, elab- 
 orately dressed, came and asked if we could speak 
 Portuguese. We soon learned that he was a 
 "Mambunda," that is, a trader and a term which 
 is also applied to a slave trader. This man was 
 an evil-eyed, but an exceedingly suave, oily, po- 
 lite individual. He made many inquiries about 
 us and then left. In the meantime the head men 
 of the kraal had promised to sell us food, and we 
 felt greatly pleased that we had got where we 
 could have a good feed for our men and a needed 
 Sabbatic rest. 
 
 But when I sent to the kraal to bu}'^ the food 
 this same trader was there, and it was evident that 
 he was dissuading the men from selling to us. It 
 was, therefore, with the greatest difficulty that 
 we could get enough for supper. However, they 
 said the women had not had time to grind the meal, 
 and we had hoped that here, as in many another 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 189 
 
 kraal among other tribes, that the women would 
 start grinding at once and we would have plenty 
 for Sunday. But it was not so. The whole at- 
 mosphere of the village began to change, and at 
 10 o'clock Sunday morning we saw that we had 
 to break camp or have our men spend the day in 
 fasting. 
 
 This was the second and last time that we 
 had to march on Sunday. In most cases Sunday 
 travel can be avoided, and a caravan which rests 
 one day in seven can make better time and come 
 out in better condition than one which pushes 
 ahead every day. But now and then the inability 
 to reach or to obtain food or water may necessi- 
 tate Sunday travel. It seemed remarkable to us 
 that in so long a journey, on an unknown route, 
 on only the two occasions we were forced to do 
 this. 
 
 The men of the kraal were so anxious to be 
 rid of us for some reason that they sent one of 
 their men to get us started on our trail and to 
 give us lengthy and explicit directions as to how 
 we could reach the main path at the next village on 
 the Kwangu River, near some falls. In fact, they 
 gave us so many directions that we found it diffi- 
 cult to follow them. 
 
 When we reached the Kwangu River again it 
 
190 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 appeared to be so much smaller than we had ex- 
 pected it to be that we halted to make certain about 
 our course. On seeing a native at the top of the hill 
 on the other side we shouted to him, but on seeing 
 us he immediately disappeared. We sent two of 
 our men — who went very unwillingly and who 
 were careful to take some clubs with them — to find 
 him or others of whom to inquire the way. They 
 were gone nearly an hour, during which time we 
 began to speculate as to whether or not they had 
 been seized and Avere being held, when they re- 
 turned with a party of young bucks who belonged 
 to the kraal we were bound for and were now re- 
 turning from a visit. On promise of compensation 
 they became our guides. They were an impudent 
 lot, and in our trading for the little food we were 
 able to buy at their village they were most exorbi- 
 tant in their charges. 
 
 We were charmed and captivated b}^ the beauty 
 of these falls and the magnificence of the gorge 
 below. The falls consist of two sections (which, 
 however, flow over one brink and in the rainy 
 season mingle their waters : the Kwangu and the 
 Lutela Rivers), the larger being the Kwangu, into 
 which the Lutela flows after their sheer plunge 
 of over two hundred feet, and from there on the 
 waters tumble nosily down together over huge 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 191 
 
 bowlders another one hundred and fifty to two hun- 
 dred feet to the bottom of the gorge. 
 
 We clambered down the nearly precipitous 
 sides of the gorge to the river, and there, amidst 
 a wealth of tropical vegetation, viewed that sub- 
 lime scene almost in silence. 
 
 What a magnificent work of the Great Artist 
 hidden away there with only the native to enjoy it ! 
 The average native is not an appreciative lover 
 of the beauties of nature. But we found that the 
 surpassing beauty had even touched the savage 
 hearts around here. And our carriers left their 
 food to see these wonderful works of God and for- 
 got their empty stomachs in their awed admiration. 
 
 The fine banana grove, and palms, and ferns 
 on the steep sides of the gorge are quite a con- 
 trast to the rest of the country, which is high and 
 subject to severe frosts. The thermometer went 
 down to twenty-seven degrees one morning, and 
 one or two of the nights were so cold that we 
 could hardly sleep. 
 
 The next morning we had a very mountainous 
 trail for about six miles, where we took our last 
 view of the Kwangu. It had quieted down into a 
 deep, swift stream which flows northward until, 
 after about six hundred miles, it joins the Kassai, 
 which in turn empties into the Congo. 
 
192 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 After crossing the Kwavu, a wide, shallow con- 
 fluent of the Kwangu between two steep, sandy 
 banks, we came on to a fine tableland, heavily 
 wooded with fine big trees. What a splendid site 
 for an industrial mission! And what a blessing 
 such a place would be as a change for our An- 
 gola workers, who are in a less healthy section! 
 There are splendid possibilities for mission work 
 among these high-strung, independent, sullen 
 Bachiokwe. Their hatred of the white man is not 
 altogether unprovoked. They judge him from 
 their knowledge of the worst class of Portuguese 
 traders and officials. 
 
 There will likely be a big fight to get missions 
 started in their country. The natives will fear the 
 missionary lest he but make way for the Portuguese 
 Government, and that is a well-grounded fear. 
 Still, with the extension of the Lobito Bay Rail- 
 way, that country will have to submit to some Eu- 
 ropean power. 
 
