AFRICAN 
 ADVENTURERS 
 
 JEAN 
 KEN YON 
 MACKENZI
 
 HBRARY 
 
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 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 JEAN KENYON MACKENZIE
 
 Copyright, Missionary Education Movement 
 
 LIVINGSTONE AND ANNIE MARY 
 
 Annie Mary was Livingstone's youngest daughter. 
 This picture was taken in 1865 just before he 
 left England for his last journey to Africa.
 
 AFRICAN 
 ADVENTURERS 
 
 BY 
 
 JEAN KENYON MACKENZIE 
 
 JlUTHOE Of "BLACK SHEEP," AND "AH AFRICAN TRAU." 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW xfir YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 192%, 
 By George H. Doran Company 
 
 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS. I 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 I DEDICATE 
 THIS UTTLE STORY TO 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF AFRICAN MISSIONARIES 
 
 J hope these young people will like to read about the 
 black boys and girls and their adventures on the trails of 
 the great forests and in the little rough school houses that 
 are built in the clearings. I hope they will be pleased with 
 the story of Livingstone told — as I have tried to tell it — 
 from the lips of a young African lad, speaking to the chiefs 
 of his tribe about the great white adventurer. 
 
 I invite my readers to follow me on the trail of this little 
 book into the forest where I will show them many strange, 
 true things — both new and old.
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 The author gratefully acknowledges her appreciation 
 to the Central Committee on the United Study of 
 Foreign Missions for their arrangement with George 
 H. Doran Company for the re-issue of "African 
 Adventurers'* in a Library Edition, with the hope 
 that this new Edition will reach an ever increasing 
 circle of readers.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I The Family of Akulu Me jo 
 
 II White Men and Their Adventures . 
 
 III Assam Tells More About Livingstone 
 
 IV An Adventure with Dwarfs . 
 
 V Adventures of Assam and Mejo . 
 VI The Return of the Adventurers . 
 About the People of this Story . 
 
 13 
 47 
 75 
 107 
 133 
 155 
 177
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Livingstone and Annie Mary .... Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 School Boys at Play 16 
 
 The Village of Efa 17 
 
 Asala 32 
 
 The Hunter's Camp 32 
 
 The White Man's Caravan 33 
 
 The Lonely House 80 
 
 The Caravan of the White Woman .... 80 
 
 The Ferry 81 
 
 A River Journey 81 
 
 Bekalli — Son of Efa 144 
 
 The Smallest Girls in Assam's School .... 145 
 
 The Big Boys in Assam's School 145 
 
 Map Showing Home of Bulu People .... 160
 
 CHAPTER I: THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO
 
 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 CHAPTER I: THE FAMILY OF AKULU ME JO 
 
 THE little brown mother of Mejo sat by the 
 door of her hut waiting for him to come 
 home. On the fire that was laid on the clay floor 
 of the hut a big clay pot gurgled. Me jo's din- 
 ner was in this kettle, well tucked in under some 
 wide banana leaves. Presently, when she saw 
 the body of her son enter the clearing, Me jo's 
 mother lifted the kettle from the fire ; with quick 
 movements of her hardy hands she took off the 
 layers of green leaves that covered the kettle, and 
 Me jo's dinner steamed in the little hut. There 
 were two courses for dinner — there was a mess 
 of greens and there were ears of corn. The 
 greens and the corn were there together in the 
 kettle. 
 
 Me jo's mother found a wooden bowl on the 
 floor and a wooden ladle thrust by its handle into 
 
 13
 
 14 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 the bamboo slattings of the wall ; she blew on the 
 bowl and the spoon to dust them, then she filled 
 the little bowl with hot greens. But for the ears 
 of corn she made a little platter of a green leaf. 
 
 Me jo was no more than thirteen years old but 
 he had to duck to enter the hut, for the walls were 
 low. Inside he could stand upright for the ridge 
 of the roof was all of ten feet from the ground. 
 Me jo sat upon his heels before his little dinner 
 and his mother sat opposite him on a little stool 
 hewn from a block of wood. They ate with little 
 wooden spoons from the wooden bowl. But be- 
 fore they ate at all they bowed their heads and 
 said: 
 
 " Akeva, Zambe !" That is to say— "Thanks to 
 God!" 
 
 "They say we live in Africa," said Mejo, when 
 he had been a little time silent and busy with 
 greens and corn. 
 
 "Who says so?" asked his mother. 
 
 "The teacher says so," said Mejo. 
 
 "What kind of a teacher says so — is it the 
 white man or one of the black people?" 
 
 "Even if it were a black teacher — and it was, it 
 was Ela from Asok — will you doubt it? He
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 15 
 
 heard it from the white man. And when he 
 doubted it and he knocked on the white man's 
 door at night to ask him of this thing ; the white 
 man said, 'Surely, yes.' The white man showed 
 E la in a book a word that says that the black peo- 
 ple live in Africa." 
 
 "Was it a book in the Bulu speech or a book 
 in the German speech?" 
 
 "It certainly was a book in the German 
 speech." 
 
 "Was it a word from God?" asked Mejo's 
 mother — "did Ela read in God's Word that we 
 live in Africa?" 
 
 "No, I cannot say that that book was one of 
 the words of God. It was just a white man's 
 book." 
 
 "Well, then," said Mejo's mother, "I don't 
 believe it. I who have lived in this forest always, 
 did I ever hear that we live in Africa? What the 
 old and wise of the tribe never knew, how can the 
 white man know it — who is a stranger of yester- 
 day? If you ask me where we live I will still tell 
 you that we live in the country of the Bulu tribes! 
 It is just pride that is in all this teaching that Ela 
 teaches you. He lies to you about the words he
 
 16 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 reads in the white man's book! He knows that 
 you are still ignorant and he does not fear to lie!" 
 
 "You are certainly a person of doubts. I be- 
 lieve him. I believe him because all the things I 
 doubted one day I saw them to be true the next 
 day. When he taught me the little marks that 
 are letters he told me always that those letters if 
 you knew how to join them, would be created 
 words. I always said in my heart, — words are 
 made in the mouth, they are never made in the 
 eye. Then one day I saw a joining of letters 
 make a word — Eke — strange thing! Even as he 
 said. Now I am able to believe him." 
 
 "You believe too much," said Me jo's mother. 
 "You just better believe all the words that are 
 the words of God ; that will be enough for you to 
 believe. You were certainly very late on the 
 path tonight. I thought the sun would be lost 
 before you came. I asked my heart, — that son 
 of mine, where is he? Does he not have wisdom 
 enough to fear the things of the dark? Where 
 did you linger?" 
 
 "I visited my traps," said Mejo, "those little 
 traps I set on the day that is Saturday when we 
 do not have school. I set some bird traps over
 
 SCHOOL BOYS AT PLAY 
 
 Wrestling is a favorite sport among the Forest tribes.
 
 THE VILLAGE OF EFA 
 
 This is where the boys taught school.
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 17 
 
 by the great rock in the direction where the sun 
 rises." 
 
 "Did you kill anything?" 
 
 "How can you ask me that when you and I eat 
 just nothing at all but greens and corn! I feel 
 such a meat-hunger that I could eat a rat. 
 Though I am too big to eat rats now!" 
 
 "Don't hang your heart up," said Me jo's 
 mother — "if you kill nothing tomorrow, myself, 
 I will cook you some good food. All day when 
 I work in the garden I will watch for a snail or 
 caterpillars and if when the sun is in the middle 
 I have found nothing, I will come back from the 
 the garden in time to kill you a few little fishes." 
 
 It was growing dark now in the little hut, 
 except where the light of the fire lay low between 
 the fire stones. 
 
 "It is the sixth hour now," said Mejo. 
 
 "What is that new word you say?" asked his 
 mother. 
 
 "I said, it is the sixth hour. Because they told 
 us in school today that when the sun is lost then 
 it is the sixth hour of the night. When it rises 
 that hour is the sixth hour of the morning." 
 
 "And when it is the middle?"
 
 18 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "Then it is the twelfth hour. And when the 
 women begin to come from their gardens it is 
 then the second hour after noon." 
 
 "How do they know all that? Who said that 
 this is one hour and another hour? What is an 
 hour?" 
 
 "The clock tells them. You saw the clock 
 when you went to see the white man's baby. All 
 these questions you ask me are so many ques- 
 tions. Did any hen lay an egg today?" 
 
 "A hen certainly did — and there are now six 
 eggs in the corner by my bed." 
 
 "Ah, mother — give me those six eggs!" 
 
 "I am to give you those six eggs ? And a little 
 chicken in every eggl What new thing do you 
 have in your heart that you should beg all my 
 six eggs and all those six little chickens from me ? 
 You are not so hungry that you must eat an egg 9 
 are you?" 
 
 "Never could I bear to eat an egg — but I want 
 to buy a writing stone (a slate). My old one is 
 broken. You know that I must work for many 
 mornings on the mission farm to buy another 
 writing stone. And those six eggs are half the 
 price of the stone. I hate to rise from my bed
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 19 
 
 when the women rise to go to their farms; then 
 the dew is everywhere and I hate to work among 
 the weeds with my body all wet with dew. So I 
 said in my heart, I believe my mother will give 
 me some eggs, and so with some eggs one day 
 and some another I can buy my writing stone." 
 
 "How soft are the bodies of boys that they can- 
 not bear the chill of the morning. Have not the 
 mothers of men risen always — all these genera- 
 tions of men — and suffered the dew on their 
 bodies and the chill that is in the dawn, that men 
 might eat good food from the garden! But just 
 ask a boy to rise early and to walk in the wet 
 grasses — then he has a sullen face. No — I must 
 keep my eggs for my own debts. You know as 
 well as I do that I will be wanting a gift for God 
 on the day that is Sunday when the people of 
 God bring every one a gift to God. And three 
 of us who are people of God in this town have 
 tied ourselves to buy medicine for old Vunga 
 who lies on her bed in her hut." 
 
 Now it was dark in Me jo's mother's house. 
 There was no moon that night, the oil palm trees 
 in the middle of the clearing were lost in the dark. 
 Across the street of the town other little huts of
 
 20 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 other wives of Me jo's father were lost too, except 
 where firelight shone through the slits in the bark 
 walls, or through the doors that were still open. 
 
 "I will go and salute my father," said Mejo. 
 
 "You school boys never know the news of the 
 town," said Me jo's mother. "I might run away 
 or a tree in falling might fall on me, and you 
 would come in at the day's end to ask, — 'Why 
 does not my mother show me my evening meal?' 
 Now everyone but you knows that your father is 
 not in town." 
 
 "Where then is he?" 
 
 "He has gone to Mekok. A carrier with a load 
 of rubber for the trader at the beach passed on 
 the path this morning. He said that six days 
 ago when he passed the town of Mekok he asked 
 a drink of water from a woman in that town. In 
 that woman's house was a little girl who begged 
 him to take a packet of peanuts to her mother as 
 he would be passing her mother's town." 
 
 " 'I am Asala,' she told that carrier, 'the 
 daughter of Akulu Mejo. I am the sister of 
 Mejo Akulu. I am married in the town of Me- 
 kok since the last rainy season. My mother is a 
 little thin woman, one of the wives of Akulu
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 21 
 
 Me jo. She is a person of God. She is easy to 
 find — everyone knows her. Perhaps you too 
 have a little daughter sold into a far marriage. 
 So I beg you to take these peanuts to my mother. 
 Tell her that Bilo'o, my husband's wife in whose 
 house I live, has permitted me to take these pea- 
 nuts from her garden. Because I have no other 
 present to send my mother. Tell my mother that 
 I think of her always from the dawn of one day 
 to the dawn of another day. Tell her that a man 
 who passed on the path two moons back gave me 
 this news, — that at the time of the planting of 
 peanuts my mother was sick. When I heard that 
 news my heart dried up and I could not eat. 
 Then I begged God for my mother. Tell my 
 mother now I am thin with grief and longing!" 
 "All this news of your little sister the man with 
 the load of rubber told me, and I cooked him 
 some plantains and he ate. But while those plan- 
 tains were on the fire I went to the palaver house 
 where your father sat talking to a guest — and 
 because my heart was heavy in me I did not fear 
 to speak before the guest. I said to your father, 
 'How many times have we planted peanuts since
 
 22 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 you bought me from my father in his town that 
 is on the path that comes from the sun's rising?' 
 
 "Your father just looked at me, — it would be 
 a long hunting that would remember all those 
 planting of peanuts that we have planted since 
 that day he bought me for a big ivory, and I was 
 then a girl no bigger than your wrist. 
 
 "Then I asked him another question. 'How 
 many times before I became a person of God did 
 I run away from this marriage that you and I are 
 married?' 
 
 "Your father hunted to remember those run- 
 nings away that I ran. On his fingers he counted 
 six runnings. And he said, 'Yes — Six runnings 
 you ran away. As long as your mother lived you 
 would run away to her. And after she died you 
 ran away for other reasons. You were certainly 
 a bad runner away!' 
 
 " 'I hear! and since I am a person of the tribe 
 of God — how many runnings away have I run?' 
 
 " 'Why, none at all,' said your father. 'Do 
 women who are persons of that tribe run away?' 
 
 " 'I tell you a true word,' I said to your father, 
 'My heart has run away today to my little daugh- 
 ter who is married in Mekok. She sends a mes-
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 23 
 
 sage for me. I must see that child. I beg you 
 to let me visit her.' 
 
 "Then your father said No — he would visit her. 
 He said that one of the goats that Asala's hus- 
 band had given on the dowry had died. So he 
 must go to beg of Asala's husband another goat. 
 He would say to Asala's husband, — 'Now the 
 girl I gave you did not die, did she? Or I would 
 have given you another of my daughters in her 
 place. But the goat you gave me has died. So 
 you must give me another goat.' 
 
 "Then your father called some of his young 
 men for a journey. Together they went away at 
 noon. As for me, I have just sat in my house all 
 day and desired with a great desire to see my little 
 daughter. Now I am going to lie down upon my 
 bed. Before we part teach me the new word of 
 the Word of God that you learned in school to- 
 day." 
 
 " 'The Son of man came to seek and to save 
 that which was lost.' Now repeat," said Me jo. 
 
 1 'The Son of man,' he that was Jesus," said 
 Me jo's mother, "came to seek the people lost in 
 the forest and to save them." 
 
 "You have caught the argument, but you have
 
 24 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 put too many words in it, try again," and Mejo 
 set the model again. But Mejo's mother always 
 said, "lost in the forest." 
 
 "Even so," said she, "you see that the Word of 
 God says nothing about Africa; it does not say 
 that we were lost in Africa — that country that 
 you tell about. And I know that we were lost in 
 the forest, so it is hard not to put those words into 
 the word !" 
 
 "If you were in school," said Mejo, "they 
 wouldn't let you do it, so I won't." And he per- 
 sisted until his mother said his verse correctly. 
 
 "I am going to bed now," said he. 
 
 He took a brand from the fire and went out 
 into the street. He waved the brand about to 
 keep the burning end of it bright. This he did to 
 drive away any snake that might be abroad in the 
 dark. By this dim and ruddy light, Mejo came 
 to a little house where he lived with Assam, his 
 half brother, one of the older sons of Akulu Mejo. 
 The mother of Assam was dead. 
 
 The boys had built this little house for them- 
 selves. Together they had cut and trimmed the 
 young sapling trees that were the frame work. 
 They themselves had peeled from great trees the
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 25 
 
 big plates of bark that were the walls. Their 
 father had given them the mats of palm-leaves 
 that were the thatch of the roof, and some "real 
 men" of the village had helped them bring in and 
 raise the long straight sapling that was the ridge 
 pole. That day they had all sung the song of the 
 roof tree. Many little brothers had helped them 
 thatch their roof, singing the song of the thatch. 
 Now they lived together under this roof with the 
 dignity of school boys. 
 
 Assam was perhaps sixteen years old, perhaps 
 seventeen. He had three loin cloths all his own, 
 and two singlets. 1 He had a felt hat, but his 
 father often borrowed this and wore it on long 
 journeys. He owned a Book of the Word of 
 God in the Bulu language. He owned a lan- 
 tern — the only lantern in that town. He could 
 write in a beautiful, clear hand. He was very 
 much admired by his father, and by the people of 
 the village. For nick-name and drum name the 
 villagers gave him a name that they beat upon the 
 call drum when they summoned him from a dis- 
 tance too great for the call of the human voice. 
 This phrase is that name they gave him — 
 
 1 Really an undervest, much worn as an upper garment.
 
 26 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "He stands like a dagger." 
 
 This was a phrase of admiration because As- 
 sam was a fine youth, straight and slim. 
 
 "Strange thing about Assam," the villagers 
 said, "he is not proud." And for this they ap- 
 proved him and admired him the more. 
 
 On this night of which I tell you, when Me jo 
 came into their little house, Assam was studying 
 his lessons by the light of the lantern that stood 
 on a little table of bamboo — the boys had built 
 a table in their house. 
 
 "Assam," said Me jo. 
 
 "Say it!" said Assam, not looking up from his 
 book. 
 
 "It is a question," said Mejo. 
 
 "Ask it," said Assam — 
 
 "Today did they speak in your class about the 
 things of teaching?" 
 
 "They did," said Assam. "They said vaca- 
 tion was near, and it would be well to see the com- 
 pany of boys who were willing to teach in the 
 villages during vacation. They said that many 
 villages far away were calling for teachers. Mr. 
 Krug said all the boys who were people of God
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 27 
 
 and who were willing to go on those journeys and 
 teach in those schools must rise from their seats." 
 
 "Did you rise from your seat?" 
 
 "I did," said Assam. 
 
 "What boy goes with you?" 
 
 "How do I know what boy goes with me? 
 Mr. Krug said he would ask the younger boys, — 
 'Who is willing to walk in the company of a 
 teacher, to be his companion in a strange town, 
 to cook his food, and to help teach the classes?' 
 He said he would ask the younger boys that ques- 
 tion, and I thought perhaps you would promise 
 to go with me. Did he ask?" 
 
 "He certainly asked," said Me jo. 
 
 "Did you promise?" 
 
 "I did not," said Mejo. Then after a while 
 he said, "I was afraid. I thought — just two boys 
 in a strange town — how do we know what thing 
 the people of that town will do to us? They 
 promise to feed us, but will they feed us? All 
 this rainy season I have just sat in school. Now 
 the dry season is here I long to fish and hunt. I 
 long to camp in the forest with our own people 
 when they visit the dwarfs. I don't want to teach 
 school in vacation. I want to stay at home."
 
 28 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "Don't you think I want to stay at home too?" 
 said Assam. 
 
 "Well, then, why don't you?" 
 
 "Oh! go to sleep!" said Assam. "Some things 
 you understand, but God has not yet opened the 
 eyes of your heart!" And Assam put out the 
 lantern. 
 
 Soon two school boys were asleep on the bam- 
 boo bed. Assam owned a red blanket, together 
 they slept under that blanket. But in none 
 of the other houses in that town was there a 
 blanket. Fires burned beside all the other bam- 
 boo beds, and now and again through the night 
 there woke beside the fires that burned low a 
 sleepy black man or woman who mended the fire 
 and slept again. 
 
 How quiet the night was in that little village 
 where there were no lamps ; where no more than 
 twenty thus were ranged in two rows with a clear- 
 ing between them like a street. At either end of 
 this little street there was a palaver house where 
 the "real men" of the village lived. And about 
 this village, all built of the bark of trees and 
 thatched with the leaves of trees, stood the trees 
 Of the forest, dripping with night dews. Some-
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 29 
 
 times in the forest a bird would call. Sometimes 
 a bigger animal would make a crashing in the 
 bush. There were wild cows in the forests of 
 that neighborhood, and leopards and elephants 
 and gorillas. Often at night a leopard would 
 steal a sheep of that village, and often in the dead 
 of night bands of monkeys would chatter and 
 play in the trees behind the little brown huts, or 
 in the moonlight that fell upon the deserted street. 
 
 One day perhaps a week later, Andungo, the 
 mother of Me jo, was coming home from her gar- 
 den with her basket on her back and a great 
 bunch of plantains in the basket. The little for- 
 est path was brown under her brown feet, the 
 great trunks of the trees were gray about her 
 brown body, and above her were the millions and 
 millions of green leaves making up and up to the 
 roof of the forest. On that roof bright birds 
 sunned themselves, and there were the flowers of 
 such trees as bloomed. On the roof of the forest 
 the sun shone, but down where Andungo walked 
 there was a kind of gray green dusk — you see, it 
 was the cellar of the forest. 
 
 Andungo, Mejo's mother, was studying her
 
 30 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 lessons as she walked alone. She was saying to 
 herself : 
 
 "This must be the second hour, because Me jo 
 said it is the second hour when women begin to 
 return from their gardens. This must be the day 
 that is Tuesday, because Tuesday is the day that 
 is two days after Sunday — and twice have I slept 
 on my bed since Sunday. He ! the great day that 
 was Sunday! I heard the school boys say that 
 there were seven thousand people under the roof 
 of the church on Sunday. That thing that is a 
 thousand is too much for me to know, — women 
 cannot know these things — but with my eyes I 
 saw that great company ; I heard that great shout- 
 ing they made before we began to worship God, 
 and I heard too that great silence when we began 
 to worship God. That was a silence like the si- 
 lence that is the ceasing of a great rain upon the 
 roof — when you are astonished at that silence. 
 And I heard those many voices singing the praise 
 of God. I wish I knew all the words of that song 
 that says : 
 
 'God is loving, 
 He has loved me, 
 God is loving, 
 He loves me.
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 31 
 
 I tell you again, 
 God is loving, 
 God is loving, 
 He loves me.' 
 