 But the worst fight will be with the traders, 
 those unprincipled convicts and their class who 
 have dealt in slaves, and rubber, and rum. They 
 will send their emissaries throughout the country 
 disseminating the most atrocious lies, and at first 
 they will probably succeed in turning the people 
 against us. But a good medical man who has 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 193 
 
 plenty of grace and grit will be able not only to 
 hold his own, but to win out in what is sure to be 
 a long, bitter fight. For we have seen it proved 
 that nothing appeals more to the hearts of the 
 people than to relieve them of their physical suf- 
 ferings. 
 
 Arriving at Kapila's kraal we were happily sur- 
 prised to find the people more friendly. As the 
 water was far from the kraal we went on about a 
 mile. We had to cross a narrow, swampy vlej , and 
 in so doing, INlugumirani, the oldest and strongest 
 machilla carrier, sunk into the soft, swampy ground 
 so that he fell and had to be rescued, much to the 
 amusement of his fellows. 
 
 Near our camp were two new kraals built by 
 natives who had been living off the direct trade 
 routes. They were very friendh^ and sold us suf- 
 ficient food so that our men had a good meal that 
 night. I found that whenever we got off the 
 main trail frequented by traders and caravans, the 
 people were much more friendly. But those on 
 the main trails were usually' sullen or decidedly 
 cheeky and exorbitant in their charges. 
 
 The next day I saw two large antelope, but did 
 
 not have the fortune to hit them. Game is very 
 
 scarce all through this territory owing to the fact 
 
 that the natives have plenty of guns and powder. 
 
 13 
 
194 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Another day's stiff trekking among these moun- 
 tains brought us late in the afternoon to Ka- 
 vungu's kraal. Here the chief came out to greet 
 us and all the people were very friendly — almost 
 too much so. He brought out a large basket of 
 meal and a rooster as a present to me. Of course, 
 I had to give back more than the worth of the 
 stuff, but it was the polite thing for him and every 
 chief to do. 
 
 The women brought out plenty of meal, but 
 wanted big prices for it. I was, however, getting 
 along very well in the trading when one of my 
 carriers accidentally'^ (?) killed a small fowl be- 
 longing to one of the men in the village. My 
 carrier said that he Avas chopping down a tree 
 for firewood when this fowl popped its head out 
 just in time to get killed. No one believed that, 
 and I was willing to give the owner a goodly 
 amount of cloth in payment. 
 
 But at the sight of the cloth his cupidity was 
 aroused and he said it was a wholly inadequate 
 compensation for his loss. I appealed to the chief 
 and he said the amount of cloth was sufficient. 
 That settled the matter as far as I was concerned. 
 Not so with the native. He and some of his fel- 
 lows had been drinking a very intoxicating beer 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 195 
 
 made from honey and they were in a quarrelsome 
 mood. 
 
 He said that it was not the chicken that he 
 wanted pay for, but that his brother's spirit had 
 been in that fowl and he wanted a fine for the 
 injury done to his brother. I asked the chief if 
 his brother's spirit was in the cock he had given 
 me, whereat they all laughed, which only angered 
 the poor fellow. The excitement ran high for 
 awhile. My men were eagerly and vociferously 
 trying to explain our case and the villagers were 
 even more excitedly clamoring for extortionate 
 fines. 
 
 Finally I got my men quieted and the kraal 
 men left. It was now quite dark, but soon several 
 women came out from the kraal and went among 
 our men to sell them more meal. I suspected a 
 trap and insisted on all the women leaving at 
 once and not coming out to us again that night, 
 even if we were short of food. 
 
 By nine all seemed quiet, so we went to bed, 
 having taken the precaution to have the carriers 
 sleep close to our tent. About midnight I heard 
 a stir among them and was all alert. Soon I heard 
 stealthy steps coming toward the tent, and looking 
 out saw a carrier going off with the two steamer 
 
196 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 chairs. I also saw that the fires were blazing 
 brightly and Kendall and Gifford were astir. 
 
 Hastily throwing a rug around me I stepped 
 out and went down to where they were. They 
 had been attacked, verily, but by an army of red 
 soldier ants, the most vicious of all their kind, so 
 they had left their respective sleeping places in 
 possession of these doughty little warriors and 
 worried out the rest of the night in chairs around 
 the fire. 
 
 I had decided that the next morning we should 
 get off before daylight in order to avoid any 
 further trouble. So by the time the first natives 
 were rubbing their eyes open our caravan was 
 quietly passing through the kraal. I left the 
 fowl and the cloth for its payment under a tree. 
 
 After seven miles we came to the next village, 
 and there in its midst sat the man with whom I 
 had had the trouble. On the ground before him 
 laj^ the cloth and the fowl. Seated around were 
 three or four of the head men. The situation 
 looked a bit serious. 
 
 The man began to talk to me, but I inter- 
 rupted, saying, "We do not want the fowl, so you 
 can do what you like with it. Eat it if you wish; 
 I am willing." 
 
 I knew perfectly well that that was not at all 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 197 
 
 what he wanted. He wished to enlist the sympa- 
 thies of the others so that I would be compelled 
 to pay nearly all I had of my little remaining 
 stock of cloth. 
 