 "More of that song I wish I knew. 
 
 "I am glad I found those nuts of the wild man- 
 go tree that Me jo loves to eat. I will roast them 
 in the fire and Mejo shall eat them all." 
 
 But Mejo never so much as saw those mango 
 nuts with his eye, because when Andungo the 
 mother of Mejo ducked down to enter her hut, 
 two little brown arms were thrown about her 
 body — a little young body clung to hers. That 
 was the body of her girl Asala. Her girl Asala 
 was crying out, — 
 
 "Ah, mother, I have come! Ah, mother, they 
 have permitted me to visit you! Ah, mother, the 
 many nights I lay upon my bed and longed for 
 my mother ! Sometimes when I slept you entered 
 my head at night. That dream was so quick to 
 pass. Now I see you with my eyes; I touch you 
 with my hands! Tell me all the news!" 
 
 That is why Mejo never saw the mango nuts — 
 his little sister ate them while she answered her 
 mother's many questions.
 
 32 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "That is a new way they dress your hair now," 
 said Andungo. 
 
 "Yes — it is the dressing that they dress the hair 
 of girls in the town of my marriage," said Asala. 
 
 She was perhaps twelve years old; she wore a 
 little apron of green leaves and this was attached 
 to a belt of leopard's skin. She wore besides a 
 bushy little tail of dried grasses. About her neck 
 was a necklace of dog's teeth strung on one of 
 the strong black hairs of an elephant's tail. Just 
 below the knee of her right leg she had tied a 
 narrow ribbon of a bright green grass and an- 
 other such a green ribbon was tied about her 
 forehead. These bands of green were very pretty 
 on her brown body. Her feet and hands were 
 dainty. This little brown girl was like the small 
 gazelles that run in the forests. When her 
 mother looked at her she thought — "How beau- 
 tiful she is!" 
 
 "Do they say that you are beautiful in the 
 town of your marriage?" 
 
 "They say I would be beautiful if I were tat- 
 tooed," said Asala. " 'Why did not your father 
 have you tattooed?' they ask. 'You look so 
 strange without any marks upon your body.'
 
 
 Her nose ring is made of blue beads. 
 
 * Bl "■ 
 
 THE HUNTER S CAMP 
 
 The missionaries often go out into the jungle 
 to hunt antelopes and small game for food
 
 THE WHITE MAN" S CARAVAN 
 
 The forests of Africa are so tangled that it is 
 sometimes impossible to find a trail, and the 
 easiest way is to go down the bed of a stream.
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 33 
 
 Then I feel shame in my heart. All the others 
 are tattooed. Sometimes I make a paint of char- 
 coal and the gum of a tree, and with that I make 
 marks upon my body — but not very well. I am 
 too stupid to make good marks." 
 
 "You should tell them the truth," said ner 
 mother. "Say that you are the child of a Chris- 
 tian woman who knows that God made your 
 body as it pleased Him to make it, and that it is 
 forbidden to spoil that body He made with knives 
 and the things of tattoo. You should tell them 
 that." 
 
 "Oh ! I do tell them that you are a Christian," 
 said Asala, "I tell them that more than anything. 
 All the wives of my husband speak to me of that 
 thing — that my mother is a Christian. Women 
 come from across the river to ask me questions of 
 my mother that is a Christian. The women of 
 our neighborhood are always asking me, — 'how 
 do the people of the tribe of God do this thing 
 and that thing? Tell us about the rules of the 
 tribe of God. Tell us about that Jesus, Son of 
 God.' Those questions they are always asking 
 me. 
 
 "I hope you are wise to answer."
 
 34 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "I answer as I am able," said Asala. "Some 
 questions it is hard to answer. Now that wife of 
 my husband in whose house I live begins to pray." 
 
 "Thanks to God," cried Andungo, "now she 
 will be good to you!" 
 
 "I tell you a true word," said Asala, "she was 
 always good to me. Yes, from the very first 
 day that I went a stranger into that town, walk- 
 ing before my husband with my hands clasped 
 upon my head and tears running from my eyes — 
 from that day she was good to me. She tells me 
 always that I am like a child of her own. She 
 never had a child but me !" 
 
 "When I came to my marriage it was not so," 
 said Andungo. "Your father put me in the house 
 of Eda; she is dead now. She had a bad heart, 
 that woman, and I too, I had a bad heart. Under 
 that roof that covered two bad hearts what quar- 
 rels we made ! She was big and I was little — she 
 always won! But the thing you tell me of that 
 woman in whose house you live is a good word. 
 I will send her a present when you go back and 
 as many of the words of God as I can teach you. 
 How is it that your husband permitted you to 
 leave his town?"
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 35 
 
 "It was because of you, mother. Because of 
 the news my father gave my husband of you. 
 
 " 'Asala's mother is a Christian, a member of 
 that new tribe that is growing in the forest' — 
 my father told my husband, and that a Christian 
 must keep her word, and that you would drive me 
 back to my husband's town because you were. a 
 Christian. 
 
 " 'You can trust that word,' said my father. 
 
 " 'Strange thing!' said my husband. 
 
 " 'Those women of mine who are Christians do 
 not run away,' said my father. 
 
 " 'Strange thing!' said my husband. 
 
 "Then he said to me, — 'If I permit you to visit 
 your mother for one moon do you swear by the 
 dead that you will return?' 
 
 "Then I said to my husband, — 'Not by the 
 dead do I swear; but by the living God.' 
 
 " 'Is that a good oath?' asked my husband, and 
 my father said that it was a strong promise. 
 
 "Then my husband said, 'If I let you go I do 
 not let you go free. I tie you with this tying 1 — 
 that when this moon that is making is lost and the 
 morning after the making of the next moon, you 
 
 1 To be tied is to be bound to do a certain thing.
 
 36 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 must leave your father's town; your father will 
 show you the path back to my town. And when 
 you return you must have a word from the white 
 man. It would be well to have that word written 
 in a book, for I see that all the white people make 
 their strong words in a book. And the word I 
 want is a promise. That white man must send 
 us a teacher. He must promise to send us a 
 teacher. All the news I hear of these things that 
 are the things of God make my heart desire them. 
 I sit in my palaver house in ignorance. Tell the 
 white man that Efa, the headman of Mekok, 
 would learn of the things of God. Do you prom- 
 ise to tell to the white man this word?' 
 
 " 'I promise,' I said to my husband. So he let 
 me come. Ah, mother, such joy in my heart! 
 It fills my heart full. — Where are all the girls?" 
 
 "They are fishing, and there on the wall is 
 your own little net." 
 
 Asala's little net was of a knotted cord strung 
 to a hoop of twigs. She hung the circle of it on 
 her shoulder and went away in the great sun- 
 light. She knew the old path to the river. When 
 she came to the river bank she saw all the girls 
 of the village playing in the brown water. There
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 37 
 
 were the little girl-wives of her father, and the 
 girls born in the town and not married yet. They 
 ran up the bank to greet her, all wet with bright 
 water. 
 
 "Asala has come home!" they cried. "How 
 she has grown and her hair is dressed a new way ! 
 Ah, Asala, did you run away from your marriage 
 that we see you with our eyes again? Ah, Asala, 
 here is a new girl that you do not know — she is 
 from the neighborhood of your husband's town — 
 she asks news of her mother, of her brother. Ah, 
 Asala, tonight when we dance you will teach us 
 new dances that you learned in that far country!" 
 
 It was four weeks later that Andungo, the 
 mother of Me jo, said to her husband: 
 
 "Some days run too fast. Some days .are as 
 slow as a chameleon and some run like gazelles. 
 Now there are only two days before Asala must 
 go back to her husband's town." 
 
 The parents of Me jo were sitting in the big 
 palaver house at the end of the street. Akulu, 
 the father of Me jo, was busy making a box of the 
 bark of a tree. He was making this box very 
 carefully, sewing it together with a rattan thread. 
 When it was done he meant to put some precious
 
 38 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 bones in the box — bones that were fetish. He 
 hoped that when he made a charm with these 
 bones certain desirable things would come to 
 pass. He had a good many worries about his 
 town, and about some evil spirits that were troub- 
 ling the people of his town, and so he was trying 
 to make a strong new "medicine" against those 
 evil spirits. This is why he was so busy sewing 
 away at his bark box. Andungo had brought 
 him a little cake of mashed plantain and a little 
 peanut paste in a green leaf. They were alone 
 in the palaver house, and she told him how sorry 
 she was because Asala's visit was almost all run 
 away. 
 
 "That thing is easy," said Akulu. "Keep her." 
 
 "Keep her!" cried out Andungo. "How can I 
 keep her? She gave the promise of a Christian 
 that she would return!" 
 
 "You Christians are hard-hearted," said Aku- 
 lu, — "to drive a child away like that." 
 
 "Am I driving her? Not I! It is herself. 
 Last night, when we saw the new moon and all 
 the children in the village cried out, 
 
 " 'The new moon is made! 
 
 " 'The new moon is made!'
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 39 
 
 "Then Asala came away from the other girls 
 where they were dancing. She sat by me in the 
 hut. In the dark I could hear her cry. And she 
 said, 'Ah, mother, when we see the new moon two 
 nights then in the morning I must rise and go to 
 my husband's town. Because that was the time 
 I promised. And I am a Christian.' ' 
 
 "Such a little Christian," said Akulu. "Surely 
 they will never believe the word of such a little 
 Christian! They will say, — her heart is the 
 heart of a child, and she lingers by her mother's 
 side. There can be no harm in that!" 
 
 "Little or big," said Andungo, "she is all the 
 Christian the people of that town know. And 
 she must show them the path. They all take ex- 
 ample by her. She must go." 
 
 "But if I say that I am not ready to go with 
 her? Here I am these days, trying to make a 
 new medicine charm for my son Ze who grows so 
 thin. What if I say that I cannot leave my town 
 now? How will she keep her promise?" 
 
 "We thought of that," said Andungo. "Then 
 Assam will go to show her the path." 
 
 "But he is in school!"
 
 40 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "Even so, he will beg the teacher to let him go, 
 that the Christians may keep their promises." 
 
 "Such persistence!" said Akulu. 
 
 The next morning when Me jo sat in school, he 
 saw a woman and a girl come in. "There is my 
 mother and my sister," he thought. He felt sur- 
 prised and uncomfortable. "Now they will do 
 something stupid," he thought, "and I will feel 
 shame!" 
 
 The school house was a great roof thatched 
 with leaves, over rows and rows of seats and desks 
 rough hewn from the logs of the forest. The 
 walls of the schools were of bark — and so low that 
 a boy might sit in his seat and look off into the 
 forest. Under that great roof there was a mur- 
 mur of many voices, for there were four hundred 
 boys in this school. This was the lower school, 
 the upper school was near by. At the end of the 
 school a white man sat at a table on a platform, 
 and here and there, among the pupils, the pupil- 
 teachers stood before their classes. There were 
 thirty young black boys teaching in that school. 
 
 Andungo and Asala came in by the little 
 breach in the wall. Outside the sunlight was too 
 bright and too hot, for it was near noon, but in
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 41 
 
 the school there was a cool shade. Andungo and 
 Asala felt strange when they stepped into that 
 shadow crowded with the bodies of wise young 
 men and boys. They stood together near the 
 wall and whispered. 
 
 "I fear! and I feel shame," said Asala. 
 
 "I too," said her mother. "Let us go, they 
 may laugh at us." 
 
 "Only the promise that I promised is able to 
 force me," said Asala. 
 
 "Come, then, we will do quickly," said her 
 mother, and they went on up to the platform. 
 
 "Ah, teacher of men!" said Andungo. 
 
 The white man looked up from a great book 
 he was writing. 
 
 "I greet you, mother of Mejo," said he. 
 
 "This little girl is my daughter ; she is in a far 
 marriage and she makes us a visit. She has a 
 word to say to you." 
 
 "Such impudence," thought Mejo, who was 
 watching from his seat and feeling shame. He 
 could see a little red feather in Asala 's hair and 
 that little feather trembled; his heart softened. 
 "She fears," he thought, and he pitied her. 
 
 "It is because of a promise I made my husband
 
 42 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 that I have come," said Asala, and her voice 
 trembled like the feather in her hair. "I prom- 
 ised him that I would beg the white man to send 
 a teacher to the village of Mekok. The people of 
 Mekok desire to learn the things of God. They 
 desire to read the book of the words of God." 
 
 "Who is the headman of the village of Mekok?" 
 
 "My husband is the headman. His name is 
 Efa." 
 
 It was very quiet in the school now because all 
 the boys and all the teachers were listening. 
 Asala clung to the edge of the white man's table 
 and he saw her little brown face looking at him 
 over the edge. 
 
 "Will the people of Mekok pay the teacher if 
 I send him?" 
 
 "My husband says that he knows the custom 
 of paying the teacher, and the people of the town 
 will certainly pay the teacher." 
 
 "Will the women of the town feed the teacher 
 every day?" 
 
 "Every day they will feed the teacher. He 
 shall not be hungry a single day." 
 
 "Will the boys and young men of the town 
 build the school house?"
 
 THE FAMILY OF AKULU MEJO 43 
 
 "They will ! Already they are cutting bark for 
 the walls and hunting leaves for the thatch. All 
 these things are understood by my husband as 
 the custom of the tribe of God." 
 
 "Are there so few Christians in your husband's 
 town that a little girl must bring this great mes- 
 sage?" 
 
 "There is no Christian but me. I alone am a 
 Christian in that town." 
 
 "Then it is from your mouth that your husband 
 and the women of his town have learned this news 
 of the things of school and of the custom of the 
 tribe of God. I hear." 
 
 And the white man took counsel with himself. 
 
 "Will not you yourself come to school with us? 
 There is a white woman who cares for girls like 
 you and teaches them the things of women who 
 are women of God. Does not your heart draw 
 you to come and be with her?" 
 
 The white man saw tears soften those brilliant 
 eyes. 
 
 "To-morrow I return to my husband. I made 
 a promise," said Asala. 
 
 "You are a good little girl," said the white 
 man, suddenly, "you must keep your promise.
 
 44 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 Tell your husband that I received his great mes- 
 sage from your mouth, and that I promise a 
 teacher for the village of Mekok. I will write 
 this word in a book. I am a 'real man' and I will 
 keep my promise. He too is a real man and must 
 keep his promise to pay and to feed and to build. 
 You may go now. As you go — God keep you." 
 
 Me jo watched his mother and his sister go 
 away. "She is brave," he thought. 
 
 The next morning Asala left for her husband's 
 town. Her father went with her. And that 
 night Me jo said to his brother Assam, — 
 
 "I wonder to see Asala so brave." 
 
 "It is the power of God," said Assam. 
 
 "Will they send a teacher as they promised?" 
 
 "They certainly will," said Assam. 
 
 "Are you sure? Have they chosen that 
 teacher?" 
 
 "They have," said Assam, "and I am that 
 teacher." And he put out the light. 
 
 "There go my brother and my sister," thought 
 Me jo as he lay beside his brother in the dark, 
 "together they walk the new path that is the path 
 of God. They certainly have a peculiar cour- 
 age!" And he sighed.
 
 CHAPTER II: WHITE MEN AND THEIR AD- 
 VENTURES
 
 CHAPTER II: WHITE MEN AND THEIR ADVEN- 
 TURES 
 
 IT was a dark night — "the moon was lost," as 
 the forest people say, — and the people of 
 Akulu's village were sitting about the fires in the 
 palaver house. There had been an elephant hunt 
 that day, — Akulu had made a strong medicine 
 for the hunt and yet the elephant had got away. 
 "That is because all my strong young men are 
 in school," said Akulu, who was in bad humor. 
 "They are followers of the white man — my boys 
 and my men — their old father goes to the hunt 
 unattended. Soon the men of our clan will give 
 me a new nickname, they will call me — 
 
 'You walk alone ! Where are your brothers V ' 
 "When they beat my nickname on a drum that 
 is the name they will beat — 
 
 'You walk alone ! Where are your brothers V ' 
 The young sons of Akulu sat together in a 
 little group peeling and eating sugar cane. One 
 of the older boys said : 
 
 "Some boys took new names to-day. Mr. 
 
 47
 
 48 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 Krug told us stories of brave men, and some boys 
 said that they would name themselves for those 
 brave men." 
 
 "Were those brave men white men or black 
 men?" asked Akulu. 
 
 "They were white men," said Assam. 
 
 "What kind of bravery was their bravery?" 
 asked Akulu. "Were they brave hunters or 
 brave fighters? Tell me about that bravery!" 
 
 "It was not a bravery of hunting or of fighting, 
 — it was a bravery of walking alone in a strange 
 country among strangers and enemies. They 
 were makers of roads in the forest. In canoes 
 they followed strange rivers. Alone they ap- 
 proached great and angry headmen. Every one 
 of these brave men might say his nickname was — 
 
 'You walk alone! Where are your broth- 
 ersf 
 
 At this moment, Akulu rose and went out into 
 the dark, where his call drum lay under the eaves 
 of the house. Presently he drummed the call to 
 his neighbors. Akulu was a great drummer ; far, 
 far away in the forest the murmur of his drum- 
 ming was heard by other headmen sitting by their 
 own fires. "That is a call from the town of
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 49 
 
 Akulu Mejo," they said; and those men whose 
 villages were neighbor to his rose to answer the 
 call from Akulu. 
 
 He came back into the palaver house and sat 
 down. 
 
 "Go on," said he to Assam, "this talk that you 
 talk is a real word. It is well that other men 
 should hear this talk about brave men. What 
 were they hunting, — these brave white men? 
 Ivory, was it, or rubber? What goods did they 
 carry? Were they traders? Tell us news of 
 them." 
 
 "One of them was Ngutu," 1 said Assam. 
 
 "He ye e!" cried out Akulu. "He was my 
 friend! Yes, I agree that he was brave. That 
 coming that he came to us when I was a young 
 man like one of you — that was a brave coming. 
 Alone he came, as you say. Ten black men of 
 the beach tribes walked in his company. His 
 first appearing was in the town of Abiete. All 
 night and all day of the days that he slept in 
 Abiete the drums of Abiete were busy with the 
 
 1 Ngutu is the native name of Adolphus C. Good, a member of 
 the Presbyterian Mission in West Africa. He opened up the Bulu 
 interior, and died in that country. He is still remembered by the 
 Bulu. His only son, who is now grown, is at work among the 
 tribes of that forest.
 
 50 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 news. All those days the people of the forest 
 were running to the town of Abiete to see the 
 white man. Strange word of him we heard. His 
 hair is like a monkey's hair, we heard ; his face is 
 not like our faces. He does not dress his hair; 
 he wears a thing on his head that he takes off in 
 the house. Then, when he goes on the path, he 
 puts that thing on his head again. His voice is 
 kind, his manner is kind. You don't see his body 
 at all ; it is covered. The thing he has come to do 
 we do not yet know, but he says many words 
 about 'Zambe — He who created us.' But we do 
 not yet know truly of the thing he has come to 
 do. This is the news we heard of him." 
 
 Some of Akulu's neighbors were coming in out 
 of the night. They carried reed torches, and 
 these they beat out upon the floor. To them 
 Akulu said: 
 
 "You who are 'real men,' do you remember the 
 days of our youth when Ngutu came to our coun- 
 try?" 
 
 "We certainly remember." 
 
 "It is of those days that we are speaking now. 
 My father was then headman of a town near 
 Abiete. He had many sons — some older than
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 51 
 
 I — all brave young men. And he had brothers 
 younger than he — all brave men. In those days 
 we all carried guns. Those were good days be- 
 fore there came a white governor to take away 
 our guns. Now a man is only half a man because 
 he has no gun. A young man of my time was of 
 a peculiar beauty — so brave he was!" 
 
 "You say a true word, Akulu!" cried out an 
 old man, who warmed his hands at the fire. "In 
 those days we were as beautiful as leopards. The 
 villagers of a strange village trembled when we 
 passed upon the path ; they hid themselves in the 
 forest, leaving their houses empty and open." 
 
 "How true!" sighed one. 
 
 "The good days of the past!" sighed another. 
 
 "I long for those days," sighed a third. 
 
 "I dream of a gun in a dream that comes into 
 my head at night!" 
 
 "Well, it was so, as you say. In your youth we 
 were beautiful and we carried guns. So my 
 father said to us all : — 
 
 " 'When the white man passes through our 
 town we will beg him to sleep in our town. And 
 when his carriers have laid their loads upon the 
 ground, we will just steal those loads. That will
 
 52 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 be easy. The goods in those loads are all fine 
 goods — beads for our head-dresses, yellow wire 
 to make bracelets, strange cloth that is not made 
 of beaten bark like our cloth, and bundles of 
 wonderful little sticks * for making fire. It is his 
 custom to give some little portion of this goods 
 to the men who befriend him — but it will be easy 
 for us to take it all.' 
 