 There was considerable discussion, and I 
 watched the faces narrowly, and continued repeat- 
 ing the same words over and over. At last the 
 humor of the situation struck one of the young 
 men and he laughed. I felt then that I need not 
 fear an attack and, as my caravan had nearly all 
 gathered, I told them to shoulder their loads and 
 march, and they obeyed with an alacrity unusual 
 to them, and we passed on in safety. 
 
 These Bachiokwe not only work largely at 
 gathering rubber, but they know how to work iron 
 and do excellent wood carving. One high-backed 
 chair that I saw was quite ingenious. It was about 
 the size of an ordinary kindergarten chair, its 
 high back having three small figures on the top, 
 a man, woman, and, in the center, a child. 
 
 But most of the men work, when they do work, 
 at gathering and preparing rubber. The rubber 
 bush, from which they take the roots, is about two 
 or three feet high. They start at the bush and 
 uncover the roots, which run close to the surface, 
 to their ends. These will be sometimes fifteen to 
 twenty feet long. 
 
198 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 The root is then cut up into lengths of about 
 a foot and tied into small bundles. In one case 
 that came under our observation the bundle had 
 been soaked in the river. The men then sit around 
 the kraals and pound the wood fiber out of the 
 roots with mallets, which, in some cases, have a 
 rough face, like those implements used for pound- 
 ing beefsteak. 
 
 When the fiber is well pounded out the whole 
 is sifted. Lastly the rubber is put into a cleverly 
 hollowed receptacle which looks like a drum. It 
 nmst have been made by burning out a log with 
 hot irons. In this the gum is churned and then 
 taken out and formed into what might have easily 
 been mistaken for Frankfurters on a skewer. It 
 is then ready for the market. 
 
 A few miles farther on we came to a dense 
 wood with just room to pass along the trail, and 
 then came a drop of about one thousand feet, the 
 most precipitous descent we had ever made. 
 
 As we came to Kanekeno's kraal we found an- 
 other devil dance in progress and deemed it ad- 
 visable to move on. As Kendall was suffering from 
 quinsy, he and GifFord came up in the rear. See- 
 ing some women at a small stream, they asked 
 which trail we had gone, as my marks on the trail 
 had been obliterated. The women did not un- 
 
Among the Bachiokwe. 199 
 
 derstand and rushed away screaming, and soon 
 the two men were confronted with six natives, who 
 came running after them with guns, supposing 
 the white men had tried to steal their women. 
 Fortunately they were able to convince the bel- 
 ligerents of their innocence, and what might have 
 been a very nasty affair was avoided. 
 
 But it was with a sigh of relief that we found 
 ourselves at night on the outskirts of this tribe to 
 meet the Basongo on the morrow. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 TO MALANGE. 
 
 We were now in the Songo country with its 
 wide flats, and many lakes and ponds. We camped 
 that night of August 9th on Lake Ziba, a charm- 
 ing lakelet north of Lake Chiwondo. 
 
 In passing through the Songo villages that day 
 we had found the people greatly alarmed at our 
 approach. Some of the kraals were heavily stock- 
 aded, and in one kraal we saw three slaves with 
 their heavy yokes and chains on, ready to be sold 
 or marched off to the market. In another kraal 
 we saw a single man chained to his slave j^oke. 
 
 But when we camped and the people found 
 that there was a white woman in the caravan, their 
 fears took flight and curiosity bordered on im- 
 pertinence. The women fairly screamed Avith de- 
 light at every act or move of Mrs. Springer's. 
 And when she took off her helmet to comb her 
 hair their admiration knew no bounds. They 
 danced around her with shrieks and gesticulations 
 200 
 
To Malange. 201 
 
 which were all characteristically feminine, even 
 though extremely primitive. 
 
 Now we were where we could buy and at fairly 
 reasonable rates. The chief difficulty was that 
 we had parted with nearly all of our trading 
 cloth and had little to buy with. It was new to 
 us to find the natives crowding each other in their 
 efforts to sell. 
 
 There were other new features, and one was 
 the women holding dogs, a thing we had never 
 seen before outside of civilization. It is evidently 
 quite the style for the Songo women to carry about 
 pet dogs and baby them much the same as do a 
 certain number of their cultured sisters. 
 
 There was a marked contrast between the Ba- 
 songo and the Bachiokwe in every way. The 
 Songo huts and kraals were slovenly built and un- 
 cared for. The people were dirty, frowzly, and 
 physically inferior to the Bachiokwe. They did 
 not manifest the same strength of character as did 
 their surly neighbors. There was no sign of in- 
 dustry among them. There was little or no rubber 
 in their country, their gardens were not large nor 
 well kept, and the grain they brought us in such 
 large quantities was unground. They impressed 
 us as being good-natured, easy-going, and shift- 
 less. 
 
202 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 No doubt these conditions are largely due to 
 their contact with the Portuguese and the demor- 
 alizing effects of the rum and slave traffic. 
 
 For several days the trail was generally either 
 very sandy or swampy. The forests were less 
 frequent and quite sparse. The elevation was con- 
 stantly decreasing and, as the season was advancing 
 toward the summer, we were experiencing more 
 trying conditions. The hotter weather and lower 
 altitude were rapidly draining our vitality. 
 
 Moreover, we were having to make forced 
 marches every day, as our provisions were nearly 
 exhausted and our trading goods likewise. Ac- 
 cordingly, in these last two weeks before reaching 
 Malange, we had to average more than twenty- 
 four miles a day. 
 