 "This was how we took counsel together, and 
 this was our plan. 
 
 "The day he came to our town was a day of the 
 dry season. He came in the late afternoon, from 
 the direction of the setting of the sun. Many of 
 our neighbors walked in his company, laughing 
 and talking and making a great noise. He did 
 not laugh or talk. He walked like a man who 
 is worn out. I saw him with great surprise. I 
 called out with the others, — 'He ye e! His hair 
 is like the hair of a monkey! The strange thing 
 on his head!' I was so surprised to see a white 
 man. He came into the palaver house where 
 my father sat. His carriers put their loads down 
 in the street, they came into the palaver house. 
 He took the thing off his head. He gave my 
 
 1 Matches.
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 53 
 
 father a greeting, and he gave us all a greeting — 
 like a brother. He spoke our tongue, but in a 
 way to make us laugh. He spoke like the tribes 
 across the Ntem river. You know the way we 
 always laugh at the talk of the tribes across the 
 Ntem?" 
 
 "We certainly laugh!" said young and old, and 
 they laughed. 
 
 "Well, so we laughed on that day of the past 
 when Ngutu first spoke to us. We all stood up 
 in the palaver house, beautiful with our guns and 
 fierce with the fierceness of strong young men. 
 We said to my father: — 
 
 " 'Let us go now to steal the loads — there they 
 are on the ground ! His carriers have no guns — 
 it will be easy to steal the loads.' 
 
 "Ngutu heard us say this, and the carriers 
 heard. They feared greatly — those carriers. 
 Some rose to run away ; but Ngutu said to them, 
 'Sit down!' 
 
 "To my father he said he was weary. This 
 much talking made him very weary. And he 
 said he was thirsty. He begged for a drink of 
 water. My father sent a little girl to the spring. 
 He looked at Ngutu a long time. Ngutu looked
 
 54 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 at him. We still spoke of the goods in the load. 
 Ngutu drank the water from the spring. And 
 suddenly my father said: — 
 
 " 'This white man fears nothing. He must 
 have a strong fetish that protects him. We do 
 not understand white men and their medicine. 
 Let us be wise and treat him with kindness, or 
 evil may come upon us and upon our villages.' 
 
 "Then all the young men put their guns down. 
 We were disappointed, but we respected the voice 
 of my father and we respected the bravery of 
 Ngutu. This time that I tell you was my first 
 sight of Ngutu. He was not yet my friend. 
 That night by the light of the palaver house fire 
 he told us first the news of Jesus, the son of 
 Zambe 1 — He who created us. He told us how 
 the son of Zambe redeemed us, — because we were 
 forgetful of Zambe and had broken the great law 
 of Him-who-created-us. That was the first time 
 I ever heard of the tribe of God, that is now so 
 strong in this country. My own sons honor the 
 things of the tribe of God more than the things 
 of the tribe of their fathers." 
 
 "Not the young only," said Oton, — a big man 
 
 1 Zambe is the Bum name for the Creator of men.
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 55 
 
 who was an elder in the church. "Many 'real 
 men' are Christians and they pray for you every 
 day, Akulu." 
 
 "Yes, and we pray for you," said Assam. 
 
 "Even so," said Akulu, "I am not a Christian. 
 It is too much trouble to be a Christian. That 
 was always the argument I used to make to 
 Ngutu, when he spoke to me of the tribe of God. 
 Yet I was a friend of Ngutu. My eldest son 
 was born the day after Ngutu was put in his 
 grave on Efulen hill. That was my son Ngutu, 
 who was a Christian when he was a lad, and he 
 died. The Christians made me bury that boy 
 without any of the dances of mourning or the 
 proper charms for the spirits of the dead. They 
 say he sits down in the town of God. Who 
 knows?" 
 
 "I know," cried out the mother of the boy 
 Ngutu. "And the path to that town I know." 
 
 "Be still!" said Akulu, "there is more news to 
 hear. Assam will tell me news of those brave 
 white men — they that were spoken of in school 
 to-day." 
 
 "There were many," said Assam. "There was 
 a great one named Livingstone. Mr. Krug told
 
 56 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 us that among all the sons of the white man none 
 exceeds that man for bravery." 
 
 "Where does he have his town — that man Liv- 
 ingstone?" asked Akulu. 
 
 "He is dead now. He died when Mr. Krug 
 was a baby." 
 
 "That would be a long time ago," said Akulu. 
 "What great deed did this man do that he lives 
 so long in the memory of his tribe? Tell me that 
 thing he did. Was he a son of the English?" 
 
 "He was a son of the Scotch — and that is a 
 tribe I do not know, but brother to the English." 
 
 "Was he a son of a chief?" 
 
 "He was not. The people of his father's house 
 worked with their hands — they were weavers of 
 cloth — the cloth of the white man. Himself he 
 made cloth until God called him to do the work 
 of the tribe of God. Then he studied many 
 things in books. He studied medicine." 
 
 "It is a strange thing," said Akulu, "how 
 these people of the tribe of God must always be 
 studying in books. Now there is Ze, who is 
 headman in Yefuzok. I saw him with my own 
 eyes sitting with a book on his knees and a school
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN; 57 
 
 boy was teaching him the things that are in the 
 book. I said to him : — 
 
 ' 'Ah, Ze Zom, I feel shame to see a headman 
 learning of a child. You are a headman, like 
 myself.' But he just laughed. He said, 'It is 
 true that you see me with your eyes for a head- 
 man, but in the eyes of the Lord Jesus I am a 
 servant. So I humble myself that I may read 
 the law of the tribe of God in a book. Sit down/ 
 Ze said to me, 'until I finish my task.' 
 
 "And then I heard him say like a sheep, 'B-a- 
 Ba!' And like a frog he said, 'B-o-Bo!' " 
 
 Akulu laughed and everybody laughed. 
 
 "About Livingstone," * said Assam. "He 
 studied medicine." 
 
 "Was he a great doctor in his own town?" 
 asked Akulu, "and a maker of Magic?" 
 
 "He was not. The great deeds he did were not 
 done in his own town, but in the country of the 
 black people. This country that the white peo- 
 ple call Africa." 
 
 "Livingstone!" said Akulu. "Now that is a 
 
 1 Boys and girls of Livingstone's own tribe will want to know 
 more about him than Assam was able to tell the black men in 
 Akulu's palaver house. They will find it in "Livingstone, the 
 Pathfinder," by Basil Mathews.
 
 58 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 strange thing. I do not know that name. Did 
 you ever hear in our country of a white man by 
 that name?" 
 
 Akulu looked around the palaver house, where 
 the fire lit the faces of his friends. 
 
 "I hear that name for the first time to-night," 
 said one and another. "This is a white man's 
 fable that you tell us. We keep in our hearts 
 the names of all the white men we have ever 
 seen!" 
 
 "Not a fable," said Assam, "but a thing of dis- 
 tance. All the great deeds of Livingstone and 
 his great walking were beyond the Ntem river 
 and beyond the Congo. 
 
 "Stop, boy!" said Oton, the elder. "The Ntem 
 river we know — do not we fight with the tribes 
 beyond that river? But this river you call the 
 Congo — is that a real river?" 
 
 "It is a real river. The tribes who live on that 
 river see it every day. It is a great river. Our 
 country of Africa is a great country — more than 
 we black people know. Mr. Krug says so." 
 
 "Mr. Krug!" cried out Akulu — "some day Mr. 
 Krug will want to tell me how many wives I 
 have and how many children. Has Mr. Krug
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 59 
 
 seen all this great country that he can give us so 
 much news?" 
 
 "Not himself. He has not seen the country 
 that Livingstone saw; but he has read the book 
 Livingstone wrote — all white men read that book 
 and believe it. In the book are written those 
 things that Livingstone saw on his great walks." 
 
 "Was he a great walker?" asked Akulu. 
 
 "He was the best. Even Ze Zom, who walks 
 so well, cannot have walked more than Living- 
 stone." 
 
 "It is hard to believe that," said Oton — "you 
 know that Ze Zom has this nickname — 
 
 ' 'If the sun sets I will walk by moonlight — 
 I will walk by moonlight.' Let me tell you about 
 the walks of Ze." 
 
 "No," said Akulu, — "this is a night to listen 
 to the walks of Livingstone. Where did those 
 walks begin?" 
 
 "They began very far from here on the beach. 
 But not the beach we know. If you stand with 
 the place where the sun rises on your left hand 
 and the place of the setting on your right hand, 
 then the place toward which you turn your face is 
 the South."
 
 60 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "The South! another thing of the white man!" 
 
 "Yes. And if you walk many seasons — rainy 
 and dry seasons — then you come to that beach 
 where Livingstone began to walk. That place 
 is called Capetown." 
 
 "Show us on the ground the things of that 
 white man's walk." 
 
 Assam took some strippings of sugar cane in 
 his hand. One he laid on the ground and said : — 
 
 "This is the beach we know at Kribi." An- 
 other he laid upon the ground and said. "This is 
 the beach we never knew — where the sun rises." 
 
 A third he laid upon the ground and said, 
 "This is Capetown." Then, with the sharp end 
 of a sliver of sugar cane, he drew about these on 
 the clay of the floor, an outline of an ear. 
 
 "This that I draw," said he, "is Africa." 
 
 "He ye e!" cried out his father and their 
 friends. "Let us see this thing with our eyes." 
 And they all rose to see that drawing on the 
 ground. They leaned above it, laughing and 
 slapping their thighs. 
 
 "Show us that river," they said, "that is the 
 Congo." 
 
 And Assam made the Congo with a strip of
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 61 
 
 sugar cane. And another great river he placed 
 for them — that was the Nile. 
 
 "Tell us," said Akulu, when his friends had saf 
 down — "what the white man was hunting on 
 these walks. What drew him so far from home?" 
 
 "Three things he was hunting — rivers and 
 waters he was hunting — the rivers and waters 
 that were hidden in the great country of Africa. 
 He was a hunter of rivers and waters." 
 
 "We hear," said Akulu, "though that is a 
 strange word. What else?" 
 
 "A path he was hunting among strange tribes 
 and in hard places — this path would be for the 
 caravans of the missionaries who would follow 
 after when the paths were known. He was a 
 hunter of paths." 
 
 "We hear," said Akulu, "and that is not so 
 strange. He was just the man who goes before 
 the caravan with a cutlass. We know that man 
 and how to pick him. He must be a strong 
 man." 
 
 "And a third thing he was hunting — that was 
 news of the buyers and sellers of slaves. In those 
 days among the tribes of the black people, there 
 went many cruel foreigners — cruel they were and
 
 62 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 fierce. It was their custom to buy black people, 
 and where they could not buy to steal. Men, 
 women and children they drove from their homes 
 in the forests and in the grass country — out by 
 the paths to the sea, where they sold them." 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 "To white men. And these took them beyond 
 the sea in great canoes — you know — what the 
 white man calls steamers." 
 
 "Some little news of this thing I have heard," 
 said Akulu, "though it was never a thing of our 
 neighborhood. But why must Livingstone learn 
 about the slavers? A man of the tribe of God 
 would never be slaving?" 
 
 "It was the news he was hunting — not the 
 slaves. He said, — 'If I see with my eyes and tell 
 with my mouth the great sorrows of those slaves, 
 their tears, their hungers, their thirsts, their 
 wounds, their deaths by the side of the path, their 
 poor dry bones still wearing the chains and the 
 stocks, — if I get all this news and tell it to the 
 great tribe of the people of God in the world, they 
 will listen and will be angry. They will rise up 
 and forbid those slavers who come from without 
 to spoil the villages of the tribes who live in the
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 63 
 
 hidden places of Africa ! This news was the third 
 thing he hunted. Now you know the three works 
 that God gave him to do; and the things that 
 drew him on those many, many bad paths for 
 those many, many seasons that he walked. Until 
 at the end he was old — he was gray — he was no 
 more than the bones of a man. But when Liv- 
 ingstone came to Africa he was young and strong. 
 He did not know at first that God was going to 
 push him to walk so far. He began to walk 
 among the tribes in the neighborhood of Kuru- 
 man." And Assam laid a leaf that was Kuru- 
 man upon his map. "But his heart was not sit- 
 ting down in that neighborhood — it pushed him 
 North." 
 
 "What is North?" asked an old man. 
 
 "North is where you look when the rising sun 
 is on your right hand. The hidden things of 
 Africa were all there. The lakes and the rivers 
 and the tribes of the forest were there, but the 
 eyes of white men had not yet seen them. I will 
 show you the waters that were found by Living- 
 stone before he died." 
 
 Now with leaves and little twigs Assam fur-
 
 64 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 nished for them the rivers and the lakes of the 
 heart of Africa. 
 
 "Livingstone found this great water, Ngami," 
 said Assam, putting down upon the map a little 
 leaf that was the Lake Ngami. 
 
 "And this is the river Zambesi," with a twist of 
 plantain cord he made the river Zambesi, and he 
 told them how Livingstone found "the early 
 things" of the Zambesi. 
 
 "And this Lake Nyassa, and Lake Mweru and 
 Lake Bangweolo." 
 
 "Other white men found Lake Victoria Ny- 
 anza and Lake Tanganyika," asid Assam, "but 
 I will put them down for you to see the many 
 lakes that are in our country. And Livingstone 
 did pass upon the Lake Tanganyika in a canoe. 
 Now you see the lakes and the waters found by 
 Livingstone. And I will tell you that the years 
 that passed him while he did this work were thirty 
 years as white men count years. And I will tell 
 you that the miles he walked were twenty-seven 
 thousand miles. Miles are a thing of the white 
 man. Then I will ask you, — was this a small 
 work that he did, or was it the work of a real 
 man?"
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 65 
 
 "Let me say," said Ze Zom, "I who am a real 
 man, and a man who if the sun sets will walk 
 by moonlight — I say that I never knew that a 
 man could do so great a work." And the others 
 in the palaver house agreed. Of other things 
 Assam told them. He told them of the sign that 
 God gave him while he was yet a young man, still 
 busy in the South — 
 
 "That sign," said Assam, "was a little girl no 
 bigger than your wrist. She was an orphan. 
 Other men than the men of her father's house 
 spoke of selling her. When she heard that talk 
 of selling her she ran from the village to the path 
 where Livingstone was passing. She sat down 
 beneath his wagon. She begged Livingstone to 
 take her in his caravan to his town, — she would 
 walk all the way behind his wagon. Livingstone 
 gave her food and she was glad. That day began 
 well for her, — even so — suddenly she cried out 
 with a loud crying — there was a man with a gun 
 who had followed her! Now she thought, 'It is 
 finished !' But no — a black man who was a man 
 of God and who walked in Livingstone's caravan 
 said to her — 
 
 " 'Take the beads from your body.' She had
 
 66 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 many beads upon her body, and with those many 
 beads, by the advice of the black Christian, she 
 ransomed her body from the man who had fol- 
 lowed her. He went away. Livingstone then 
 hid that child in his wagon — so well that five tens 
 of men could not have found her. This doing 
 that he did for that little girl — I say it was a 
 sign of the work he must do for Africa!" 
 
 "I understand your meaning," said Akulu. 
 "But I am thinking, — what a poor price for a 
 girl — just the beads she wore. That man with a 
 gun did not know how to sell a girl! I could 
 have done better!" 
 
 Of the scar upon Livingstone's arm Assam 
 told them — and the day when the lion ' at Ma- 
 botsa sprang at Livingstone. Many lions were in 
 that neighborhood and on one day one lion killed 
 nine sheep! 
 
 "How do you mean — one day?" said Akulu. 
 "It is one night you mean!" 
 
 "I mean one day — and that day in the middle 
 — with the light of the sun everywhere. Living- 
 stone and many black people ran to kill the lion. 
 
 1 There are no lions in West Africa, but the Bulu have a tradi- 
 tion of lions.
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 67 
 
 Livingstone fired a shot. The lion sprang at him 
 and caught him by the shoulder with eleven of his 
 teeth — the lion broke the white man's bone! He 
 put his paw upon Livingstone's head, — " 
 
 "He is a dead man now!" cry out the men in 
 the palaver house. 
 
 "No — because there was a man to save him — a 
 black man of God was there. He shot at the lion 
 and missed, but the angry heart of the lion turned 
 away from Livingstone; he sprang at the black 
 man and caught him on the thigh, he caught a 
 third man on the shoulder. Then some shot had 
 found him — for he fell dead ! But all those three 
 men still breathed. God permitted them to live. 
 This story that I tell you is a story that white 
 men tell each other and, when they tell it, they 
 marvel." 
 
 "Well, we marvel too — even we, who are so 
 wise in the things of hunting. That white man 
 must have had a strong charm against lions! 
 Tell us about that charm." 
 
 "Tell us," said Oton — "the name of the black 
 man who saved Livingstone." 
 
 "His name was Mebalwe. He was a teacher 
 of men."
 
 68 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "Akeva!" 1 said Oton. 
 
 Assam told them of Livingstone's marriage 
 with Mary Moffat. She was a daughter of a mis- 
 sionary, he told them, so that she understood all 
 the custom of the tribe of missionaries, — how they 
 must be enduring, how they must wander among 
 strange tribes and eat out of the kettles of 
 strangers — she understood all those things. 
 About their children Assam told, and the hard- 
 ships of those early days when this family trav- 
 eled by ox cart and before Livingstone sent his 
 weary family home, and went on his way alone 
 through the forests of Central Africa. In that 
 palaver house that night mothers sighed over the 
 death of that little month-old girl who was born 
 and buried and whose grave was the first Chris- 
 tian grave in that wilderness. "Pity that woman," 
 the women said, when they heard Assam tell of 
 a five days' drought when Livingstone feared 
 that his children must die of thirst. 
 
 "She was a brave woman," said Assam; "Liv- 
 ingstone has written that praise of her in his book. 
 He said that the tears fell from her eyes, but she 
 
 Akeva is a kind of thanksgiving word.
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN! 69 
 
 did not accuse with her mouth. And on the fifth 
 day a black man of that caravan found water !" 
 
 The women in that palaver house heard with 
 sorrow that now Livingstone sent his family 
 home — "Because he was so sorry for them," said 
 Assam, "so sorry for all the wanderings of those 
 little children and that weary woman." 
 
 "But who now," asked the women, "would care 
 for Livingstone and cook his food for him." 
 
 "There were black men to do that," Assam told 
 them, "for Livingstone had been eleven years, as 
 white men count years, in Africa and he knew the 
 speech of many tribes. More than ever God was 
 pushing Livingstone to the north, upon paths 
 that were too hard for women and children. 
 When Livingstone was alone he walked more 
 quickly than a man may walk with his wife." 
 The men in the palaver house understood that. 
 Black people understand loneliness and home 
 sickness with a great understanding. A black 
 man or woman will die of this "dryness of the 
 heart" that comes from homesickness. 
 
 "But could he not make friends with the black 
 men he met by the way? Were there no great
 
 70 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 chiefs to befriend him, as my father befriended 
 Ngutu?" 
 
 "There were such friends. The first of these 
 was Sechele. He was not at first a friend, but an 
 enemy. He heard news of a white man and not 
 seeing him with his eyes he was offended. He 
 said : 'Why does he never visit me when he visits ? 
 Because he has not been quick to visit me but 
 visits other chiefs who are not so great as I am — 
 I am angry. And when he does come I will do 
 him a mischief.' " 
 
 "I understand that man," said Akulu — "tell 
 me more!" 
 
 "When Livingstone came at last to Sechele's 
 town, there was a great sorrow there because two 
 children of the town were dying. And one of 
 these was Sechele's only child. Livingstone with 
 his white man's medicine healed those two child- 
 ren. Not all the witch doctors in that country 
 could heal those children, but the missionary 
 healed them. Now I ask you, — What mischief 
 did Sechele then do to the white man who had 
 healed the children of his town?" 
 
 "What could he do," cried out Akulu — "but 
 make a bond of friendship!"
 
 ADVENTURES OF WHITE MEN 71 
 
 "That thing he did," said Assam. "And Liv- 
 ingstone spoke to him about the things of God. 
 When he told Sechele of the things of God, 
 Sechele asked him a question. 
 
 'Why did not the people of your tribe come 
 to tell us this news before? My ancestors have all 
 perished and not one of them knew what you tell 
 me!' 
 
 "That word struck Livingstone to the heart. 
 Afterward Sechele became a person of the tribe 
 of God and walked much in Livingstone's com- 
 pany, but Livingstone never forgot that word of 
 reproach. It was a word to drive him north. 
 
 "And now," said Assam, — "I am worn out 
 with all this talking. My voice has died in my 
 stomach. I want to go to bed." 
 
 "Ah, my son," said Akulu, "when will we hear 
 how Livingstone walked? — is this all the news of 
 his great walking?" 
 
 "It is no more than the beginning," said As- 
 sam. "Another night I will tell you more." 
 
 Then all the brown bodies of men and women 
 and children in that palaver house rose; they 
 stretched themselves, they lit their reed torches 
 at the fire, and the guests went away murmuring
 
 72 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 together of the great things they had heard. The 
 name of Livingstone was heard along the little 
 paths of that forest neighborhood that night. 
 
 Mejo said to Assam when they lay under their 
 blanket in the dark of their hut, — 
 
 "Ah, Assam, what new name did you choose?" 
 
 "I have not chosen yet," said Assam. "I am 
 still choosing." 
 
 "I will tell you my new name," said Mejo. "I 
 choose the name of Livingstone." Assam said 
 nothing. 
 
 "Do you like that?" said Mejo. 
 
 "I think you are full of pride," said Assam. 
 "You chose a name that is too big for you. Since 
 when do you walk upon hard paths and suffer 
 hunger that you may tell those who are ignorant 
 of the things of God ? That is the work of a boy 
 who calls himself Livingstone." 
 
 Mejo thought to himself, "Assam believes that 
 I am silly and a coward"; and he felt shame for 
 a little while before he dropped asleep.
 
 CHAPTER III: ASSAM TELLS MORE ABOUT 
 LIVINGSTONE
 
 CHAPTER III: ASSAM TELLS MORE ABOUT 
 LIVINGSTONE 
 
 THE next night when dark began to fall 
 Akulu beat on his drum the call to his 
 neighbors. 
 
 "That is the voice of Akulu's drum," said one 
 to another in all the little villages of that neigh- 
 borhood. "He calls us to hear the talk of his 
 son Assam. They say that the talk of Assam last 
 night was a great talk. We too, we must hear 
 that talk." 
 
 Then men took their spears in their hands and 
 women took their babies in deer-skin slings by 
 their sides, and by the light of torches little com- 
 panies walked single file on the paths that ran to 
 Akulu's town. All about these people, who 
 talked as they walked, the great forest was dark 
 in the night. The dew was wet on the feet of 
 those people. The torch-bearers waved their 
 torches as they walked, and if there were snakes 
 on the path they slid away from that light. 
 
 In the palaver house of Akulu too many peo- 
 
 75
 
 76 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 pie crowded. They sat thick upon the bamboo 
 beds. They sat upon the clay floor of that house, 
 having first made a little mat of leaves to sit 
 upon. The many brown arms and the many 
 brown legs were crowded together. The many 
 heads of men and women turned toward Assam 
 in the firelight. Bright eyes shone in that light 
 and white teeth in many laughing, dark faces. 
 Brass ornaments glittered about the necks and 
 the arms of the women and the little girls, their 
 hair was dressed and hung with garlands and 
 fringes of beads and of shells. The women were 
 tattooed and the men were tattooed with great 
 drawings in a purple black upon their brown 
 faces and upon their bodies. On two tall drums 
 that were dance drums, two little wooden images 
 sat — they were the great fetishes of Akulu's 
 village. They had eyes but they did not see As- 
 sam, ears they had but they did not hear the 
 great talk about Livingstone that Assam talked 
 all that evening until the middle of the night. 
 
 There was still upon the clay floor of the house 
 the map which Assam had made the night before. 
 All day the idlers in the village had bent over 
 it, naming rivers and lakes, and laughing as they
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 77 
 
 named them. They were proud to know, after 
 all the generations of black men who had died 
 without knowing — the "things of Africa." And 
 now they listened with a great wonder and a 
 great attention to the story of Livingstone's long 
 way. 
 
 Upon Assam's map they followed Livingstone 
 from Koboleng to Linyanti, from Linyanti to 
 Loando, from Loando back to Linyanti, from 
 Linyanti to Tette. From Tette they could not 
 follow him home in the white man's boat — that 
 journey was too strange for them. But they 
 welcomed him back to Africa; they followed him 
 up and down the Zambesi river on his second 
 journey that was so much a water journey; they 
 welcomed him upon his return from his second 
 visit home. They made with Assam upon the 
 map the heroic journeys of Livingstone's last 
 eight years, when he wandered from Lake Ny- 
 assa to Lake Bangoweolo, from Bangoweolo to 
 Lake Tanganyiki and from there north and west 
 — always himting the sources of the Nile, and so 
 nearly tapping the sources of the Congo. That 
 lonely and heroic man, in his admiral's cap of 
 tarnished gold lace, came back to the imagina-
 
 78 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 tions of those black men and women who heard 
 his story that night. 
 
 All the hardships of this journey were very 
 real to the black men and women in that palaver 
 house, — all the violent rains that fell upon him 
 were real to them, all the fury of the violent sun- 
 light, all the swollen rivers that he must cross 
 in canoes that must be borrowed from unwilling 
 owners, all his bleeding wounds when he must 
 make his way through thorny thickets, all his 
 escapes from wild animals and from unfriendly 
 chiefs. These dangers and these cares were of a 
 tribe they knew. The men in that audience were 
 native to the dangers and the deaths of that 
 great forest which sighed about their little clear- 
 ing in the night, as it had sighed about Living- 
 stone on all the nights of his African wanderings. 
 
 "Tell us about the great chiefs he met," they 
 asked. And Assam told them about Sebituane, 
 that great chief of the Makalolo tribe who ruled 
 at Linyanti on the mighty Zambesi river. 
 
 "Before Livingstone ever saw Sebituane with 
 his eyes he heard great news of him," said Assam. 
 "That man was famous in the mouths of men. 
 They said that he was a great ruler, a great war-
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 79 
 
 rior, a great traveler, a great runner, a great 
 hunter, and a great giver of gifts. They said that 
 he was kind to the poor, and that he liked to sit 
 and talk with the least company, and that sitting 
 and talking with humble folk he would share the 
 choicest food with them. Men said of him — 
 'He is wise, he is kind!' " 
 
 "Now there is a man I would like to visit," 
 cried Akulu, "does he still live?" 
 
 "He is dead," said Assam, "and I will tell you 
 about that, — 
 
 "Before Sebituane saw the white man, he 
 longed to see a white man. That was his great 
 desire. It was as if God had put that wish in his 
 heart. And when Sebituane saw Livingstone his 
 heart sat down — he was satisfied. He liked Liv- 
 ingstone. When the day that is Sunday came 
 and Livingstone called all the people to hear 
 the Word of God, Sebituane heard that Word. 
 He came to that meeting. He never came to 
 another meeting to hear the Word of God, be- 
 cause he sickened and died. Ten days and four 
 days he lay upon his bed and then he died. The 
 last words Sebituane said were words of kind- 
 ness to Livingstone's little boy. He said, 'Take
 
 80 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 him to Maunka, my wife, and tell her to give him 
 some milk.' He never spoke again. Living- 
 stone made a little song about Sebituane, and it 
 is written in his book — he made a little song of 
 grieving. Those who read his book read that 
 little song and remember Sebituane." 
 
 "That is good," said Akulu, "Livingstone had 
 a heart like a black man. It is certainly a thing 
 of grief to remember Sebituane and his great de- 
 sire to hear the Word of God, and that he heard 
 it only one hearing. I like this news of great 
 chiefs — tell me more." 
 
 Assam told them of Sekeletu, the son of Sebi- 
 tuane, who sat in his father's seat and ruled the 
 Makalolo. He told of the great state of that 
 young man, of how when he went upon a journey 
 he was attended by strong men whose headdresses 
 were made of the manes of lions and the waving 
 feathers of birds. He told of how the Makalolo 
 greeted their chief when he passed their villages 
 saying, "Great Lion — mighty chief, sleep, my 
 Lord!" He told of the flesh of oxen that was 
 eaten by the happy men of such a caravan, of 
 their dancing and their feastings, of their long 
 talks about the night fires when they were in
 
 
 THE LONELY HOUSE 
 
 This is the little hut where Mejo lived by himself. 
 
 THE CARAVAN OF THE WHITE WOMAN 
 
 She is going to visit the school girls in their villages.
 
 *£?-* *S+j3&f8& 
 
 THE FERRY 
 
 This canoe is hollowed out of the trunk of a tree. 
 
 "Skue 
 
 * 
 
 A RIVER JOURNEY 
 
 The missionaries on a journey down 
 the river to visit other villages.
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 81 
 
 camps, of their songs, and of how Skeletu would 
 rush out with a whip of rhinoceros hide to beat 
 his young men until they were quiet. The story 
 of so much grandeur — of so much gilded youth 
 and power made the humble hearers very envious, 
 they wished to wander in such caravans, singing 
 and dancing and feasting. Then Assam told 
 them of the enemy of Sekeletu, who was his half 
 brother — Mpepe, and of how three times in one 
 day he tried to kill Sekeletu. Himself he would 
 be chief of the Makalolo. His spear was raised 
 against his brother when Livingstone passed be- 
 tween the bodies of Sekeletu and Mpepe. The 
 body of the white man saved the life of the black 
 chief. But for his treachery Mpepe was killed 
 by the Makalolo. Assam told this of Sekeletu, 
 — that when Livingstone returned from his long 
 journeys to the west he found his friend Sekeletu 
 a leper. 
 
 "Death does not spare beauty," said Akulu. 
 
 "You till the ground that covers you," said 
 another. And these two sayings are Bulu 
 proverbs. 
 
 Assam told them of the twenty-seven Makalolo 
 men who carried Livingstone's loads on his jour-
 
 82 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 neys to and from Linyanti to the west coast, and 
 to the east coast. He told of the goods that was 
 in those loads, — the ivory, the calico, the beads, 
 the brass wire, the many things of barter to buy 
 food by the way, and of the four books that were 
 in the loads. One of these books was a book to 
 write in — in that book Livingstone wrote the 
 things of every day. He told of the robbers by 
 the way, and of those chiefs who came with spears 
 and arrows to kill Livingstone when he should 
 pass. He told of God's care over that caravan, 
 so that when at last they returned to Linyanti 
 there was not a man of the twenty-seven missing. 
 
 That all the men of the caravan saw their 
 home again after such dangers upon strange 
 paths was a great marvel to Akulu. 
 
 Ze Zom said, "This doing was the doing of 
 God; thus He cares for the men who do His 
 work." 
 
 "Tell us what those forest people said when 
 first they saw the sea," said Akulu, "did they re- 
 joice to see the water? Perhaps they danced the 
 dance that the men of our tribe dance when first 
 they stand upon the beach?" 
 
 "They marveled. They said, 'The ships are
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 83 
 
 as big as houses! They are as big as towns! 
 These are not canoes. And we thought ourselves 
 sailors. Only the white men are sailors that come 
 up out of the sea where there is no more earth; 
 but earth says, — I am gone, dead, swallowed up, 
 and there is nothing but water left.' ' 
 
 "That saying was good," said Akulu. "I my- 
 self had such a wonder when I saw the sea. I 
 see that the Makalolo tribe have hearts like our- 
 selves. But I am not able to think why Living- 
 stone, who stood upon the beach after such jour- 
 neys upon such bad paths, did not now go back 
 in a white man's canoe to his own town." 
 
 "Because of his promise," said Assam. "The 
 promise that he made to the Makalolo men that 
 he would take them home." 
 
 "Such persistence!" said Akulu. "But I see 
 the custom of the tribe of God is strong for the 
 truth. They are tied by their promises. I see 
 that even in my own town." 
 
 Assam told them about the return to Linyanti 
 that was slower than the journey to Loanda. Ze 
 Zom said — 
 
 "Yes — because they were now weary." And 
 Assam said that thev were often ill.
 
 84 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 Those men and women in the palaver house 
 were glad when Livingstone found letters and a 
 package from home at Linyanti. They laughed 
 when they heard that Livingstone called the great 
 falls of the Zambesi river after the name of a 
 chief who was a woman. 1 They were angry at 
 the great chief Mpende who would not befriend 
 Livingstone, but who made charms and spells 
 against him. They marveled at that courage with 
 which the white man of God, when he must cross 
 the Zambesi river with armed enemies at his back, 
 sent his men and his goods over first, while he 
 himself amused his enemies with his watch and 
 his burning glass. They were so surprised at 
 these marvels that they let the caravan pass. 
 
 "Even so," said Akulu, "when he himself 
 would get in the canoe, at the last, they would 
 then forget their wonder and would spear him, 
 or shoot him with arrows. Did he not fear?" 
 
 "He did not fear," said Assam. "The night 
 before this day, he had said in his heart, — 'Per- 
 haps they will knock me on the head to-morrow.' 
 But he read in the Word of God that Jesus said, 
 'Go ye therefore, and teach all nations — and lo, 
 
 1 Victoria.
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 85 
 
 I am with you alway even unto the end of the 
 world.' That word gave him courage, so that 
 when he saw that he must get in the canoe, he 
 thanked those people for their kindness, he 
 wished them peace and he turned his back." 
 
 "Akeva!" shouted the people who were of the 
 tribe of God in that palaver house. 
 
 When Assam told them of Livingstone's home 
 going, they asked all the news of his town. 
 
 "Besom b'akele he!" cried out the women — 
 and that is to say — "Lucky ones go home!" 
 
 These women were thinking of the towns in 
 which they were born, where their fathers and 
 mothers still lived, and which they had not seen 
 since they had been taken away in marriage. 
 
 "Besom b'akele he!" 
 
 They asked were his children glad to see him. 
 And Mary Moffat — was she glad? They liked 
 to hear how Livingstone was admired in his own 
 country, so that the people crowded him in the 
 streets and in the house of God. They heard 
 how the great chief of his country made him a 
 present. 
 
 "The chief that was a woman?" asked Akulu. 
 
 "That one," said Assam.
 
 86 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "Then it would be a present of food," said 
 Akulu — "food that she had cooked herself." 
 
 "Not of food," said Assam, "but of yellow 
 metal — the great treasure of the white man." 
 
 "And when Livingstone said he would return 
 to the country of the black people, did she not 
 send a present to the black people by the hand 
 of that man who was going from her town to the 
 towns of the black chiefs? Did she understand 
 that custom?" 
 
 "She did," said Assam, "and she sent a pres- 
 ent. That present was a boat to go upon the 
 rivers that the work of God might be swift to 
 pass among the tribes of the black people." 
 
 "She was then a person of God, that woman?" 
 asked Ze Zom. 
 
 "She was." 
 
 "Akeva!" cried out the Christian women in 
 the palaver house. 
 
 "If I could send her a present!" said one. 
 
 "If I could send her some peanuts!" said 
 another. 
 
 "If I could embrace her!" said a third. 
 
 The people in that palaver house watched the 
 river journeys of Livingstone on the Zambesi
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 87 
 
 and the tributaries of the Zambesi and into the 
 great Lake Nyassa. They rejoiced when Assam 
 told that Mary Moffat came to meet her hus- 
 band a day of one rainy season, and when they 
 heard that on a day of the next rainy season 
 she died, there was a great compassion in the 
 hearts of those black people. 
 
 "Now, surely," they said, "he walks alone. 
 Now he will not be wishing ever again to go back 
 to his own house, where the hearth is cold!" 
 
 "But in his own country there were still his 
 children," said Assam, "and, to see their faces, 
 he did go back to his own country. He saw them, 
 but he could not stay with them, because there 
 were still hidden things in Africa that he had not 
 found. Waters that he had not yet found, better 
 paths for the caravans of the missionaries who 
 should follow him, and more sorrows of slaves 
 than he had counted." 
 
 And Assam told his friends the story of the 
 last eight years of Livingstone's life. About his 
 caravans Assam told them, and how some of 
 those men were treacherous. There was a new 
 grief in that palaver house for the old wrong 
 two black carriers did Livingstone when they
 
 88 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 ran away, on a rainy day, with his medicine chest, 
 and left him ill without medicine. There was a 
 new praise that night for the faithful boys Susi 
 and Chuma, who did not fail their master even at 
 his death. There was a new sorrow for those 
 days of weaknesses and fever — those months 
 when Livingstone could not walk because his 
 feet were sore. 
 
 The women that night cried out when Assam 
 told them of the little boy — "no higher than your 
 knee" — who was bought by a slaver before Liv- 
 ingstone's eyes. Four yards of cloth was paid 
 for that little boy — who cast his arms about his 
 mother, and his mother was sold for two yards 
 of cloth. 
 
 Men cried out when Assam told of the great 
 chief called Casembe. That man had a fine house. 
 The gate of his house was ornamented with six 
 tens of the skulls of men. 
 
 "Do you speak a true word?" cried Akulu, 
 "now that is news!" 
 
 "He was a cruel man," said Assam, "he had 
 many people without ears and without hands. 
 His wife carried two spears. She was carried 
 by men. Men ran before her beating drums and
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 89 
 
 swinging axes as they ran. But that woman was 
 a good gardener." 
 
 "She would be too proud for me," said Akulu. 
 
 Assam told them of the Manyuema tribe and 
 that they were cannibals. "The people of the 
 Manyuema tribe," said Assam, "did many wicked 
 things and Livingstone wrote those things in his 
 book." 
 
 "Stop," said Akulu, "while you open a word 
 for me. You are always speaking about this 
 book — he wrote this thing in his book, he wrote 
 that thing in his book. What kind of a book 
 was this? I want to know." 
 
 "We too, we ask that question!" said they all. 
 And one man said, 
 
 "I tremble when I think of that book in which 
 the deeds of men were written!" 
 
 "His book was like this," said Assam, "Living- 
 stone said, — 'It is well that white men should 
 know the hidden things that I find. All the 
 things that I see I will write.' And that man saw 
 everything. He writes about everything. He 
 writes about lip-rings — how the people of some 
 tribes put rings in their lips. He writes about 
 the things of tattoo, and about the red powder
 
 90 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 that we black people grind from the bark of trees 
 and rub upon our bodies to make us beautiful. 
 He writes about beads — those beads we love and 
 all the many tribes of beads that traders sell to 
 black men. Those that are black and the white 
 ones and the red beads we call bird's eye — and 
 some tribes call them blood. He writes about 
 all the ways of building huts, and about the little 
 seats and the beds in the huts he writes. 
 
 ''He writes about ivory — those men who have 
 ivory, those villages where ivory is. About the 
 Babisa tribe he writes that they made their door 
 posts of ivory and their house pillars of ivory." 
 
 "Their house pillars of what?" shouted Akulu, 
 and some men in the company sprang to their 
 feet. 
 
 "Of ivory!" said Assam. 
 
 "Some things I believe, but not that thing," 
 said Akulu. "Even so, the tribe of the missionary 
 is known to tell the truth. Go on." 
 
 "He writes about the great sunlight and the 
 great rains that are stronger than the sunlight 
 and the rains of the white man's country. He 
 writes of headmen who are beautiful and those
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 91 
 
 who are not beautiful; with his eyes he judges 
 them." 
 
 "I like that," said Ze, "most white people are 
 stupid about judging the things of the bodies of 
 men." 
 
 "He writes about hunters and manners of 
 hunting ; and about how God gave skill to black- 
 smiths, and of how wise black men make salt out 
 of a kind of grass." 
 
 "As our fathers did," cried out an old man. 
 
 "Yes," said Assam, "and animals he writes 
 about — all kinds of monkeys, some very big and 
 some very little. About giraffes he writes and 
 rhinoceroses, about elephants, — those with tusks 
 and those without tusks. He writes about lions 
 that break through the roofs of houses, and of 
 leopards that steal dogs and a sheep. He writes 
 about an old man that wore bracelets of elephant 
 hide on his arm — two tens and seven bracelets 
 he wore on his arm — and that was the number 
 of elephants this old man had killed with his own 
 spear. 
 
 "He writes about the making of clay pots — 
 how women make them with their hands and a 
 little tool of bone. He writes about all tools of
 
 92 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 iron and tools of stone. He writes about flowers 
 and about fruit. He writes about drumming 
 and about dancing. He writes about spears and 
 about arrows and about the poison that is good to 
 put on arrows." 
 
 "He writes much about blacksmiths and that 
 they are clever, and he tells how the bark of trees 
 is soaked in water and pounded into cloth with a 
 mallet of ebony just as we do. 
 
 "He tells how for the dead there is a little hut 
 made and there is put the food that the dead man 
 loved while he was yet alive. 
 
 "Pity us all, who are of the tribe who die!" * 
 
 "He writes about the dancers that dance to 
 make rain, and all the medicine we black people 
 make that the rain may fall. He writes about 
 the great markets of the people of the Manyuema 
 tribe where there gather as many people as come 
 here on a Sunday to hear the Word of God, and 
 about the little girls who run among those many 
 people selling little cups of water for a few small 
 fishes." 
 
 "Since I was born!" cried our Mejo's mother, 
 "Now that is a new way to catch fish!" 
 
 *Bulu proverb.
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 93 
 
 "And in that market he saw a man with ten 
 jaw bones of ten men hanging on a string from 
 his shoulder — he said he had eaten those ten 
 men, and he laughed." 
 
 "And that laugh is written in the white man's 
 book, with the count of those ten jaw bones?" 
 asked Ze Zom. 
 
 "It is," said Assam. 
 
 "Pity that man of evil deeds," said Ze. 
 