 On a Saturday a native overtook us on the 
 trail and in reply to our questions assured us that 
 at his village we would find plenty of good water 
 and food, and that it was nearby, just across the 
 vlej. So we followed on after him, mile after mile, 
 until after a twenty-six-mile trek for the day we 
 were almost exhausted and unable to proceed far- 
 ther; near at hand was a small kraal and some 
 doubtful water. 
 
 Seeing a clump of trees near-by on that large, 
 bare flat, we started for them to make our camp, 
 
To Malange. 203 
 
 whereupon the natives began to make a great hub- 
 bub and we learned that that was their cemetery. 
 For the rest of the journey we found that the na- 
 tives had chosen all the best and sometimes the only 
 shady spots for the burial of their dead. 
 
 The only other place we could find for a camp 
 was near two very small, scrubby trees. Our beau- 
 tiful forest camps were all behind us. I^'rom this 
 on the camps were all shadeless and the water de- 
 cidedly bad. At this place firewood was so scarce 
 that we actually had to buy it from the natives. 
 They brought out tiny bundles and asked a big 
 price for them, but we had to pay it or go without. 
 Generally they asked for salt. 
 
 Here we met with a true Shylock. The 
 African is notably sharp as a trader, even in the 
 most remote parts of the continent. But four 
 hundred years of dickering with the Portuguese 
 has developed in the neighboring tribes very un- 
 desirable traits. 
 
 This Shylock was from the village of our guide, 
 three miles farther on. Hearing that we wanted 
 to buy meat, he soon appeared with a sheep, for 
 which he asked double its value. I told him what 
 I would pay and he began the old, familiar hag- 
 gling. When I refused to enter into that kind of 
 thing and told him exactly what I would pay and 
 
204 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 no more, he went off with the sheep. Although 
 friendly and curious, the Songo people, like the 
 Bachiokwe, made us no presents. 
 
 We saw our Shylock on Monday morning 
 again. As we came to his kraal there were so many 
 well-trodden paths over the treeless plain that we 
 were compelled to halt and inquire. This old fel- 
 low came out and with a sardonic smirk on his face 
 asked me how much I would give him to tell me 
 the way, I told him plainly that I would give 
 him nothing, and turned away in disgust. As our 
 band began to move forward several other men ran 
 out and told us we were wrong, and one of them 
 went a few rods to put us right. I gave him a 
 needle and thread for his trouble. 
 
 All that day we were skirting swamps or 
 crossing the deep streams connecting them. In 
 the villages we found abundant evidences of the 
 excessive witchcraft practiced by the people. Fet- 
 ishes and charms were hung all along the paths 
 and at the entrances to the kraals. We also saw 
 several natives wearing crucifixes, and at one vil- 
 lage there was a noisy Catechism class in session. 
 At that same kraal we saw a fine-looking young 
 man sitting with a heavy slave log and chains 
 about his neck not far from this class of Romish 
 devotees. 
 
To Malange. 205 
 
 In the middle of the afternoon we turned from 
 the swamps up on to a ridge and inquired at the 
 next kraal where we could find water and a good 
 place to camp. We were directed on ahead, but 
 it was miles to the next village. Again the only 
 decent place to camp was in a graveyard, so we 
 had to cross a nasty bit of swamp and camp in 
 the open on the other side. 
 
 It took us some time to find a place for our 
 camp, that place being determined by the discovery 
 of an old, dead tree which would serve for fire- 
 wood. In the confusion we forgot to make a mark 
 across the trail to show our men that we had 
 gone no further. A line made with a cane or a 
 small twig, a bunch of green leaves, or even a few 
 newly plucked flowers placed in it, is the native 
 sign that that trail is cut off. 
 
 As Ave had intended at first to camp just be- 
 side the path, and later on moved over where the 
 tall grass hid us, we failed to mark the trail, and 
 nearly half our caravan had passed by unnoticed 
 ere we thought of it, and we could not be certain 
 whether they had passed on or had taken another 
 path some distance back. 
 
 We sent out the carriers who had arrived when 
 we did, and they hunted and halloed in vain. So 
 
206 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 we settled down to the inevitable and began taking 
 account of stock. 
 
 Benjamin, the Angoni, and the machilla men 
 were with us. All our cooking utensils, dishes, all 
 the boxes of food but one, the larger tent, and 
 half the blankets were missing. We had at hand 
 a bag of cassava meal, a few tins of sardines, a 
 tin of jam, and one of cheese. 
 
 The Angoni cooking-pot was the only one in 
 camp, so I told Benjamin to get it as soon as the 
 Angoni had finished with it, and cook our supper 
 in it. To be sure, the pot had not been washed 
 since we started on the trail, to our knowledge, nor 
 was it possible for Benjamin to clean it with the 
 scant water at hand. But hunger overcomes fas- 
 tidiousness, and when at last our supper was served 
 up in the wash-basin, not one of us hesitated. The 
 humor of that anything but appetizing-looking 
 mass so served appealed to us and helped our 
 digestion. Pulling out our jack-knives, we lubri- 
 cated chunks of the mush with sardine oil or jam, 
 and swallowed it down. Thougli none of us had 
 been any too fond of the stuff before, after that 
 night even the bravest of us faltered at the sight 
 and smell of it. 
 