 "He writes on a certain day of the Arab slavers 
 that they rushed in among the people who had 
 come to that market and killed more than three 
 hundred of the people of the Manuyema tribe; 
 and ten villages and two villages they burned 
 that day. These things of death they did to give 
 a sign that they were a strong people not to be 
 denied. I cannot remember all the things of 
 death they did. But Livingstone made a strong 
 writing in his book about this matter, and he 
 made a strong prayer to God. And he himself 
 without the force of a gun or other such force, 
 but with the force of a white man and a man of 
 God, he forced the slavers to release thirty slaves. 
 Some of those slaves so released looked at Living- 
 stone, the tears ran down their cheeks. I cannot
 
 94 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 tell you all the things he wrote about the sorrows 
 of slaves. He counted all those sorrows, — their 
 hungers, their thirsts, their wounds, their chains 
 and their stocks, their homesickness, their deaths 
 by the way and their poor bones that he saw con- 
 tinually. Until after all his many thoughts of 
 slaves and his long counting of the things of the 
 driven slave he said: 
 
 " 'Of five men who are hunted and taken by 
 the slaver — one man alone survives the troubles 
 of the path from his own country to the sea !' ' 
 
 "Pity those slaves!" cried out Assam's friends. 
 
 "Other things he counted and wrote in his 
 book," said Assam. "Every kindness that was 
 ever done to him and his men. Every present of 
 an ox or an ivory or a hen or an ear of corn. 
 Every great kindness and every least little kind- 
 ness is written in that book. It is written that on 
 a night of the rainy season, when he was upon 
 a journey with Sekeletu, Livingstone lay down 
 to sleep in his wet clothes and Sekeletu gave him 
 his own blanket to cover his body that night." 
 
 "I like to think that man had friends," said 
 Akulu, "when he was so long with the black peo- 
 ple that the white people forgot him."
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 95 
 
 "They did not forget him," said Assam, "and 
 I will tell of his great white friend. After those 
 terrible things of death that Livingstone saw 
 among the Manyuema people when the slavers 
 killed them — Livingstone went away. He was 
 sick with sorrow. He went to Njiji. That was 
 a bad journey. Three times in one day he es- 
 caped death. One spear on that day grazed his 
 neck ; another spear fell at his hand, and a great 
 tree in falling fell so near him that he was covered 
 with dust. But the poor white man felt such a 
 great weakness of the body that he thought he 
 was dying as he walked. And on that day his 
 goods was stolen from him, — all that was left 
 of his calico; a glass to see the things that are 
 far away; his umbrella; five spears." 
 
 "Such a day!" said Ze Zom, "If I were not a 
 person of God, I would certainly say that there 
 was a charm to keep that man alive! God is a 
 great keeper!" 
 
 "He was now no more than the bones of a 
 man — hunger and sickness had caught him. But 
 he thought always of the food at Njiji — where 
 he would find much goods. He had begged his 
 friends to send him a caravan of goods. He
 
 96 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 wrote in his letter, — 'I will meet that goods at 
 Njiji!' So he came to that place with an empty 
 stomach, as a man returns from a hungry coun- 
 try to his own town and he believes that there 
 is good food for him in the kettles of his own 
 town. 
 
 "Well, when he came to Njiji — here is the 
 thing Livingstone saw. He saw the slaves of 
 the Arab whose name was Shereef and those 
 slaves were coming from the market with all good 
 things in bundles on their heads. They had 
 traded the goods of Livingstone for things in 
 the market. His friends had sent Livingstone's 
 goods to Shereef, the Arab, with this word, — 
 'Keep the goods of this caravan until the white 
 man comes.' And Shereef had stolen that 
 goods !" 
 
 "If I were a young man," cried out Akulu, "I 
 would walk to that town of Njiji, and with my 
 own hand I would kill that thief!" 
 
 "And we would walk in your company!" 
 shouted the men in the palaver house. 
 
 "Listen to the great escape God made for him. 
 Five days Livingstone sat in that town eating 
 what little food he could buy and his heart was
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 97 
 
 heavy in his stomach. On the fifth day Susi and 
 Chuma ran to tell their master that a white man's 
 caravan was coming on the path from the rising 
 sun. They ran to greet that white man, they 
 thought he was an Englishman. But when Liv- 
 ingstone saw the caravan he saw that the first 
 carrier had a piece of cloth — it was like the piece 
 of cloth that is hung over the mission station on a 
 pole." 
 
 "Then it was the American flag," cried out 
 little Me jo. 
 
 "You have said it," said Assam, "and that 
 white man was the man the people of America 
 sent to find Livingstone. They said in their 
 hearts, — 'All these days that Livingstone does 
 the work of God in the hidden places of Africa 
 — What is his news? Does he still breathe? Or 
 is he dead?' To answer these questions the peo- 
 ple of that tribe sent Stanley." 
 
 "That was a great meeting of two white men," 
 said Akulu, and the people in the palaver house 
 listened to all the news of that meeting. They 
 heard how Livingstone, when he saw all the goods 
 in that caravan — the pots and kettles and tents
 
 98 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 and tin baths, thought in his heart: "Here walks 
 a rich man and not a poor vagabond like me." 
 
 They heard how Stanley knew Livingstone by 
 the cap he was always known to wear. They 
 heard how Stanley took off his helmet when he 
 saw Livingstone, and Livingstone took off his 
 cap — as white men do in salutation. And that 
 they then thanked God for their meeting. 
 
 The Africans understand homesickness and 
 loneliness too well. They were glad that night 
 in Akulu's palaver house that Livingstone could 
 speak with Stanley the tongue of his own tribe 
 — after six years of loneliness. 
 
 "Surely," they said, "the talk of those two 
 white men must have been as abundant as rain." 
 They were glad of the many letters that Stanley 
 brought Livingstone, and of the presents he 
 brought him. When they heard that Stanley 
 begged Livingstone to go home with him, they 
 thought he must surely go. But no, Assam told 
 them, Livingstone did not go home. He re- 
 mained to finish his work. 
 
 "For five moons those two white men ate out 
 of the same kettle, they walked in the same cara- 
 van, they slept in the same tent, they talked the
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 99 
 
 talk of friends. Then Stanley rose up and went 
 away. That morning he went away he could not 
 eat for sorrow. Livingstone showed Stanley the 
 path. Stanley looked at Livingstone many 
 times ; he thought in his heart, — 'Perhaps I shall 
 never see this man again.' He said to Living- 
 stone, — 'The best of friends must part, you have 
 come far enough, now I must beg you to go 
 back.' 
 
 "Livingstone gave Stanley great thanks for 
 his many good deeds to him. He said to Stanley, 
 — 'God guide you safe home.' They parted. 
 Who knows the things of the heart of Living- 
 stone when he watched the going away of Stan- 
 ley! No other white man had shown him such 
 kindness. In his book Livingstone wrote about 
 Stanley — 'a dutiful son could not have done 
 more.' 
 
 "No white man ever saw Livingstone again. 
 All the kindnesses that Livingstone ever knew 
 again were the kindness of black people." 
 
 Now it was very late at night — "the night was 
 in the middle" — while Assam told his friends 
 about the end of Livingstone's long way. They 
 listened in silence. "With the eyes of the heart,"
 
 100 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 as the Bulu say, they saw the last journeys of 
 that tired man. 
 
 "Now he can no longer walk, and the men of 
 that last and faithful caravan make a hammock 
 swung to a pole and they carry him. At night 
 they build little shelters where he sleeps. Coming 
 to a village called Ilala they make a little shelter. 
 The chief of that town is Chitambo, he and his 
 people are all away in their gardens. They hear 
 that the white man is come; they return to look 
 at him where he lies under the eaves of a hut. 
 They lean upon their bows looking at him. The 
 rain falls ; and his men build the shelter. Those 
 men know all the work of the white man's camp. 
 Livingstone is glad that night to be in his 
 shelter. 
 
 "The next day Livingstone is very weak; he 
 cannot talk with Chitambo who comes to salute 
 him. 
 
 "The second night in the village of Ilala, Liv- 
 ingstone is no better. A fire is laid at the door 
 of his hut and some of his men sit about that fire. 
 Once in the night Susi went into the hut and 
 Livingstone speaks to him. Just before the crow- 
 ing of cocks Susi and Chuma with three other
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 101 
 
 men went into the hut. There was a candle burn- 
 ing there and by that little light the men saw 
 their master on his knees beside his bed. They 
 knew that to kneel was his custom when he 
 prayed. But soon they saw that he longer 
 breathed. When they touched him they found 
 that he was cold. 
 
 "They laid their master on the bed, they cov- 
 ered him. They went out into the night to con- 
 sult together. They then heard the cocks crow. 
 They did not wail or cry out as foolish men would 
 have done ; they knew that they must be wise and 
 silent. They were far from home, without a 
 protector. They were among a strange people, 
 who would accuse them and perhaps kill them 
 when it would be an open word that the white 
 man died in Chitambo's town. Those people of 
 Ilala would be saying that the spirit of the white 
 man was come to trouble their town. So Living- 
 stone's sorrowful men spoke quietly together. 
 
 "They chose Susi and Chuma for their leaders. 
 They said that the body of Livingstone and all 
 his goods must be carried to the beach. They 
 said they would keep his death secret. But when 
 the next day was in the middle, Chitambo came
 
 102 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 to them. He said, 'Why did you not tell me the 
 truth ? I know that your master died last night. 
 You were afraid to let me know, but do not fear 
 any longer. I know that you have no bad mo- 
 tives in coming to our land, and death often 
 catches travelers on their journeys.' 
 
 "Chitambo spoke many wise words to those 
 poor men who mourned their master. And in 
 his town he permitted them to prepare Living- 
 stone's body for the journey. In Chitambo's 
 town the heart of Livingstone was buried near a 
 great tree that was a mark for that grave. With 
 a knife they cut upon that tree the name of 
 Livingstone. 
 
 "They wrapped the body in cloth, and again 
 they wrapped it in bark. They said 'good-by' to 
 their friend Chitambo and to the people of Ilala; 
 they went off on the paths to the sea carrying 
 their dead master. 
 
 "For nine moons they walked upon that jour- 
 ney and God cared for them. Many troubles 
 they saw upon that journey, but none conquered 
 them. Some tribes were friendly to them and 
 some unfriendly. Once they feared that the body 
 of their master would be stolen. Then they pre-
 
 MORE ABOUT LIVINGSTONE 103 
 
 tended to carry it away to bury it. But they did 
 not bury it. They made a new cover for it. The 
 old cover of the bark of trees they threw away, 
 and about the body they wrapped calico until 
 you would certainly have said, — those men are 
 carrying a load of calico. Now none of the tribes 
 by the way knew that the body of a white man 
 was among the loads. 
 
 "This long work of carrying their master, those 
 black men did because they loved him ; they were 
 faithful men. When they came at last to the 
 beach, they delivered the body to the white men 
 there, and they were praised. 
 
 "The body was known by the old scar on the 
 arm, where the lion had wounded Livingstone 
 long days before at Mabotsa, so the body was re- 
 ceived by the white men. By them it was sent 
 across the sea. And Susi and Chuma were sent 
 across the sea to tell the people of Livingstone's 
 tribe all the last things of Livingstone and to 
 receive the thanks of the people of his tribe for 
 their long carrying of Livingstone's body. 
 
 "That body the white people buried in a great 
 house of God that is in their great town. 1 They 
 
 1 Westminster Abbey in London.
 
 104 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 keep his memory; they count the lakes and the 
 rivers that he found; they destroy the things of 
 slaving where he said that they must destroy 
 them. They send missionaries in companies 
 upon the paths where he walked alone. They 
 do not let his name die. Black men who hear his 
 name, as we hear it, never forget that name again. 
 We ignorant ones who say that the spirits of the 
 dead return to harm us — what will we be saying 
 about this white man who is dead since Mr. Krug 
 was a baby, and only good things spring from 
 remembrance of him?" 
 
 "I say that he is the ancestor of missionaries!" 
 said Akulu. 
 
 "I say that God, when He built the house that 
 is Africa, made a servant to furnish it," said Oton 
 the elder. 
 
 "I say that a blacksmith could not have done 
 better than Susi and Chuma did," said the black- 
 smith of Asok.
 
 CHAPTER IV: AN ADVENTURE WITH 
 DWARFS
 
 CHAPTER IV: AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 
 
 THE next day after school, Me jo presented 
 himself to his father in the palaver house. 
 
 "I am going with Assam when he goes to teach 
 the school at Mekok," he said. "Some boy must 
 go with him and I must be that boy. I told Mr. 
 Krug this morning that I must be that boy, and 
 now I tell you." 
 
 "How do you mean — you must" said Akulu. 
 "Who has tied you to this journey? When I 
 look at you I see you still a child and not yet a 
 person to go on long journeys." 
 
 "No one has tied me, but my own heart has 
 tied me. I see that for a person of the tribe of 
 God, even if he is no more than a child, there 
 is work to do." 
 
 "I hear," said Akulu, "and I agree. Because 
 I want a boy of mine if he must be a Christian, 
 to be a Christian with courage. When do you 
 leave?" 
 
 "School closed to-day and we leave day after 
 to-morrow." 
 
 107
 
 108 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 Two days later, at the hour of the rising of the 
 sun, there was a farewell meeting for the boys 
 who were going to teach the vacation schools. 
 Under the eaves of the school house they left the 
 loads they must carry on their journey, and went 
 in to their meeting. Many people of the tribe of 
 God were there to bless these boys before they 
 went. Me jo's mother was there; she looked at 
 her boy in his white singlet and his bright loin 
 cloth, sitting down in the company of the young 
 men who were going upon such lonely journeys. 
 She could not sing with her friends when they 
 sang the songs they love. 
 
 "Everywhere with Jesus I can safely go," they 
 sang. And they sang — "Faith is the Victory." 
 But she could not sing with them that morning. 
 Ze Zom prayed for them, and in her heart she 
 could pray. Mr. Krug said wise words to them, 
 but she did not listen to those wise words. Many 
 questions troubled her heart: 
 
 "Where will my boy sleep to-night? 
 
 "They say there is a great river to cross on that 
 journey. Ah, God, do not let him drown in that 
 river. I have no other son !
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 109 
 
 "Will the women of that strange town give 
 him good food to eat?" 
 
 These questions troubled her. Presently she 
 saw the boys rise to go away. They crowded 
 about their loads that were under the eaves. 
 These loads were carefully tied into a rattan 
 casing, with shoulder straps made of soft strands 
 of plantain fiber. When the boys slipped their 
 arms into these straps the loads just fitted their 
 backs. 
 
 Assam had a heavy load of slates and school 
 books. Mejo carried their little personal belong- 
 ings — some brass rings and needles and fish hooks 
 and matches — these were to buy food and lodging 
 by the way. He carried their lantern and a clock. 
 On top of his load and of every load there was a 
 little piece of dried fish. Mr. Krug gave this 
 present to every boy for a great treat. Now 
 Me jo's mother put a corn cake upon Assam's 
 load and upon Me jo's load. 
 
 "Walk well," she said, and every one said to 
 those little caravans, — 
 
 "Walk well— God keep you!" 
 
 The boys, leaning forward a little under the 
 weight of their loads, looked gravely at the mem-
 
 110 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 bers of their elan gathered about them in the 
 early morning light. Already they felt pangs 
 of the homesickness that is a familiar sorrow to 
 the African. They said, "We must go!" 
 
 "Go on!" 
 
 And they walked away, all leaning forward a 
 little because of their loads. They were still 
 walking in a group until they should come to the 
 first four partings of the way, when they would 
 separate into four companies. And so at part- 
 ings of the way they would continue to separate 
 all day until two and two would be left to walk 
 together. 
 
 At noon of this day, Assam and Me jo came to 
 a fork in the path where their last two friends 
 must leave them. Here the four sat down to eat 
 their corn cakes. From a running stream near- 
 by they drank, making cups of great leaves. In 
 the thick shade of the forest there was no yellow 
 fall of sunlight. One path ran brown among the 
 roots of trees. It was a worn path — even a white 
 man could have followed that path. But the 
 second path at the forking of the way was a path 
 so thin — such a thread of a path — that a white 
 man might easily pass by and never see it. This
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 111 
 
 was the way to the dwarf people who followed 
 the little dwarf headman, Be. 
 
 Oton's son, Obam, was going to spend the va- 
 cation speaking the Word of God to the dwarfs. 
 Little Minla, a boy of twelve and one of the white 
 doctor's errand boys, was with him. These two 
 boys had been very carefully chosen for this work. 
 They had a good reputation for endurance. 
 Work among the tribes of the dwarfs is very 
 difficult; Obam and his companion would have 
 much wandering before they would sleep again 
 on the beds or eat out of the kettles of their own 
 town. 
 
 "Where will you sleep to-night?" Obam asked 
 Assam. 
 
 "I will sleep in Aka's town," said he. 
 
 "That is too far," said Obam, "I know this 
 path better than you do. The houses of that 
 town will be barred for the night before you reach 
 there. Sleep with us among the dwarfs. We 
 had word on Sunday that they are in their little 
 old clearing by the Bekua river, drying the meat 
 of the monkeys they killed on their last hunt." 
 
 So the four boys went by way of the thread
 
 112 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 of a trail through the deep forest to the dwarf 
 clearing. 
 
 No human being stirred in that clearing when 
 the school boys came out of the shadow of the 
 forest into the sunny open. Little shelters built 
 of leaves were there, fires burned in the shelters. 
 Fires burned in the center of the clearing, and 
 upon forked sticks about these fires hung the 
 meat of monkeys. 
 
 A white man would have thought that the in- 
 habitants of that settlement were far away, but 
 the school boys knew that bright eyes were watch- 
 ing them from the near wall of the forest. They 
 laid their loads aside, sighing with relief. The 
 biggest shelter of leaves they knew must be the 
 palaver house; there they sat down, sure that the 
 dwarfs would soon be coming to salute them. 
 
 Oton, the father of Obam, was a friend of Be, 
 ;the headman of this group. Often Oton had 
 followed them to trade the things of "real peo- 
 ple" for dried meat and honey and nuts, — "The 
 things of dwarfs." Obam had come with his 
 father on these trading expeditions, and when 
 Be saw from his hiding place the face of his 
 friend's son, he came quickly to salute him. After
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 113 
 
 him came many little brown bodies of dwarf men 
 and women and children. Soon that little leafy- 
 shelter was full of these — who looked in silence 
 at the beautiful young men of the Bulu tribe, so 
 grand in their singlets and their loin cloths. 
 
 Some of the dwarf men were no bigger than 
 Me jo. Some were bigger, but none was so big 
 as Assam. The women were very little women, 
 they wore leaf aprons and tails of grass. The 
 men wore loin cloths of the bark of trees. Be 
 himself wore a loin cloth given him by Oton. He 
 was hoping, as he looked at Obam, that there was 
 much line goods for him in the loads. 
 
 "I greet you all," said Be to the school boys ; 
 and they greeted him. 
 
 "I ask you — why have you come to us at this 
 time? Is it because of the meat of the last hunt 
 that is now drying by the fires? Did the news 
 of that meat bring you with cloth and other goods 
 to trade for it? Much honey I have in little 
 gourds, do you wish to trade for it? Or nuts, do 
 you wish? Open up the loads quickly so that I 
 may see the beautiful goods brought to me by 
 Obam the son of Oton." 
 
 "Two of those loads are on a journey," said
 
 114 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 Obam. "They sleep but one night in your town. 
 And these two loads that are mine are not loads 
 of barter. They are my blanket to cover me at 
 night and a lantern and some oil. There are 
 besides some of the words of God that I have 
 brought for your ears. Ah, Be — headman of this 
 people — my father, Oton, and other great men 
 of the Bulu tribe who are now members of the 
 tribe of God — they desire to share with you the 
 "Things from above." So they have sent two of 
 their sons to open for you these things that have 
 been hidden from you in the past." 
 
 "As for me," said Be, "I have no use for the 
 words of which you speak. They are not for us. 
 They are for the white people. I believe that 
 trouble will come upon those black people who 
 follow these new things. And even if great black 
 chiefs agree to these new things and follow the 
 white man's God — where will I end if I go on 
 that path? Do the men who follow the new 
 things make medicine for the hunt? Do they 
 know a charm to protect those who climb trees 
 and the steep cliffs ? There is no profit for me or 
 for my people in the new way. I myself, before 
 the last rainy season, I went to see the white man
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 115 
 
 who is the man of God and I begged him for dried 
 fish — No! I begged him for rum — No! I begged 
 him for a leaf of white man's tobacco as big as 
 an eye lash — No! I said 'I have a child at home 
 that is a girl child — give me a little piece of cloth 
 that I may tie it about her head.' — No! 
 
 "Then I said to that white man, — 'I, the head- 
 man Be, have now come to your village for the 
 first time — and am I to leave without a present? 
 Nothing to carry away in my hand?' And the 
 white man said, 'This is not a town where pres- 
 ents are made. This is a town where there are 
 teachers and teaching of the Word of God — He 
 who created you. The old law of God is know T n 
 in this town and here your children may come 
 and learn wisdom. Here your sick may come 
 and be healed. But if you come to salute me 
 ten tens of times,' said that white man, 'and beg 
 me with as many beggings as there are stars 
 above for the goods of the white man and the 
 riches of men, I will never give you of these as 
 much as an eyelash.' " 
 
 " 'If that is so,' I told that white man, *I am 
 going.' And I went. And I have never desired 
 the new things of which I heard that day. I do
 
 116 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 not desire them now. I desire all the things that 
 the men of your father's tribe carry up from the 
 beach on their backs, — the good things of the 
 white man, rum, and cloth, and beads, and iron 
 pots that are not quickly broken as clay pots are. 
 I beg of you, open your loads and we will bargain 
 for the goods. Then you may go with loads of 
 dried meat and honey and nuts." 
 