 Dividing up the few blankets, we rolled up in 
 them without undressing and spent a cold, un- 
 
To Malange. 207 
 
 comfortable night. One amusing part of it was 
 that the next morning we found that our lost car- 
 riers, after a long hunt for us, had come back to 
 within half a mile and had camped close beside a 
 spring of water. In their reconnoitering, however, 
 they had learned from some natives that there was 
 a Portuguese store not far away. This informa- 
 tion changed our whole line of travel, and instead 
 of by-paths we followed a line of trading-places 
 clear through to Malange. 
 
 In most cases these stores were kept by half- 
 castes, although a few of them were in charge of 
 Portuguese men, whose native wives and yellow 
 children were always in evidence. The stores con- 
 tained some cloth of very poor quality, other gen- 
 eral trading goods in small quantity, and inevi- 
 tably rum, guns, and powder, the rum being the 
 chief article and the most profitable for the trader. 
 It was sold in glasses, the smallest measuref ul being 
 worth about a penny. 
 
 I tried in vain at these stores to buy flour, tea, 
 milk, or European provisions of any sort. Even 
 the Portuguese seemed to live on native food en- 
 tirely, so that they neither had anything in their 
 stores nor in their larders to let us have. 
 
 Every day we met carriers on the trail loaded 
 with rum and cloth for the traders. All along the 
 
208 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 trail now were graveyards and rum shops, the one 
 truly the complement of the other, the graveyards 
 being greatly in the majority. Livingstone men- 
 tions the gruesome custom of these natives to bury 
 close to the paths and roads, and states that at 
 the time of his visit to the country the Portuguese 
 Government was taking strict measures to stop 
 the practice. It is quite evident that it did not 
 succeed. 
 
 As to the rum traffic, most of the European na- 
 tions have united in an agreement not to permit 
 the sale of liquor to the aborigines, but Portugal 
 had not joined it until recently, and an edict has 
 gone forth that in ten years' time all such rum- 
 selling must be stopped. 
 
 We were now on a high ridge, with low, swampy 
 lands on both sides. This ridge had been well 
 chosen, from the standpoint of healthful location, 
 for this line of trading-stations, but it seemed a 
 great pity to have it given over so completely to 
 the rum and slave traffic, and not a mission station 
 along its entire length. 
 
 Our whole caravan was in dire straits. We 
 could not get enough food for the men, as the 
 season was advancing and the natives had little 
 for themselves. We had used up nearly all our 
 European provisions, so that we, too, had to eat 
 
To Malange. 209 
 
 about the same food as our carriers, and share their 
 hunger. The water all along was incredibly bad. 
 Of a dark-gray color, opaque, frequently taken 
 from mud-holes where the cattle had waded, it was 
 most nauseating, and the wonder is that we did 
 not all come down with violent diarrhea or typhoid, 
 but strange to say, it apparently did us no harm. 
 Our shoes were worn through, our feet all blistered, 
 our clothes in tatters. 
 
 We had for weeks now risen by 4 A. M. and 
 were on the trail by the first streak of day. At 
 the last we had to travel all day long, some days 
 making as high as twenty-eight miles. Our joints 
 were sore as well as our feet, and as we made that 
 "home run" we had to use up nearly the last ounce 
 of surplus energy in our bodies. 
 
 One day two men passed us with a coarse ham- 
 mock between them. I suspected its contents, and 
 so passed by on the other side. Kendall was more 
 curious. He stopped the men and lifted the cover 
 to peer Into the macliilla, where he found the hor- 
 rible, swelled, distorted corpse of a smallpox vic- 
 tim. He refrained from further examination of 
 other burdens met along the way. 
 
 Near Malange we met two natives in the road. 
 They had a yard or so of calico thrown over their 
 heads, but even from the other side of the road 
 14 
 
210 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 we could see that they were all broken out with 
 smallpox. 
 
 Of Quesole we had known nothing, so imagine 
 our astonishment when, ten miles east of Malange, 
 we came to a pretty little town with a genuine 
 street and bonafide stores, orange groves, rubber 
 groves, and a hospital where three beautiful half- 
 caste nurses were dressed in the height of European 
 fashion. 
 
 Here, too, the parable of the Good Samaritan 
 was issued in a revised edition in the person of a 
 Jewish trader, a Mr. Jacob Amzalak, who insisted 
 on taking us into his well-appointed dining-room 
 and giving us a beefsteak "breakfast," although it 
 was past the noon hour. For the Portuguese eat 
 but twice a day, and the first meal is from ten to 
 eleven. He also gave our men food for the first 
 full, satisfactory meal for weeks. 
 
 After that gracious hospitality we went on 
 our way to Malange with rejoicing. No doubt we 
 were a pretty hard-looking crowd in our way-worn 
 khaki clothes, coatless, with sleeves rolled to the 
 elbows, displaying brown, brawny arms, while most 
 of the Portuguese we met were dressed spick and 
 span in black suits, without a hint of the tropics 
 about them. 
 
 We must have looked like desperate characters, 
 
To Malange. 211 
 
 for some natives who were in town shopping car- 
 ried the news to their homes, twenty-five miles away, 
 that three Enghshmen had arrived, with their 
 sleeves rolled up and armed with rifles, and prob- 
 ably were going to seize Angola from the Portu- 
 guese. 
 
 Malange at last ! The long, long trail through 
 the wilderness lay behind us ! We had reached our 
 most advanced post of missions from Loanda and 
 were greeted by Mr. Wm. Miller, from Baltimore, 
 a German, who has been out there in our mission 
 for nearly twenty years without a furlough which 
 he positively refuses to take, as he has good health 
 and feels that the work needs him. 
 
 Malange at last ! Malange with its large, 
 white governor's mansion, its wide streets, its squads 
 of native soldiers, who drill in the most go-as-you- 
 please manner, its gaily clad natives, many show- 
 ing the effects of rum and all of them familiar and 
 impudent, the effects of contact with theoretical 
 civilization. 
 
 Malange and food, shelter, friends at last ! We 
 could hardly realize it. This town is three hundred 
 and fifty miles from the coast, and is the farthest 
 inland station of the Methodist Episcopal Mission 
 in Angola. Not expecting us, Brother Miller's 
 supper of native honey and that sour mush on which 
 
212 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 we had had to exist for weeks was on the table. Next 
 door was a Portuguese restaurant, and it did not 
 take us long to decide in favor of the restaurant, 
 where we could not only have a fine European meal, 
 but have the satisfaction of feeling that we were 
 really alive and among people again. 
 
 There was the unutterable relief that the long 
 strain was over. To be sure, we had yet a few 
 days of hard tramping ahead of us, but that Avas 
 varied daily by groups of friends to greet and 
 welcome us at the various stations we visited. 
 
 Malange at last ! Why, if we had had the 
 money to spare (which we did not) we could have 
 sent a cable from Malange that night to our friends 
 at home. It is only fair to admit that the telegraph 
 service in Angola has not reached perfection yet, 
 and one might walk from Malange to Loanda and 
 then get there ahead of the telegram, quite likely. 
 Still the sight of those magic wires was thrilling 
 after so many weeks in the wilds. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 RETROSPECT. 
 
 The next day we accompanied Brother Miller 
 out seven miles, to Quessua. On our arrival we 
 were most delightfully greeted with the old North- 
 western University yell, given by Rev. Charles S. 
 Schreiber, in charge of the Mission, and two other 
 college friends, Brothers Kipp and Harris, from 
 Quiongua and Pungo Andongo, who were making 
 a tour of the out-stations and had reached Ques- 
 sua the day before, about the time that we reached 
 Malange. 
 
 Quessua is an ideal site for an industrial mis- 
 sion. It is about six miles from Malange, located 
 at the foot of a high mountain, healthful and 
 beautiful. The soil is rich and can easily be irri- 
 gated from a stream fed by several springs of crys- 
 tal water which gush out of the mountain. 
 
 On one side of the mountain stream is the boys' 
 
 school, and on the other side, up nearer to the 
 
 mountain, is the school of the Woman's Foreign 
 
 Missionary Society, under the care of Miss Susan 
 
 213 
 
214 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 Collins and Miss Martha Drummer. The enroll- 
 ment in the girls' school at the time of our visit 
 was twenty-four, but has increased considerably 
 since. 
 
 The railroad from Loanda will reach Malange 
 in 1909, and will greatly enhance the value of 
 Quessua as the site of a central training institution. 
 
 We visited the out-station at Nenzele, which 
 is under the care of John Webba and his wife, 
 Miriam, natives of the Congo, who were erstwhile 
 Mrs. Springer's pupils at Isangila and Vivi, and 
 also her teachers in the Kifiote. They are doing a 
 splendid work. These two are the first native Afri- 
 cans baptized by Bishop Hartzell. 
 
 We next visited Pungo Andongo, where the 
 Rev. A. E. Harris and wife were in charge. In 
 less than two weeks after our visit Brother Harris 
 laid down his work and entered upon his eternal 
 reward. 
 
 Pungo nestles among some famous gigantic 
 boulders which rise from the plain like some colossal 
 medieval fortress, and which are visible for long 
 distances. The Mission property is just across the 
 street from the house (now in ruins), where Living- 
 stone was entertained while in Pungo. This Mis- 
 sion offers a field for extensive evangelistic work 
 among the surrounding villages. Sickness and 
 
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Retrospect. 215 
 
 death had so reduced the workers in Angola that 
 for some time Pungo had been deprived of resident 
 workers. On the death of Brother Harris, the 
 Rev. Walter B. Williams was at once transferred 
 from Quiongua, and recent news tells of a wide- 
 spread revival under his ministry. 
 
 Fifteen miles west of Pungo is Quiongua, where 
 the Rev. Ray B. Kipp is in charge. Here we left 
 the four boys who had marched across with us to 
 go to school — Jacob, Songoro, Sondo, and Jim — 
 all of whom are doing well and are being trained 
 for future Christian service in the neglected in- 
 terior. 
 
 This station has an excellent equipment of 
 eight or ten substantial buildings, several of them 
 of stone quarried from an adjoining hill, and it 
 represents for the most part the results of the 
 personal labors of the Rev. W. P. Dodson, the 
 Superintendent for several of its early years, and 
 of the Rev. Amos E. Withey, the Presiding Elder 
 of the Angola Mission during Bishop Taylor's 
 administration, and of his son Herbert. This sta- 
 tion was built on a foundation of faith and prayer, 
 accompanied by hard work if ever any mission was. 
 