 "There is no trade goods in my loads," said 
 Obam. "I come on another palaver. Every 
 morning at dawn, and every evening when the 
 stars are created, I will teach you of the things 
 of God. These words that you hate before you 
 have heard them — perhaps you will love when 
 you have heard them. All this moon and the 
 next moon I will open to you this wisdom." 
 
 "We are not sitting down in one place, as your 
 father does," said Be. "We people who are 
 dwarfs must do the forest work, we must go on 
 the many little paths hunting and fishing and 
 nutting. So it cannot be that you will visit us 
 for two moons. We rise and go away from this 
 place to-morrow." 
 
 "Where you go, I too, I will go," said Obam. 
 
 "And sleep where we sleep?"
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 117 
 
 "As you say." 
 
 "And eat what we eat?" 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "Since I was born!" cried out Be, "I never saw 
 a son of your father's tribe that would endure 
 these things. What new customs people begin 
 to have!" And he slapped his thigh and laughed. 
 All the little dwarf people laughed. They all 
 laughed at the foolishness of the four Bulu boys 
 who sat in their palaver house looking very grave 
 and dignified. 
 
 That night was a night of full moon. There 
 was a great sound of drumming in the little clear- 
 ing; with the palms of their hands the drummers 
 beat the skin that was stretched on the heads of 
 the upright drums. In the silver moonlight, the 
 dark little bodies capered to the sound of that 
 drumming. 
 
 When Obam lit his lantern that light was a 
 golden light. He drummed upon the call drum 
 a call to assemble. Then he sat upon the call 
 drum. The four Bulu boys sitting together by 
 the golden light of the lantern began to sing. 
 One by one the dwarfs drew away from the dance 
 — they gathered to the sound of that singing —
 
 118 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 even the drummers at last came near. The sing- 
 ing was about the love of God. Presently among 
 all those people who sat in a dark group upon 
 the ground, Obam rose to tell them of the re- 
 membering with which Zambe * had remem- 
 bered them. 
 
 "All these generations of men who said 'He- 
 who-created-us' has forgotten us — they were all 
 mistaken. 'He-who-created' remembered — so 
 much He remembered that He made a visit. 
 That visit was in the body of the son of 'Him- 
 who-created.' That son was the Lord Jesus. And 
 He is the chief of the new tribe that is being cre- 
 ated by Zambe — 'He-who-created' all tribes. 
 Jesus is the headman. He shows those who fol- 
 low Him the custom of the new tribe that is a 
 different custom from the old custom of the black 
 people, and the law of this custom is ten words 
 of law. He alone knows the path beyond death. 
 
 "Many things of all this news I will tell you 
 on the nights of these two moons," said Obam. 
 "But now we who have traveled to-day, — we will 
 go to bed." 
 
 The dwarfs laughed as they listened to Obam 
 
 1 Bulu name for the Creator.
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 119 
 
 and his news — a laughter of surprise and of 
 amusement. They laughed and talked together 
 as they moved away in the moonlight. Soon the 
 drums throbbed again and the dancers leaped 
 above their black shadows. 
 
 The four Bulu boys lay beside the fire in the 
 palaver house that was no more than a little leafy 
 roof. Those dwarf beds were too small for the 
 Bulu boys, they twisted and turned and stuck 
 their legs out into space. All four were a little 
 homesick. 
 
 Me jo said to his brother, — 
 
 "Ah, Assam, if they laugh at us in the town 
 where we are going — how I shall feel shame in 
 my heart. How can we bear it if they laugh at 
 us!" 
 
 "How did Obam bear it?" said Assam. "God 
 gives the strength to bear it. What is your name 
 to-night? You who run from laughter!" 
 
 The next morning Assam and Me jo went 
 away on their own path. Sleeping in the villages 
 by the way they made four days' journey without 
 accident. On the fifth day they were detained by 
 a headman who asked many questions about the
 
 120 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 things of God. That is why the boys came late 
 to the crossing of the So river. 
 
 When they came out of the forest to the broad 
 water the last red was in the sky. There was no 
 village on the west side of the river, and on the 
 east side the village was set back from the bank. 
 The canoes of the village were grouped against 
 the side of that further bank. The sound of 
 drumming came across the water — all the cries 
 of Assam and Me jo were lost in the drumming. 
 They shouted themselves hoarse, before Assam 
 said, — 
 
 "Those people will dance all night. We must 
 just sleep where we are." And he set about 
 gathering wood for a night fire. 
 
 Never before in his life had Me jo slept like 
 this without arms and without shelter. Always 
 when he had camped in the forest there were 
 "real men" of the tribe with bows and arrows 
 and spears ; then he had slept in a great trust of 
 his father and his father's friends. Now he 
 watched his brother in the growing dusk with 
 a fear that he was ashamed to speak. Assam 
 laid his fire by the water's edge where there was 
 a little sandy clearing. He filled his little iron
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 121 
 
 pot with the river water and set it on the glowing 
 heart of his fire. He put a great snail into the 
 pot. 
 
 "It is good that we found a snail this morn- 
 ing," said he. "You have the salt — put in a 
 pinch." 
 
 He took a corn loaf out of his pack. Upon 
 some leaves that Mejo had spread out like a mat, 
 the boys sat down. They heard the rushing of 
 the great river and they felt a loneliness come 
 into their hearts. 
 
 "So much water is too much water," said Mejo, 
 rather anxiously. 
 
 Then the pot began to boil — that sound was a 
 sound of home. The night darkened about them 
 but their fire sent up ruddy flames. Above them 
 the stars were thick as rain; and the thoughts 
 of these two boys called upon God, the Maker 
 of stars, to protect them. Old fears of spirits 
 who walk at night to do mischief to men, were 
 stirring in their hearts, but they quieted these 
 old fears with the new hopes and the new prom- 
 ises. They feared the beasts of the forest, but 
 their fire should frighten these. 
 
 They ate their supper and lay down upon the
 
 122 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 bed of leaves. When the late moon rose, Assam 
 and Me jo were sleeping beside a fire and a thread 
 of smoke. And when the guinea fowl called 
 before the dawn they woke — as travelers must 
 awake when the guinea calls — as safe and sound 
 as any other sons of their father's house. 
 
 "That was a good night," said Assam. He 
 began to call for a ferryman, and when the first 
 light of day was gray upon the water, there came 
 a man with a canoe to ferry them across. 
 
 That day when the sun was in the middle, the 
 boys knew that they were in the neighborhood 
 of Mekok. In a town where they rested they 
 were told, — "You will cross but two streams and 
 beyond the second stream you will find the gar- 
 dens of Mekok. The women of Mekok will then 
 be upon the path returning from their gardens 
 to the village." And this was true. The women 
 of Mekok were indeed upon the path. They 
 cried out when they saw the school boys with their 
 load of slates. 
 
 "They have come — Akeva! The teachers have 
 come. Now we believe the word of Asala !" 
 
 Back in the gardens other women heard the 
 news. Me jo heard the glad shout of his little
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 123 
 
 sister as she ran through the thick screen of the 
 cassava plants. Presently that little brown body 
 sprang into the path and embraced the brothers. 
 Such laughter! Such shouting! Such clamor 
 for news of home! Asala ran before them into 
 the village. She dared to go into the palaver 
 house, though her husband had not sent for her. 
 Out of breath she told him that the teachers had 
 come and that they were her brothers. 
 
 Now the headman saw the boys enter the clear- 
 ing from the forest. They wore singlets and loin 
 cloths. They leaned a little forward under their 
 loads. The smallest carried a lantern. They 
 walked with the plodding gait of travelers who 
 have walked for many days. 
 
 "Those boys are tired," said Efa, "it would be 
 well that you cook them good food. Ask your 
 ntyi 1 to kill a chicken for those boys ; and you 
 yourself make the mango nut gravy for that 
 chicken." 
 
 Thus were Assam and Me jo kindly welcomed 
 in the town of Efa Nlem. Asala ran to cook for 
 them. Efa received them in the palaver house. 
 
 *A senior wife into whose care a little girl wife is given, and 
 with whom she will remain until she is marriageable.
 
 124 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 They laid aside their loads and sat at ease under 
 the brown roof. The villagers gathered to look 
 at the teachers, little naked boys clustered in lit- 
 tle groups and murmured their little comments to 
 each other. But there was no great conversation 
 as yet between Efa and his guests. There would 
 be time for that. Only Efa said, — 
 
 "I hope that you have brought white man's 
 medicine." 
 
 And Assam said, "Yes" — he had skin medi- 
 cine and medicine for the heat in the body and 
 medicine for ulcers. 
 
 "That is good," said Efa. "With what they 
 have my people will buy those medicines." And 
 he began to smoke his long pipe in silence. 
 
 Me jo looked at Efa when Efa was not look- 
 ing at him. "I like him," he thought; "but I 
 fear him too, and that is good." Me jo looked 
 about at the little groups of boys and at the 
 women who were looking at him. Three or four 
 real men were sitting by the ashes of the fires. 
 Me jo was embarrassed to look at them. But in 
 his heart he felt important. It was fine to have 
 so many people concerned about him and about 
 Assam. He remembered his father's story of
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 125 
 
 Ngutu and of how Ngutu first came to Abiete. 
 "I too," thought Mejo, "am a teacher of the new 
 things." 
 
 And suddenly he said, "I am thirsty!" 
 
 Immediately two little girls rose and went out 
 into the sunlight — their little grass bustles beat- 
 ing about their brown legs. From a nearby hut 
 they returned with gourds of water. One pre- 
 sented her gourd to Assam, the other drew a 
 corncob stopper from the neck of her gourd and 
 presented it to Mejo. 
 
 As Mejo raised the gourd to his lips he met 
 the eyes of a boy in the shadow of a corner. 
 This boy was almost a man, his hair was finely 
 dressed and studded with blue beads. He wore 
 a splendid loin cloth. About his arms were many 
 ivory bracelets and about his neck hung a great 
 amulet. 
 
 "That young fellow has such style," thought 
 Mejo, "that he must be the headman's son. But 
 he looked at us without the friendly eye." 
 
 Now Efa told them that they might go with 
 Asala. 
 
 "You are weary and you should rest," he said. 
 Asala's ntyi is named Bilo'o. Lie upon the bed
 
 126 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 in her house until the time of the setting of the 
 sun. Then return to speak with me of the many- 
 things of school." 
 
 In the house of Bilo'o there was happy talk of 
 home. There were portions of good food laid 
 out upon green leaves by willing little brown 
 hands. About the doors of Bilo'o's hut clustered 
 the persistent bodies of little boys who murmured 
 together. Back of these little boys were older 
 boys, silently looking at their teachers, — those 
 young benefactors who had come to open up the 
 new paths to the feet of their tribe. Women 
 entered the hut quietly by the back door. They 
 were the women who were a long time wishing 
 to hear the Word of God; they brought little 
 presents of food. 
 
 Presently Assam said to Me jo — very low — 
 
 "Don't be proud!" 
 
 And Mejo said softly — "I hear! I will keep 
 pride down. Did you see the young man who 
 does not like us?" 
 
 "He that sat in the shadow? I saw him. Even 
 so, we must try to draw him to us." 
 
 That night Efa and Assam spoke long to- 
 gether of the things of school.
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 127 
 
 "That big new house at the end of the clear- 
 ing is your school house. My people have been 
 a long time building it. All the boys of the neigh- 
 borhood have helped. Asala told us how we 
 must cut logs of the mesung * tree for seats. 
 There are rows of seats in the school house. The 
 walls are very low as Asala said they should be. 
 And for yourself we have built a house too. It 
 is a good little house, all new, and near the school 
 house. There are two beds in that house. There 
 is a window in that house like a white man's win- 
 dow. A woman has made a fire between the two 
 beds and now, if it pleases you, you may go to 
 your house. Ah, Bekalli!" said Efa, and a boy 
 rose in answer. "Take your teacher to his new 
 house." 
 
 At this word the youth with the unfriendly 
 eyes rose from his place. 
 
 "Ah, father," said he, "I have a word to say!" 
 
 "Say it!" said Efa. Every one looked at the 
 young man. The firelight shone upon his bright 
 beads, his ivory bracelets, and his body rubbed 
 with oil. In his dark face his eyes and his teeth 
 were bright. 
 
 ir rhe umbrella tree.
 
 128 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "Since I was born," said he, "did you ever 
 build me a house? What day did you ever say 
 to me as you now say to this stranger, — 'Go 
 sleep in the new house I have built you!' This 
 is a question I ask you!" 
 
 Efa looked in surprise at his son. 
 
 "Ah, Bekalli," said he, "I hear with astonish- 
 ment this word of reproach. Are not all the 
 houses in my village your houses ? All my houses 
 are your houses. Why should you grieve because 
 I show a kindness to these young men who have 
 come to do us the work of teaching? What shall 
 I say further?" 
 
 "This you may further say," shouted Bekalli 
 trembling, — "You may say that you give me 
 the new house — I who am your eldest son. Let 
 the sons of strangers sleep in the house that is 
 outside the village." 
 
 "But it leaks," said Efa mildly. 
 
 "Then let the strangers patch the roof with 
 leaves. Doubtless all the roofs of their father's 
 town are patched with leaves. Let them cut the 
 grass that grows about that house. And, if they 
 fear the evil spirits that come about that house
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH DWARFS 129 
 
 at night, let their new God protect them; give 
 me the new house!" 
 
 Efa looked in silence at his son, who continued 
 to tremble, standing up very straight in the fire- 
 light. Then he said, 
 
 "There is a headman in this town and I am 
 that headman. Our guests will sleep in the 
 house I have built for them. And to-morrow we 
 will begin to cut bark for the walls of a house I 
 will build you, and to gather leaves for the 
 thatch." 
 
 "If you build me ten houses," said Bekalli, "I 
 will never sleep in one of them!" And he put his 
 leg over the high sill of the door and went off into 
 the dark.
 
 CHAPTER V: ADVENTURES OF ASSAM AND 
 MEJO
 
 CHAPTER V: ADVENTURES OF ASSAM AND 
 MEJO 
 
 NOW began for the two brothers a time of 
 great busyness; there were all the things 
 of school to be made ready. 
 
 Little lads with brooms of leaves swept out the 
 school house with its rows and rows of log seats. 
 As they scrambled about under Me jo's leader- 
 ship they made their little silly comments upon 
 the things of learning. 
 
 "Now we shall know all the things of the white 
 man," they told one another. "And about the 
 tribe that lives down in the earth we shall know. 
 And about the many moons that are made and 
 that are lost again; and about a country that is 
 not a forest country; and about the thing that is 
 a clock. The teacher has that thing and it shows 
 a sign to him about the time of day — as if it were 
 the sun." 
 
 And all the little sweepers paused to look at 
 Assam's clock where it ticked on a little rough 
 table at the end of the school room. 
 
 133
 
 134 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "Get busy!" said Mejo sternly, and once more 
 was heard the rustle of their brushy brooms. 
 
 Assam hung his alphabetical charts about the 
 room. All his little adventurers would begin 
 their adventures upon these charts. And they 
 all yearned to be off ; they dropped their brooms 
 to stand before those white banners, tattooed with 
 mystic figures. Daring little brown fingers ven- 
 tured here and there in that strange country until 
 Mejo forbade them; the older boys of the vil- 
 lage — like copy-cats — cried out the same prohibi- 
 tion. Others hung about the slates. One un- 
 happy little boy dropped a slate and was carried 
 shrieking to Assam. He howled and he trembled, 
 rolling horror-struck eyes. 
 
 "The writing stone is broken," said the bigger 
 boys who had captured him, and the captive 
 writhed in their hands. 
 
 The slate was not broken, but an awe of slates 
 fell upon the little sweepers. 
 
 The next morning in the many villages of that 
 neighborhood was heard the first drumming of 
 the school drum, — 
 
 "The promise that we made yesterday we keep to-day ! 
 "The promise that we made yesterday we keep to-day!"
 
 ASSAM AND MEJO 135 
 
 The villagers, listening to the clamor of that 
 phrase beaten out on the drum of Efa Nlem's 
 town, knew that school was calling. Every- 
 where in the huts little boys bustled about, wor- 
 rying their mothers for a bite to eat before they 
 went to school, for a hen to pay the school tuition, 
 for a bottle of palm oil, for a basket of peanuts, 
 — for anything with which to pay for school. 
 
 Bigger lads at the sound of that drumming 
 were about the same business. They took ivory 
 bracelets off their own arms, leopards' teeth off 
 their own necks. They twisted the long vine that 
 is the bush rope into marketable coils, they looked 
 long at knives which they would never carry 
 again, but must pay to go to school. Sad part- 
 ings took place that day between boys and their 
 possessions. 
 
 In the palaver houses of these villages the 
 youth of the tribe went to inquire of age. Every 
 boy must receive of his father permission to do 
 this new thing. 
 
 Some fathers said, "It is well, go in peace and, 
 with what you learn, return to strengthen the 
 tribe."
 
 136 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 Some fathers said, "Why do you ask me? 
 Your heart is set on it; don't bother me." 
 
 Some fathers raged and called to mind the old 
 wisdom of the tribe, the old custom, the things 
 of magic — all these good old ways that would 
 now be forgotten because all the fine young lads 
 were turning away to foolishness. 
 
 But all these fathers of their different sorts — 
 all these fathers felt deserted and lonely when 
 they saw the little companies of brown bodies, 
 laughing and chattering, go away out of the vil- 
 lage to school! 
 
 "No man knows where this will end," they said 
 in their hearts. 
 
 Sometimes that morning when the school drum 
 was calling, a little girl stole into the palaver 
 house to beg of her father. Some little girls 
 never found courage to open their mouths, they 
 stood about idly until they were called by the 
 women who were going to the gardens; then 
 they went slowly away. And all that day the 
 elder women scolded them or laughed at them, 
 saying: 
 
 "To-day you walk like a worm without eyes." 
 
 "You are as slow to-day as a chameleon."
 
 ASSAM AND MEJO 137 
 
 Some little girls said what they wanted, — 
 
 "I want to go to school!" 
 
 "I envy those who go to school." 
 
 "Ah, Father, me too — permit me too!" 
 
 "School! What next? Shall I bring a curse 
 on my town by sending women to school! Who 
 would marry you then? Get along!" 
 
 In the school house Assam was writing the 
 names of the boys who were paying their tuition 
 to Me jo. The pupils stood in line; one at a 
 time they put down their treasure of payment; 
 they murmured their names — watching with awe 
 the hand of Assam traveling over paper and 
 leaving a trail of marks. Some were so taken 
 out of themselves that they could not speak their 
 names; they panted for their turns to come and 
 when at last they stood before the teacher, with 
 his magic hand, they fixed him with vacant eyes 
 and were dumb. 
 
 Some coming to their turn had no tuition ; these 
 were cast out weeping — to return again to-mor- 
 row, as Assam knew very well they would — with 
 the offering. 
 
 Once the voice that answered Assam was a
 
 138 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 girl's voice, and he looked up into an eager girl's 
 face. 
 
 "My name is Adda." 
 
 "Does your father permit you to come to 
 school?" 
 
 "My father does not know. I ran away." 
 
 "It is forbidden that a girl should come to 
 school without her owner's permission. To re- 
 ceive girls who have run away would be to hunt 
 trouble in the school." 
 
 "We told her!" cried the boys in a line. "And 
 we said, who wants girls in school? They are as 
 stupid as hens!" 
 
 "Be still," said Assam. "If you ask, — who 
 wants the girls in school ? I will tell you that the 
 teacher wants them. Go in peace," he said to 
 Adda. "It may be that God will change your 
 father's heart and then you may return." 
 
 She went away crying. 
 
 Another girl's voice spoke, and this was Asala. 
 
 "He says I may," whispered Asala, over the 
 edge of the table. "I am to go to school, Efa 
 permits me." 
 
 Her eyes were brilliant in her little, soft, brown 
 face that was not tatooed. She laid her tuition
 
 ASSAM AND ME JO 139 
 
 before her brother Me jo, — it was a fishing net. 
 Such pride was in her heart that she could not 
 conceal it. 
 
 "She will be too proud," said a boy in line, and 
 others said so. But the teacher frowned, and 
 again it was still while the name of Asala was 
 written on the school roll. 
 
 At the end of ten days there were one hundred 
 and twenty-five pupils in school. There were 
 groups of ardent adventurers before all the pri- 
 mary charts. Little boys and big boys labored 
 over slates, sticking out their tongues ; and when 
 the slates ran short there were classes making 
 marks upon the sand outside the school house. 
 Me jo, standing before his classes and Assam be- 
 fore his, struck the charts with pointers, and 
 there was a murmur of response, 
 
 "B— a=ba." 
 
 «B— o=bo." 
 