 Herbert C. Withey reached Angola with his 
 parents at the age of twelve, and soon acquired a 
 rare mastery of the language, which has enabled 
 
216 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 him, in addition to sharing in the general activities 
 of the INIission, to render unusual service in trans- 
 lation work, his latest contribution being the trans- 
 lation of the entire New Testament into the Kim- 
 bundu language. 
 
 Besides the growing bo3's' school there is a 
 much-needed girls' school, heroically started by 
 Mrs. Mary B. Shuett with almost no funds at all. 
 After Mrs. Harris went to Loanda, Miss Lettie 
 Mason was sent to Quiongua, to be with Mrs. 
 Shuett. These two women are bravely making 
 great advances against heathenism's stronghold — 
 its womanhood. An urgent need here is for funds 
 to build a girls' school. 
 
 We took the train at Quisenge, about twenty- 
 five miles north of Pungo Andongo, and went down 
 to Loanda, where we were met by the Rev. W. P. 
 Dodson, who, in addition to his duties as Presiding 
 Elder, was in charge of this station while the Rev. 
 Robert Shields and wife were home on furlough. 
 Associated with them were Miss Mason and Miss 
 Samuelson (now Mrs. Schreiber) and Miss Flor- 
 inda Bessa, a young colored woman of marked 
 ability, who has been educated in our ^Mission. 
 Loanda is a large city on the sea and is the capital 
 of the province of Loanda. 
 
 The Avork in Loanda is most encouraging, only 
 
Retrospect. 217 
 
 so very limited in extent as compared with the field 
 and the opportunities at hand. There is a fine, 
 mixed day school taught in Portuguese, a Kim- 
 bundu school in the native settlement, and much 
 evangelistic work is being done. The imperative 
 need of a boarding-school for half-caste girls has 
 been partly met by the gift of $5,000 toward a 
 building by the same liberal friend who gave 
 $5,000 for the girls' dormitory at Old Umtali. 
 There is a young woman ready to go there, and 
 the only lack now is the money to send her out. 
 The native Church in Loanda has a large member- 
 ship and is spiritual and aggressive. 
 
 Taking the work in Angola as a whole, I was 
 very pleasantly surprised to find it so flourishing 
 despite the fact that it is so sadly undermanned. 
 
 When Bishop Wm. Taylor arrived in Angola 
 in 1885, he had with him one of the most heroic 
 bands of missionaries to be found anywhere. At 
 that time the trail to the interior was by way of 
 Dondo, at the head of navigation on the Quanza 
 River. This was also the route mapped out for 
 the future railroad. It was the course followed by 
 Livingstone. Bishop Taylor naturally placed his 
 chain of mission stations along that trade route. 
 However, political influence changed the course of 
 the railroad and left Dondo financially wrecked 
 
218 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 and practically abandoned by both white men and 
 natives, so that there was nothing left for our Mis- 
 sion to do but to withdraw. Nangepepo was also 
 closed, and Quiongua was considerably affected 
 though able to survive, and recently to recover in 
 a great measure its equilibrium. 
 
 This financial catastrophe which fell on some 
 of the oldest settlements in Angola occurred in the 
 latter part of Bishop Taylor's administration, when 
 he was too weak physically to give his missionaries 
 the support needed. 
 
 It was thus that Bishop Hartzell found them 
 twelve years ago and the process of reconstruction 
 began. Since then, in spite of no little opposition 
 from various quarters, in spite of repeated efforts 
 of traders and others to drive our people out, in 
 spite of the great lack of funds and altogether too 
 few workers, — much has been accomplished, and 
 the fields of Angola are already ripe for a rich 
 and extensive harvest if only there be the reapers 
 to gather it in. 
 
 We were interested to learn further from the 
 missionaries and from the records of the original 
 purposes of Bishop Taylor and his workers in be- 
 ginning the work in Angola, which was to penetrate 
 as rapidly as possible into the very center of the 
 continent, at least one thousand miles, building up 
 
Retrospect. 219 
 
 missions along the way to reach the people of the 
 country traversed, and also to serve as stations in 
 the transport of supplies to the interior. 
 
 The extension of the work due east of Loanda, 
 past Malange, would have brought them in a 
 thousand miles to the northern part of the mineral 
 belt now being developed by the Tanganyika Con- 
 cessions, Limited, right in the very heart of South 
 Central Africa. 
 
 Among the districts toward the interior that it 
 was definitely planned at that time to occupy, were 
 the countries of the Bachiokwe, or Kioko, and of 
 the Lunda. 
 
 At the first Conference of the mission in Lo- 
 anda, in May, 1885, Dr. W. R. Summers, M. D., 
 one of the party, lectured on the Kioko country, 
 and three missionaries were designated for that 
 field. The plan of immediate occupation was de- 
 ferred, however, for on visiting Dondo the Chefe 
 and a few other citizens waited on the Bishop with 
 the request that he establish a mission in Dondo. 
 "So now," the record runs, "the question was pend- 
 ing whether it might not be the will of God that 
 Rev. C. L. Davenport, Mary Davenport, M. D., 
 and C. M. McLean, whom we had thought to sta- 
 tion in the Kioko country, should not for the pres- 
 ent stop and found a mission in Dondo." 
 