 These were the little murmurs that broke the 
 hot silence in that little bark shelter. At the 
 opening period and the closing all those young 
 voices sang the new songs that they were so quick 
 to learn. With a curious obedience they were all 
 day obedient to their young teachers. They who
 
 140 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 had run so wild so long now rose on signal and 
 were seated on signal. On signal they spoke or 
 were silent. They curbed their voices and their 
 bodies to a new custom, and behind their tattoo 
 their faces looked out with a common expression 
 of discipline. 
 
 Among the pupils, many were as old as Be- 
 kalli, Efa's eldest son. But Bekalli never came 
 to school. Sometimes he stood on the outside of 
 the low wall, looking in and smiling. Some- 
 times, when the real men of the village passed the 
 school house on the way to hunt, Bekalli stopped 
 at the open door — leaning on his bow-gun, or 
 signalling to the older boys. He never saluted 
 the teacher as the real men did. 
 
 Once on a bright moonlight night when As- 
 sam lay with Me jo in bed, they heard a murmur 
 in the school house. Assam, creeping close to 
 trap the intruder, saw over the wall the head of 
 Bekalli. He stood before a chart that was very 
 white in the moonlight. With his dark finger 
 he traveled from letter to letter and to himself 
 he murmured their names. 
 
 "He is saying the names of letters," Assam
 
 ASSAM AND MEJO 141 
 
 whispered to Me jo when he went back to bed, 
 "but he is mistaking them!" 
 
 All the first months of school there was a great 
 contentment in the town of Mekok. Assam, 
 speaking the Word of God at the morning and 
 the evening prayers, saw more and more brown 
 bodies gather about him in the early and the late 
 dusk. Women who had begged the Word of 
 God from Asala's little store now received a 
 daily portion from Assam, and went away to 
 their gardens murmuring over and over the verse 
 of the morning and the evening lesson. On a 
 Sunday when Assam beat the call to the service, 
 many real men came to hear for themselves these 
 new things that were rumored everywhere. Of 
 an evening when Assam sat in his little house, 
 one and another would come to ask him privately 
 of these things — as Nicodemus came to Christ 
 long ago. 
 
 To the house of the two brothers there came 
 the sick who desired to try the white man's medi- 
 cine. Little gaunt children devoured by itch 
 were healed, poor bodies fading away with ma- 
 laria were restored. The simple drugs for simple 
 ills were dispensed by the boys, who put away the
 
 142 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 goods received for medicine with the goods re- 
 ceived for tuition, until all this treasure should 
 be carried back to the mission at the close of 
 school. 
 
 These were good days. There could be no 
 enemy, you would have said, in the town of Me- 
 kok. Until the night Efa Nlem fell ill,— then 
 trouble came as thick as rain. Assam woke to 
 find a woman shouting at his door. 
 
 "Rise," she cried, "and make medicine for the 
 headman — he is dying!" and she rushed away. 
 
 By the light of his lantern, Assam found the 
 town gathered in the palaver house. Efa lay 
 upon his bed, leaning against the shoulder of 
 Bilo'o ; his breath was short and his body burned 
 under Assam's hand. But he was not uncon- 
 scious. He begged Assam to give him the white 
 man's medicine. 
 
 "Ah, my son," he said to Assam, "I am dying!" 
 
 Assam gave him quinine. But when two days 
 passed and the heat did not pass from Efa's 
 body, Assam told Me jo that he did not know 
 what to do. This illness did not look like the 
 old sickness of the heat in the body that the white 
 man calls malaria.
 
 ASSAM AND ME JO 143 
 
 On the second day the great medicine man 
 from Medong came to heal Efa. His healing 
 was not a noisy healing as so much witch doctor- 
 ing is noisy. This famous witch doctor made a 
 little booth for himself of leaves, and his com- 
 munication with the sick man was by means of 
 a bush rope strung like a cord between the leafy 
 booth and the body of Efa where he lay in the 
 palaver house. 
 
 "This is a new kind of charm," said Assam to 
 Me jo, "I think he learned it from some beach 
 people." 
 
 The medicine man would talk with no one but 
 Bekalli. Bekalli alone had seen his face during 
 the time of his present operations, but his high 
 rough shout like the bark of a gorilla awed the 
 villagers where they sat in the palaver house. 
 There they sat and sighed, while Efa groaned, 
 and the cord of bush rope attached to his body 
 was jerked and trembled. 
 
 Assam and Me jo felt strange now in the vil- 
 lage, they felt uneasy. They were grieved too, 
 for Efa had been kind to them and Assam feared 
 that he was about to die. "If he dies," he 
 thought, sitting with Me jo in his little house,
 
 144 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "then the town's people may trouble us. They 
 may say that we gave him a witch." Me jo, look- 
 ing at Assam's face, read these thoughts there. 
 
 At this moment a real man of the town stood 
 at the door. 
 
 "You are summoned," he said, and he went 
 away. 
 
 This was bad. The two boys did not dare hesi- 
 tate, they followed him immediately. In the 
 palaver house they were fixed by every eye, only 
 Efa did not gaze at them. He lay as if he slept. 
 There was a great stillness in the palaver house 
 and the brothers, standing besides Efa's bed, 
 were still. Me jo felt terribly frightened; he 
 trembled, and Assam put his warm arm around 
 his little brother's shoulders. 
 
 Suddenly Bekalli rose and began to speak. 
 
 "You all know that I killed a leopard ten days 
 ago with my own spear. With your eyes you 
 saw the leopard still warm upon the floor of this 
 palaver house. Now I ask you, — did you see 
 with your eyes the leopard's whiskers?" 
 
 One and another said, yes, they had seen the 
 leopard's whiskers. 
 
 "Even so," said Bekalli, "when I began to
 
 BLKALLI SON OF EFA
 
 THE SMALLEST GIRLS IN ASSAM S SCHOOL 
 
 These little girls are going to pay their school tuition 
 with the peanuts and the corn in their baskets. 
 
 THE BIG BOYS IN ASSAM S SCHOOL
 
 ASSAM AND ME JO 145 
 
 skin that leopard there were no whiskers — not as 
 much as your eyelash!" 
 
 A great silence fell upon the people in that 
 palaver house. Me jo and Assam were not the 
 only frightened creatures there. 
 
 Bekalli continued: "I do not accuse the mem- 
 bers of my father's household, nor of his town, 
 nor of his neighborhood. Why should they hate 
 my father or hunt a way to hurt him? I say, it 
 is these strangers who are troubling my father." 
 
 At this moment the bush rope on the floor was 
 violently agitated. Every eye in the room 
 looked with horror at that cord. 
 
 Bekalli continued: 
 
 "These strangers have brought new things to 
 this town that are not the things of black men. 
 They have brought a new magic to this town. 
 And a new power. By the strange magic of 
 their power they cast a spell upon the boys in 
 school. All day in that school there is a great 
 silence except as these strangers permit the boys 
 to speak!" 
 
 A curious look of intelligence dawned upon 
 many faces in that crowd. 
 
 "But the magic," Bekalli went on, "did not
 
 146 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 have power over real men. None of you felt that 
 power. I did not feel it. My father continued 
 at all times to speak as he pleased. For this 
 reason, because the new magic had no power over 
 my father, these strangers struck him with a 
 leopard's whisker." 
 
 Now a murmur began to grow in that com- 
 pany. One took counsel with another. Bekalli 
 standing in the midst said no more, but a friend 
 of his brought the bright leopard's skin from 
 where it was stretched to dry in the sun; it was 
 spread upon the clay floor, and the absence of 
 whiskers was noted. The clamor of comment 
 grew, and Efa groaned. Every one was then 
 still ; but at the sound of that groan, angry eyes 
 were fixed upon the teachers. Mejo felt Assam's 
 hand grip his shoulder, and Assam began to 
 speak. 
 
 Although he was a person of the tribe of God, 
 he said, he was not ignorant of the old things of 
 the black man. His father was Akulu Mejo — 
 wise in every knowledge of magic. Therefore he 
 knew that the next word from the mouth of 
 Bekalli would be a word about the trial by 
 poison.
 
 ASSAM AND MEJO 147 
 
 At this Bekalli sprang to speak. But Assam 
 continued very quietly to say that there would 
 be no help for him nor for his brother if they 
 were tried by poison, and fell, and were killed 
 by the daggers of strangers in this town of 
 strangers. Many innocent men had fallen in 
 the ordeal by poison, and so might he fall and 
 his little brother. But what hope would there be 
 for Efa in their death? 
 
 "There is indeed a new power in this country," 
 said Assam. "It is the power of the people of 
 the tribe of God to heal disease. It is not a 
 magic, it is a knowledge — a wisdom. The doctor 
 of the tribe of God has that knowledge. At the 
 missionary town there is such a doctor. He is 
 not a witch doctor — he does not speak of witches. 
 With his great wisdom he hunts the sickness in 
 the body of a man, and he makes a medicine to 
 cure that disease. If I lie here dead in this 
 palaver house and my brother beside me, — how 
 will our two deaths heal Efa — our friend and the 
 father of this village? But if four real men of 
 this village rise up and bear Efa upon the path 
 that I can show them, and if I lead them to the 
 missionary town, and if we there beg the Chris-
 
 148 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 tian doctor to heal this disease which has caught 
 Efa, — then shall the living praise God!" 
 
 From the bed where Efa lay he suddenly 
 spoke, and his friends were astonished. 
 
 "I desire to follow Assam to the town of the 
 Christian doctor. Those who love me must 
 carry me!" 
 
 And nothing more would Efa say but those 
 two words in his feeble voice, — 
 
 "I desire! I desire!" 
 
 None in that company dared oppose him, not 
 even his angry eldest son. The real men of the 
 neighborhood were bound to obey him. They 
 had respected Assam, and there was a calm and 
 a courage about his manner at this time which 
 impressed them. It was determined to carry 
 Efa at night lest the heat of the day overcome 
 him. 
 
 That very night in a hammock made of 
 Assam's blanket tied to a pole and borne by 
 relays of two men, Efa went away upon the path 
 to the place where the sun sets. Assam led the 
 way with his lantern. 
 
 Bekalli was left to rule the town and Me jo 
 was left to keep the school.
 
 ASSAM AND MEJO 149 
 
 Me jo stayed because his brother said that the 
 school must not "die." 
 
 "It is our work, however hard. It is harder 
 for you than for me," said Assam. "I wish I 
 could take you with me, but you see how God 
 has made a path for us in all these dangers, and 
 we must believe that He will care for you even 
 when you are alone. Try to do all the big works 
 and let the little works go. Take the clever boys 
 to help the slow ones. You know if I will hurry 
 back." 
 
 And Assam had begun to hurry already. Be- 
 fore Me jo could say any of the fear and loneli- 
 ness of his heart Assam's lantern was walking 
 away beside Assam's legs. Soon that dear light 
 was lost upon the forest path. 
 
 Me jo stood at the door of his house, asking 
 his heart how he could sleep alone in that place. 
 If even he had had his blanket or his lantern! 
 And while he was dreading to enter that little hut, 
 where he would miss his brother too much, Bekalli 
 came through the dark. He carried a torch. His 
 mother was with him and had a load of his be- 
 longings. He did not speak to Mejo; he entered 
 the teacher's house and his mother followed him.
 
 150 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 Presently she came out again. She carried the 
 torch, the school clock and all the books. 
 
 "Follow me," she said, "by order of Bekalli I 
 show you the path to your house. He says he 
 will send you all the school goods to-morrow." 
 
 Poor Me jo could not speak. He followed 
 that woman to a lonely cabin that was a little 
 way outside the village. She turned to leave 
 him at the door of that hut and he begged her 
 for the torch. 
 
 "There is no fire in the house, I beg you to 
 leave the torch." 
 
 "Then show me the path back to my own 
 house!" 
 
 And Me jo showed her the path back to her 
 own door by the torchlight. He was hoping that 
 some of the older school boys would see him 
 going away by himself and would pity him. 
 "Perhaps some two will come to sleep with me 
 in that lonely house," he thought. But none 
 did. He entered his new house alone. By the 
 light of the torch he saw the mushrooms growing 
 out of the moldy clay floor and he saw the gray 
 mold on the bamboo beds. He smelt the odor 
 of a musty, unused house.
 
 ASSAM AND MEJO 151 
 
 He knew that he must work quickly for his 
 torch was burning down. There was no firewood 
 in the house, but there was a rotten drum and a 
 big log rough-hewn to a stool. He would make 
 a fire of these. And he busied himself. 
 
 Moving about in the stillness of that deserted 
 place, he heard the dropping of heavy dews from 
 the plantain leaves back of the house. And pres- 
 ently he heard another sound there — a rustle and 
 a breathing. His heart stood still. The back 
 door of the little hut was barred, while the front 
 door was open. A friend, he thought, would 
 come to the front door. And he thought of the 
 witch doctor, with his painted face, who had left 
 the town in anger. The rustling crept along the 
 rear wall of the house and breathed against the 
 door. Me jo thought of spirits. He smelt an 
 odor of wood smoke through the cracks in the 
 bark, and he thought again of the witch doctor. 
 Poor little Me jo trembled, standing very still. 
 Then he heard a soft little voice and it was the 
 voice of Asala! 
 
 "Ah, Mejo," she whispered through the door, 
 "Let me in! Bilo'o and I — we are here. We 
 crept secretly through all the back yards. We
 
 152 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 have come to keep you company ! But first shut 
 the front door, so that none may see!" 
 
 Me jo slid the bark door into place and barred 
 it. He was laughing. He could not help laugh- 
 ing he was so glad. Asala came in with Bilo'o. 
 Me jo suddenly loved his little sister with a great 
 love that was the sum of his love of his brother 
 and his father and his mother and the village at 
 home. She looked at him with her sweet bright 
 eyes. She carried a kettle hot from the fire. 
 Bilo'o carried firewood still warm and from the 
 smoking ends she blew a flame. Soon the kettle 
 was on the fire, the sound of its boiling made a 
 sense of home about the two children and the 
 childless woman who sat by the fire. Softly 
 they began to speak together in a great peace 
 and quiet. 
 
 "Every night Bilo'o and I will come to you 
 like this," said Asala. "We will then cook your 
 food for you. None shall know, and when the 
 food is eaten and the work is done, you will teach 
 Bilo'o from the word of God. Ah, Mejo," 
 said Asala, looking at her brother with little 
 lights in her eyes, "My ntyi Bilo'o wishes to be- 
 come a member of the tribe of God!"
 
 CHAPTER VI: THE RETURN OF THE AD- 
 VENTURERS
 
 CHAPTER VI: THE RETURN OF THE ADVEN- 
 TURERS 
 
 THESE things happened in the time of the 
 new moon. All that moon and when that 
 moon was lost Me jo did the work of Assam in 
 the village. 
 
 In the morning and in the evening he called 
 the villagers to assemble and he read to them the 
 Word of God and prayed. More and more of 
 the villagers answered the call to these daily 
 gatherings, when the book of God was opened up 
 to them by a little lad. On a Sunday he called 
 them for a service, and they began to learn the 
 custom of the service, singing with the school 
 children, and stumbling along with the recitation 
 of the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Command- 
 ments. 
 
 In all these matters Me jo tried to conduct 
 himself like Assam. He was not thinking now 
 of Livingstone or Susi or Chuma — he was re- 
 membering his brother Assam, who was so kind 
 and so dignified and so quiet. When in the 
 
 155
 
 156 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 morning he opened the school, standing by his 
 table before the rows of boys, — so many of them 
 bigger and older than himself — he stood like 
 Assam. He met all those attentive eyes with 
 Assam's expression, and in the voice of Assam 
 he gave his orders. He had no time to be fright- 
 ened or to be proud. 
 
 He put the boys who were studying the ad- 
 vanced charts over the laggards who were still 
 stumbling through the alphabet. He exacted, 
 with a severity which he had learned from 
 Assam, a good physical discipline. Classes rose 
 on signal like one man. Silence reigned, broken 
 only by the murmur of recitations; an austere 
 little teacher hunted and reproved dirty hands 
 and jiggered feet from class to class. 
 
 Bekalli, swaggering into the school one day 
 early in Assam's absence, was greeted in order. 
 The school rose like a machine ; many voices like 
 one voice said, 
 
 "Our chief! Mbolo." 
 
 And like a machine the many brown bodies 
 were seated. 
 
 "Ah, Mbolani," murmured Bekalli, looking at 
 them a little awed. In action like this all these
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 157 
 
 boys and youths seemed strange to him, — no 
 longer like his neighbors and companions. Of 
 course he was, in his father's absence, the keeper 
 of the town. He came in often after this; they 
 saluted him, and he returned the salutation. 
 
 The teacher and the young headman never 
 spoke together. But neither did the headman 
 further persecute the teacher. Bekalli adopted 
 more and more the manner of his father, Efa, 
 and Me jo was more and more like his brother, 
 Assam. 
 
 Asala and Bilo'o came every night to the hut 
 outside the village, and no longer in secret. 
 Bekalli knew of their visits, but did not forbid 
 them. Other women began to visit Me jo with 
 little presents of food. School boys continually 
 hung about the door of that hut to observe and 
 admire their teacher. Imitations of Assam's 
 manner, passed on through Me jo, began to be 
 seen in every village of that neighborhood and 
 upon every path. 
 
 Thus it was that Assam returned to find Me jo 
 in a great peace and busyness. On a day after 
 the making of the new moon, when the sun was
 
 158 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 in the middle and the boys were filing out of 
 school, the cry went up — 
 
 "B'asoya!" (They have come.) And there 
 was a stampede. All the school boys and all the 
 villagers ran to the path that came from the west. 
 Me jo stood at the door of the school. He saw 
 Efa come from the shade of the path into the 
 violent sunlight of the clearing. Efa wore a felt 
 hat and a gorgeous loin cloth. A leopard's skin 
 hung upon his shoulders. He carried a staff. 
 He was laughing. A great sound of shouting 
 and of laughter filled the clearing. Brown 
 bodies, big and little, pressed about Efa. 
 
 Presently Me jo saw the dear body of Assam 
 move away from the crowd. Assam was looking 
 for his little brother. 
 
 "Is he well?" he asked one and another of the 
 school boys. 
 
 "Certainly he is well!" they answered. And 
 Assam saw Me jo come to meet him from under 
 the eaves of the school house. 
 
 They met, greeting one another with their 
 eyes. They could not speak their hearts out in 
 that public place, with school boys gathering
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 159 
 
 about them. Assam gave Me jo his lantern and 
 a little pack he carried on his head. 
 
 "Why do you go upon that path?" he asked 
 his little brother, when Me jo turned out of the 
 clearing. 
 
 "Our house is upon this path," said Mejo. 
 
 Assam turned to the many boys who crowded 
 at his heels — 
 
 "Go home," he said, "let two brothers speak 
 together in peace." 
 
 And a great peace fell about the two sons of 
 Akulu Mejo where they sat together during the 
 noon hour in that little hut that was away from 
 the clamor of the village. Only a little girl came 
 to salute her elder brother, — to bring him food 
 and to sit upon his knees in the old Bulu custom 
 of greeting when the young of the family salute 
 their elders. 
 
 All the news of their father's town was good 
 and all the news of the journey. Efa's healing 
 was a good healing. The doctor said that Efa's 
 sickness was a sickness from eating meat that 
 was too old. Perhaps the meat of the leopard 
 was too old when Efa ate the last of that meat.
 
 160 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 Now that he was well again he was a great friend 
 to Assam, and to others of the tribe of God. 
 
 "He and the real men of the tribe of God have 
 spoken much together of the things of God. He 
 has asked me every day upon the path many 
 questions about these things — as a man asks 
 when the spirit of God knocks at the door of his 
 heart." 
 
 "Then he will be a great friend to our school," 
 said Mejo, "and it will be more than ever a good 
 school." 
 
 "Silly!" said Assam, laughing. "Did you not 
 see the rain fall yesterday?" 
 
 "I saw it, — the first rain of the rainy season." 
 
 "Did you not know that the first rain is the 
 sign to close the vacation school and to return to 
 the station school? Mr. Krug said to me, 'Re- 
 turn with Efa, close the school well, and bring 
 back all the boys who begin to read the primer.' ' 
 
 Mejo looked at his brother in astonishment. 
 
 "You speak the truth! The months of village 
 school are now three months. But I had for- 
 gotten!" 
 
 "Do any of the boys begin to read in the 
 primer?" asked Assam.
 
 MISSIONARY MAP OF AFRICA 
 
 * (Presbyterian) 
 
 CAJRO 
 
 This map of Africa shows where the home of the Bulu 
 people is. They live in the Cameroun, that part of the 
 map which is shaded dark near the Gulf of Guinea. 
 
 Map of the Mission field reproduced by permission 
 of the Woman's Board of Foreign Missions of the Pres- 
 byterian Church, in the U. S. A.
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 161 
 
 "Two tens of boys read in the book. Ten of 
 them read the lesson about the cutlass, but the 
 clever ten read about the elephant." 
 
 "A good real reading or a speaking by heart?" 
 
 "A good real reading — that begins in the mid- 
 dle if you choose." 
 
 "Fine!" said Assam. "I give thanks." 
 
 "Ah, Assam," said Asala. 
 
 "Speak!" 
 
 "I too am reading — I read about the ele- 
 phant!" 
 