220 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 A few weeks later, while at Malange, "I met a 
 man," wrote Bishop Taylor, "who had just arrived 
 from the interior. We learned from him and from 
 Snr. Machado that he was one of three Portuguese 
 traders who had a store in the Lunda country, six 
 hundred miles east, and that this man came out 
 every year and took back a store of goods which 
 he ordered from Lisbon and waited in Malange six 
 months for their arrival. 
 
 "I drew out the man from the interior, and the 
 old residents present assured me that the people 
 in the far interior were very anxious for the estab- 
 lishment of schools and Christian missions among 
 them, all of which accorded with what I had read 
 from the pens of Livingstone and Stanley. 
 
 "So I remarked to Brother C. W. Gordon that 
 possibly the Lord would have him mount a bull and 
 go with said trader to Lunda country and quietly 
 learn the language and prepare the way for a force 
 to follow in 1887. The conclusion we reached was 
 to put Lunda on our list of appointments and 
 put his name down for it, subject to providential 
 developments. As he had six months leeway, he 
 was to proceed with the school work in INIalange, 
 master the Portuguese language, and watch the 
 movements of the pillar and cloud." 
 
 Dr. Summers had preceded the main party to 
 
Retrospect. 221 
 
 Angola and explored extensively about and to the 
 east of Malange. He was less patient than the 
 others at delaying the immediate advance to the 
 interior, and in July, 1886, having fitted out an 
 expedition with the receipts from his practice, he 
 pressed on to the east, through the northern part 
 of the Lunda territory to the Tushilange country. 
 There, several months after reaching the country, 
 as a result largely of exhaustion arising from pro- 
 longed and constant attendance upon a patient 
 whom he found very ill, he was stricken, and laid 
 down his life. 
 
 The work of building up and maintaining the 
 stations as far as Malange, 350 miles from the 
 coast, taxed the strength and resources of the party 
 of heroic missionaries, and while thought and 
 prayer were ever intent upon the "regions beyond" 
 further to the interior, yet sickness and death so 
 reduced their ranks that, though they have held 
 steadfastly to the hope of entering the Lunda 
 country, that hope has not yet been realized. 
 
 On learning more about the navigable rivers of 
 the interior, tributaries of the Congo, Bishop Tay- 
 lor hoped to reach the center of the Lunda country 
 by boat, up the Lower Congo and the Kassai, his 
 passion ever being to reach the untouched interior. 
 
 In the early nineties one of his pioneer mission- 
 
222 The Heart of Central Africa. 
 
 aries on the Lower Congo, Wm. Rasmussen, ex- 
 pressed it as his conviction that when the great 
 Congo basin was fully opened up and developed, 
 industrially and religiously, that it would be by 
 the gradual extension of operations from the 
 healthy plateau on the south, extending north from 
 Cape Town, a prophecy that is now being fulfilled. 
 
 That rich and extensive mineral field on the 
 high and healthy divide on the southern border of 
 the Congo basin was pegged out but a few years 
 ago, as we have seen, and large operations are be- 
 ing pushed for its development. The Cape-to- 
 Cairo Railway is approaching that field from the 
 southeast. From the mineral belt three lines of 
 railroad will be built; one, the extension of the 
 Cape-to-Cairo Railway, will be constructed north to 
 the navigable Lualaba, along which by boat and 
 rail there will be connection with Stanleyville, on 
 the Upper Congo, and from there a line of railroad 
 will be built in a northeasterly direction to Lado, 
 on the navigable Nile, whence there is now river 
 and rail connection Avith Cairo. 
 
 Another line of railroad is proposed to run 
 from the mineral belt in a northwesterly direction 
 to the Lower Congo, diagonally across the very 
 center of the Congo basin, and the third railroad 
 is being built from the excellent natural harbor at 
 Loblto Bay, on the west coast, and will pass along 
 
Retrospect. 223 
 
 the southern edge of the Congo basin and connect 
 with the other hnes on the mineral belt. 
 
 Thus through that remote interior of Africa, 
 so earnestly considered and planned for two dec- 
 ades ago, and which was then so difficult of ac- 
 cess, there is now being -built the great steel high- 
 way of the continent that will connect the southern 
 and northern coasts, and other lines of railroad 
 will give direct access to this region from the east 
 and west coasts. 
 
 From being the bloody hunting ground of slave 
 raiders from east and west, this section is destined 
 to become one of the greatest mining centers of 
 the world. Favored with a central, geographical 
 position, a high elevation, a salubrious climate, fer- 
 tile soil, and a heavy rainfall, and over and above 
 all these being what is probably the very richest 
 copper and mineral field in the world, it can be 
 readily foreseen that in only a very few years this 
 will be a mining center equal to, if not eclipsing, 
 Johannesburg. 
 
 Not only will white people of all nations flock 
 to these mines, but also natives from all over the 
 continent by the thousands and tens of thousands. 
 As a strategic center for evangelistic activities and 
 for radiating the Light of the Gospel, this mineral 
 belt will doubtless be unsurpassed throughout the 
 Continent of Africa. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
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 CAYLORO 
 
 
 
 PRINTED INUS. A. 
 
The heart of Central Africa; mineral 
 
 Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library