 "I have a great word for you," said Assam. 
 "Mr. Krug was speaking with Efa. He told 
 Efa that you must return with us to school, he 
 promised Efa that the white woman would care 
 for you day and night. He said that you would 
 learn all the things of the black women that are 
 good things, — farming and cooking and to keep 
 a house. He said you would learn obedience, 
 and to speak with a good mouth. And the word 
 of God you would learn. Efa said, 'Well. 
 Those were good things to learn.' He said that 
 he would trust the white woman to keep you, 
 because that woman is the wife of the doctor who 
 healed him. So you return with us!"
 
 162 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "What shall I say!" said Asala, and her little 
 brown face was astonished. 
 
 "Eh — my mother!" she whispered. 
 
 "Another thing Efa told Mr. Krug. He said 
 that he meant to give you away when you were 
 no longer a child, but a girl to be married. He 
 means to give you to his son Bekalli." 
 
 Asala turned her back upon her brothers and 
 looked at the wall. They did not speak to her 
 further. Me jo told Assam how Bekalli stole 
 his house. 
 
 "What other deeds of hate has he done?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 "That is good," said Assam thoughtfully, 
 looking at his little brother. 
 
 "Ah, Mejo, God has given you wisdom in 
 these days to do His work well. What is your 
 name now — Susi or Chuma or perhaps Liv- 
 ingstone?" 
 
 "Don't tease me," said Mejo. "And truly I 
 had forgotten about the choosing of names!" 
 
 Three days later, those boys who had begun 
 to read from the primer packed their little loads. 
 From their mothers they begged food for the 
 journey. From their fathers they begged
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 163 
 
 leave to go to the white man's school. The 
 caravan gathered in Efa Nlem's town. Assam 
 and Me jo sat in the palaver house beside their 
 own loads, and the loads of goods that had been 
 paid in for school tuition, and that must now be 
 carried to the Mission station by the school boys. 
 
 At noon the little caravan moved away ; twenty 
 boys and a happy little girl followed the young 
 teachers. There was a gay clamor and laughter, 
 last good-bys were called and the voice of youth, 
 set out upon the path of progress, died away in 
 the forest. 
 
 "Besom b'akele he!" sighed those women 
 whose hearts had been touched by the Things 
 of God. And Bilo'o said to them, — 
 
 "Some day we will beg Efa to let us make 
 them a visit. Then we will cook them a present 
 of food. And when we come to the white man's 
 town, we will see the tribe of God gather under 
 the great roof that is there." 
 
 So those who were left behind spoke together 
 all day, and remembered the absent. But these, 
 on the journey, spoke continually of the new 
 things they were to see in school. 
 
 They slept that night in a new clearing where
 
 164 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 a headman was building a town. In the street 
 of this half -built town two great logs, the last 
 of the debris of the forest, were still burning. 
 The boys ranged themselves the length of this 
 low fire. They set their kettles upon it here and 
 there ; they waited under the stars for their sup- 
 per to cook. Asala was busy cooking for her 
 brothers ; they too sat beside the fire. 
 
 Suddenly from the dark about them a young 
 man appeared; he sat down beside them. In the 
 light of the fire Me jo saw with a great astonish- 
 ment that it was Bekalli. And he looked at 
 Assam. 
 
 "Bekalli, Mbolo," said Assam. 
 
 "Ah, Mbolo," said Bekalli. 
 
 "Are you going to the beach?" asked Assam 
 after a pause. 
 
 "Not to the beach, but to school. I am walk- 
 ing in your caravan to school." 
 
 Assam said nothing, he looked embarrassed. 
 Mejo noticed that, and so did Bekalli. 
 
 "Isn't it good?" he asked, quite humbly. 
 
 "It would be good," said Assam. "Certainly 
 good — if you could read. But I fear for you 
 with Mr. Krug when you tell him that you
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 165 
 
 cannot read. Then perhaps he will send you 
 away, and you will feel shame and I will feel 
 sorrow." 
 
 "I can read," said Bekalli, still humbly. "My 
 little brothers taught me to read all the charts, 
 and when I went too fast for them and wished 
 to learn to read in a book, then Asala taught me." 
 
 "I hear, and it is good. Good for you and 
 for us all." 
 
 Me jo said nothing and Assam said no more. 
 Asala presently took her kettle off the fire ; upon 
 three clean squares torn off a green plantain leaf 
 she put the smoking plantains that she had baked 
 in the hot ashes. These she laid at the feet of 
 the three boys. They dipped, each with his own 
 wooden spoon, their supper of greens from the 
 common kettle. She herself stood aside until 
 they should finish, but Assam said to her, 
 
 "Eat, then." 
 
 And she dipped her little folded leaf with the 
 others. 
 
 "Asala is a strange child," murmured Me jo 
 to Assam, when they lay together upon a bed of 
 the palaver house that night. "Don't you fear 
 that she will be too proud?"
 
 166 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "I don't see it yet — she carries herself well. 
 Don't hang your heart up about Asala, but 
 watch your own walk." 
 
 "I hear," said Me jo. 
 
 "On the last day of that journey they met, at 
 every forking of the way, other such caravans of 
 eager youths. Obam they met, followed by 
 seven dwarf boys, and carried by two dwarf men. 
 From his hammock made of a blanket Obam told 
 them that he had sprained his ankle. 
 
 "These Bulu boys," said the dwarf man who 
 carried the foot of the hammock, "are wise in the 
 things of books; many things of the things of 
 God they teach us. But the day they follow the 
 dwarf people up the face of a cliff they are as 
 stupid as women. We said to Obam: 
 
 " 'Are you a dwarf that you should climb 
 Nko'ovas? A teacher that breathes is better 
 than a dead one!' " 
 
 "Even so, he tried to follow us, and from that 
 day he taught his people from a bed. Every- 
 where we have gone in the forest we have carried 
 him — as if he were an elephant's tusk of great 
 weight and of great value!" 
 
 The dwarfs laughed and everybody laughed.
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 167 
 
 Obam put his head out of the hammock and 
 laughed, looking at Assam. 
 
 "As I say," continued the dwarf. "And now 
 we return our elephant's tusk to the rich man's 
 town. We say to that great chief, — 'Keep for us 
 this treasure while we leave it here. And when 
 we return in the dry season, give it to us again, 
 that we may bear it to our own place!' " 
 
 "Akeva!" said Obam from his hammock. 
 
 Bekalli, from his place in the growing file of 
 school boys, saw many of his own age among the 
 strangers that came in from the many paths of 
 the forest. Greetings were shouted from teacher 
 to teacher, for these teachers were classmates of 
 old. And presently these caravans, made up of 
 little community groups, began to sing. Snaking 
 along the trail that wound its way among the 
 great trees, the long file of youths began to sing; 
 and they moved to the rhythm of the air — 
 
 "Those people are as many as the sands 
 "They are many as the sands of the sea!" 
 
 "I understand," thought Bekalli to himself, 
 "that they sing of the new tribe. And I begin to 
 see that the people of the new tribe are many. 
 It is well that I see this thing with my own eyes
 
 168 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 — otherwise I could not know it. And a fine 
 young man like myself must know these new 
 things, he must know, that he may choose." 
 
 "One more stream to cross," shouted the 
 teachers to the strangers, "then you will see the 
 cassava gardens of the Mission." 
 
 And in the evening light the stream of school 
 boys poured in to the clearing of the Mission 
 station. 
 
 "They certainly say," thought Bekalli to him- 
 self, "that the new tribe is as abundant as rain. 
 And I see for myself that in this place the many 
 little streams gather to a great pool!" 
 
 The clearing was full of the bodies of school 
 boys — old and new. The old boys were calling 
 greetings to their friends. The new boys were 
 turning their heads this way and that as their 
 teachers said: 
 
 "That big house is the house of God." 
 
 "That big house is the upper school, and be- 
 yond is the lower school where you will enter." 
 
 "That fine house with the iron roof is the 
 medicine house, where the doctor does the work 
 of healing. Those houses beside it, like a little 
 village, is the village of the sick people."
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 169 
 
 "That little village down that path with the 
 fine houses all of plank, is the town of the car- 
 penters and the blacksmiths and the wise ones 
 who are taught to work with the hands." 
 
 "What a town !" thought Bekalli. "I am dead 
 with wonder!" He felt his Bulu pride fall from 
 him and he had a wish to run away from this 
 place where his youth and beauty could not dis- 
 tinguish him. 
 
 Assam drew near to him. "You feel strange 
 to-night," said Assam. "As I did one day many 
 dry seasons back. I beg you to endure the 
 strangeness and the loneliness. Ah, Bekalli," 
 said Assam, "for the sake of your clan, and the 
 day that you will be headman in the seat of your 
 father — I beg you to endure! Like a cutlass 
 that must be sharpened on a stone for a great 
 work to be done, so I beg you to endure the hard 
 things of school!" 
 
 "I hear," said Bekalli. "Akeva." 
 
 The beginning of a love for Assam was in his 
 heart. And that night when he sat under the 
 eaves of one of the ten great houses that were the 
 boys' town, he remembered that word. About 
 him in the clearing between the two rows of
 
 170 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 houses, the hundreds of young bodies gesticu- 
 lated. At one end of the village there was 
 drumming and dancing. At the other end be- 
 side many little fires groups of boys were cook- 
 ing their evening meal. A joyous clamor rose 
 from this compound to the night sky. 
 
 Bekalli held in his .hand a cutlass — the tool 
 that had been given him by the headman of the 
 tool house. And ten boys had been given him 
 for a work-gang. 
 
 "To-morrow morning," he had been told, 
 "when the drum calls to work, and before the 
 time of school, you will go with many others to 
 clear for a new garden. The white man is mak- 
 ing a rubber plantation, and your gang goes to 
 the clearing. This work that you do buys your 
 food for the day. Every morning you work and 
 that work buys your food. Every boy works." 
 
 "I understand," said Bekalli when he received 
 his cutlass. But he did not altogether under- 
 stand. "Why must I work like a woman?" he 
 thought, and he remembered as he sat in the 
 dusk, turning his cutlass over in his hand, the 
 word of Assam. 
 
 "He said," thought Bekalli, "that I was like
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 171 
 
 a cutlass that must be sharpened for a great 
 work. And the school is the grindstone. All 
 these strange things of work are the grindstone. 
 Assam himself has been ground on that stone. 
 I agree that he is sharp and bright. His nick- 
 name is — 'He stands like a dagger!' It remains 
 for me to endure!" And Bekalli joined the little 
 brothers of his clan about a kettle. 
 
 About a kettle in the palaver house of Akulu 
 Me jo, Assam told the news to his own clan. 
 Me jo sat near his father, who gave him a chicken 
 leg from his own portion. 
 
 "Perhaps you are not to be stupid," said 
 Akulu Me jo to Me jo. "This news of the school 
 is great. You did that work well. These sons 
 of mine who are Christians make me famous." 
 And Akulu laughed. 
 
 "Go salute your mother in her house," he told 
 Mejo. 
 
 There by the firelight Mejo found his mother 
 and his sister. In the morning Asala must enter 
 the girls' school, with the girls she must work in 
 the garden, in the clean compound of the girls' 
 town she must live under the eye of the white 
 woman. She must cook with a new cleanliness
 
 172 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 in the kettles of that town. She must wash her 
 little belongings in the running stream, she must 
 learn to sew, and all the afternoons she must 
 learn the things of school under the thatch of the 
 girls' school, with many tens of girls. 
 
 "I shall like it," she told her mother. "But 
 to-night let me sleep by you on your bed!" 
 
 Presently the great army of the rain came 
 trampling out of the forest. The sound of its 
 passing in the night was an uproar. It raged 
 upon the roofs of the girls' town and upon the 
 roofs of the boys' town. On the many rough beds 
 the tired bodies of little African adventurers 
 came to rest. They fell asleep under the famil- 
 iar tumult of the rain upon the roof. Lulled by 
 that tumult Asala slept beside her mother. Me jo 
 slept upon his own bed. Assam sitting by his 
 table in the lantern light casting up his school 
 accounts grew drowsy with the sound of rain. 
 He put his books aside, and his eye fell upon the 
 fly leaf of Me jo's Bible, still open at this 
 legend, — 
 
 LIVINGSTONE MEJO AKULU 
 
 and below that written at another time, — 
 
 CHUMA MEJO AKULU
 
 RETURN OF THE ADVENTURERS 173 
 
 and written to-night in ink that was just dry, — 
 
 MEJO AKULU, TEACHER OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 OF MEKOK. 
 
 Assam laughed. "What a strange boy!" he 
 said, as he put out the light and laid his weary 
 body down beside the weary body of his little 
 brother. And he said, 
 
 "Mejo Akulu, teacher of schools, — I salute 
 you!"
 
 ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF THIS STORY
 
 ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF THIS STORY 
 
 In reading this book you are reading about tribes, mem- 
 bers of the African race that is called by the white man, 
 Bantu. There are many tribes of the Bantu people. They 
 live in Central and Southern Africa. Some parts of that 
 country are forest, some are open country. The open coun- 
 try is called by the white man the grass country. The Bulu 
 tribe is living in the forest country about two hundred miles 
 north of the equator and near the west coast. The customs 
 of the Bulu are like the customs of other Bantu people who 
 have not been a long time in contact with the white man. 
 They have no knowledge of the world outside the forest; 
 of their own country they know only their own neighbor- 
 hood. They travel on foot by little trails from settlement 
 to settlement. They have no written language, but they 
 have a good language to speak. The men are good hunters 
 and fishers, and good builders of towns. The towns of the 
 Bulu are built as you will read in this story, but other tribes 
 of the Bantu build with different material, — some with 
 grass, some with clay and wattles. The Bulu make their 
 furniture of wood. I have told about their furniture in the 
 story. The palaver house in a Bulu town is a big house at 
 the end of the street where the real men of the village sit 
 and smoke and talk and eat. Guests are received there and 
 all matters of general interest are discussed there. 
 
 The women are the farmers. They plant bananas and 
 plantains, many kinds of yams, peanuts, corn, cassava, 
 savory herbs that we white people do not have, and other 
 
 177
 
 178 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 foods that we do not have. There are wild fruits in the 
 forest, some nuts and other fruits. But there is no com- 
 plete diet growing wild in Africa ; the people must plant to 
 eat. 
 
 The Bantu tell time by the sun for the day, the moon for 
 the month, the stars for the season. They do not speak of 
 years; they speak of rainy seasons and dry seasons, and 
 they count time by their plantings, — especially among the 
 Bulu, the planting of peanuts. 
 
 News is spread by travelers, and in another way — it is 
 announced by drums. Upon wooden drums a good drum- 
 mer will beat out a message that sounds like the clicking of 
 a telegraph machine. But that clicking is very loud ; it can 
 be heard miles away. Our call drum at Efulen mission 
 station could be understood seventeen miles away. Almost 
 any news can be told by the call drum, and every grown 
 person has a drum name by which he may be called from a 
 distance. 
 
 All Bulu women and nearly all the women of the primi- 
 tive Bantu tribes are bought and sold. A little girl is sold 
 by her father or her elder brother. The man who buys her 
 puts her with some older woman of his town, who will keep 
 the girl until she is marriageable. A Christian man does 
 not sell his daughter or his sister before she is marriageable, 
 or against her will, or to a man with other wives. 
 
 In spite of the fact that little girls are sold and sent away 
 from home, there is a strong family love and loyalty among 
 the Bantu. And there is a strong bond among the members 
 of the clan, and the townspeople. The native dress of Bulu 
 men is made of the bark of trees, beaten into a sort of cloth. 
 Women wear aprons of leaves and a kind of thick tail of 
 dried grasses. They still tattoo their bodies, they still wear 
 necklaces of the coarse hair of the elephant's tail, or neck-
 
 ABOUT THE PEOPLE 179 
 
 laces strung with dog's teeth, or the teeth of leopards. 
 They wear bracelets of brass and ivory. The men carry 
 spears tipped with brass or with iron. But there are many 
 things now in the forest that are manufactured by the white 
 man. Calico and beads and umbrellas and hats and many 
 more things of the white man may be bought of the black 
 traders who are trading through the forest. 
 
 Certain African tribes have great headmen with power 
 over many people. As you read the life stories of Living- 
 stone, Moffat, Mackay, Coillard, and other missionaries, 
 you will learn the names of some of these great chiefs. 
 Among the Bulu, however, the headmen are simple folk, 
 with power over their own townspeople, and with just a 
 local fame. In their own neighborhoods, however, they are 
 obeyed and respected. They are the governors of their 
 neighborhoods. 
 
 The Bulu, like other Bantu tribes, believe that God, the 
 Creator, has forgotten them. So they have made up a 
 system of religion of their own. They are sure that many 
 evil spirits are present in the world to do harm, and that 
 the spirits of their dead ancestors may be induced to protect 
 them. To keep off the evil spirits they make charms and 
 rules of conduct. To make friends of friendly spirits they 
 make other charms and other rules; and to induce the an- 
 cestor spirits to guard the town and the interests of the clan, 
 they make little offerings and little prayers to the wooden 
 images that are the little habitations of the ancestor spirits. 
 Certain men of the tribe make a specialty of magic; they 
 are the witch doctors and have great power, especially as 
 every death is thought to be the evil work of magic. Head- 
 men must always practice a certain amount of magic for the 
 good of the town. Trial by poison is a common way, de- 
 vised by witch doctors, to find out who has given the "witch"
 
 180 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 to the sick person. If the person who drinks the poison 
 gets dizzy and falls down — then he is guilty, and those 
 people who are present kill him. The Bulu people attach a 
 great importance to the killing effects of a prick by a 
 leopard's whisker. Some of them think there is magic in 
 such an injury, but our mission doctors begin to believe that 
 wicked men dip the whisker in a poison that they make, 
 and with the poisoned whisker prick their enemies. 
 
 The Dwarfs or Pygmies are a race of African people 
 smaller than the men of other known races. Their average 
 height is four feet seven. They are dwellers in the forest — ■ 
 hunters and wanderers. They do not build towns as other 
 African tribes do, nor plant gardens. They often attach 
 themselves to superior tribes and wander about in their 
 neighborhood. They are very shy and timid. The great 
 African explorer, Paul Du Chaillu, has written about his 
 encounters with them; Stanley and other white men have 
 written about them. I have visited the clearing where the 
 little dwarf headman Be had built some leafy shelters. He 
 himself showed me the trail to that clearing. It was as I 
 tell you in this story. 
 
 School boys, you will notice in this story, are respected; 
 and their wisdom is admired. This is very generally true 
 in the neighborhood of the great mission schools. The 
 school boy is New Africa. His elders look to him for light 
 on modern problems. He is distinguished, not only by his 
 little accumulation of knowledge, but also by the little pack 
 of possessions that he has been everywhere ambitious to 
 acquire, and by his new custom that is not just like the old 
 town custom. Often he is proud and overbearing, but 
 often he is such a boy as I have tried to show you in Assam. 
 
 I assure you that I have not idealized, in Assam and his 
 school, the best type of school and the best type of teacher.
 
 ABOUT THE PEOPLE 181 
 
 Every established Africa Mission can show the equal of 
 these. Neither have I exaggerated, in the story of Asala, 
 the influence of a little Christian girl in a forest community. 
 Mejo is just such a boy as is common in our schools — 
 many a boy of his age and type has had to bear heavy 
 responsibilities. In the account of every missionary's ex- 
 perience there is record of boys and of girls who have 
 distinguished themselves. It is fine to read in the life of 
 Mackay of Uganda about Sembera, the first Christian 
 among the Baganda. It is sad but very thrilling to read of 
 those young Baganda boys, who were martyred for their 
 faith on January 30, 1882. In our own mission we must 
 always remember a young lad who was killed by black 
 soldiers because he would not deliver to them the mission 
 mail bag. Another young lad of our mission kept for us in 
 hiding a treasure of nearly one thousand dollars, and faith- 
 fully returned every piece of silver money when the danger 
 of robbers was past. Girls, too, have been brave and 
 faithful. Read, if you can, about the bravery of a little 
 maid servant, on page 125 of the book by John Mackenzie 
 called Ten Years North of the Orange River. There are 
 more of such stories than I can mention; you must be 
 looking for them yourselves. 
 
 I would like to say about the narrative of Livingstone's 
 life as recounted by Assam, that no boy, black or white, 
 could keep so long a story in his head. But an African can 
 keep very long tales in his head. He is always glad to illus- 
 trate his tale as Assam did, by a diagram upon the ground. 
 The story of Livingstone, as told in this book, is told as if 
 it were translated from the Bulu language, and the com- 
 ments upon it are just such comments as I have heard a 
 thousand times upon one and another account of the things 
 of the white man.
 
 182 AFRICAN ADVENTURERS 
 
 No one who wishes to know Livingstone must be satisfied 
 with this little account. Poor black men and women, sitting 
 by the palaver house fire, — what could they know of the 
 great adventures and the great heart of that great Christian 
 Adventurer. It is for white people to know and to admire 
 this hero of their race. All that treasure of heroism that is 
 stored in the great books by Livingstone and about Living- 
 stone are the inheritance of the tribes of the white man. 
 Other such treasure there is in the lives of Robert and 
 Mary Moffat, Mackay the white man of Works, Hanning- 
 ton the lion hearted, and Mary Slessor of Old Calabar. 
 
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