A PIONEER IN GARENGANZE
King Msidi's letter—Garenganze—Fred S. Arnot—His earlier travels —The expedition from Benguela—An African camp—The beeswax hunters—Watershed of the continent—Reception by Msidi—A night with cheetahs and hyenas—Horrors of the slave traffic—The saviors of Africa.
SOME twenty years ago a young Scotchman, Fred S. Arnot by name, who was travelling from the Upper Zambesi towards Benguela on the West African coast, met a company of men from the far interior with a letter in their charge. The letter was sent by Msidi, king of Garenganze, and contained an earnest appeal that white men would come to his country. Arnot did not doubt that by white men Msidi meant traders, by whom he and his people might be enriched. He was no trader, but a pioneer missionary who had already crossed Africa from east to west seeking to do good to the native tribes, and who at that very time was wondering where it would be best for him to settle down more permanently as a Christian teacher. Yet Msidi's appeal came to him with all the force of a personal call, and he decided that, as soon as he reached Benguela, he would make preparations for a march to the Garenganze country.
Garenganze lies to the west of Lakes Moero and Bangweolo, near the latter of which Dr. Livingstone died. It is thus in the very heart of Central Africa, some 1500 miles each way from the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. It has now been absorbed by the Congo Free State, but at that time it was a powerful independent kingdom. The people, judged by an African standard, had attained to some measure of civilization; and King Msidi, in the same comparative sense, was an able and enlightened monarch. The country was one of the most densely populated in that part of the continent, famed far and near for the abundance of its corn, rice, sugar-cane, and other agricultural products; and not less for its copper mines, which were worked by the inhabitants, who cleansed and smelted the copper out of the ore with remarkable skill. Up to 1886, the year of Arnot's arrival, only two Europeans had visited Msidi's dominions—a German traveller from the east and a Portuguese from the south; and in both cases the visits were very brief. Livingstone had never reached Garenganze, though he was drawing near it when he died at Ilala, not far from the shores of Lake Bangweolo.
But though Livingstone himself never entered Garenganze, it was a pioneer of Livingstone's own type who first brought the Christian Gospel to Msidi's people. Fred S. Arnot may be described as one of the most remarkable of the many heroes of African travel, not so much for what he actually accomplished as for the manner and spirit in which he accomplished it. It is here that he especially reminds us of Dr. Livingstone. His methods of progress were not those of the well-equipped and hustling explorer, but of the lonely wanderer who makes his way, quietly, patiently, and in the spirit of love, from village to village and from tribe to tribe. He had already served his apprenticeship to African travel. Landing in Natal in 1881, he had slowly trekked through the Orange Free State and the Transvaal to Khama's country, had next crossed the awful Kalahari Desert, and so made his way to the Zambesi. A whole year was occupied in this journey, which brought with it many experiences of danger and suffering. Repeatedly he had been on the point of perishing from hunger or thirst. Once, after marching in the desert for three days and nights without a drop of water, he met some Bushmen, who supplied him with a drink after their own fashion. They dug a pit in the sand, and sank long tubes made of reeds into the ground at the bottom. By and by water began to gather, as they knew it would, at the sunk end of the tube. They invited Arnot to drink. He tried, but was quite unable to suck the water up the long tube. The Bushmen, whom frequent practice had made adepts in the art, accordingly sucked it up for him, and then spat it out into a tortoise shell and handed it to the stranger. "It was frothy stuff," he writes, "as you may imagine; but I enjoyed it more than any draught I ever took of Loch Katrine water.”
His ways of getting food had sometimes been peculiar also. On the Zambesi he often depended for his supper on the crocodiles, which are very plentiful in that great river. Not that he ate those loathsome reptiles, but he was thankful at least to share their meals. When one of the larger game comes down to the river to drink, the crocodile creeps up stealthily, seizes the animal by the nose, drags it under water, and then hides the body under the river bank until it becomes almost putrid. When it is "high" enough to suit his taste, Master Croc brings it to the surface and enjoys a feast. The hungry traveler used to lie on the bank and watch one of those animals as it rose, with perhaps a quarter of an antelope in its jaws. Then he fired at its head and compelled it to drop its supper, and in this way provided himself with his own. He admits that it was anything but a dainty repast.
Coming at last to the malarias Barotse Valley on the Upper Zambesi, he settled down there for two years, doing what he could to teach the people and to wean them from their habitual cruelties. But at last his health completely broke down, and he decided to march for the west coast in the company of Senhor Porto, a Portuguese traveler who was going in that direction. It shows the stuff of which Arnot was made that, in spite of his reduced condition, he decided to ride on an ox, instead of being carried like his fellow-traveler in a machila or hammock. The reason he gave was that "that would be too comfortable a way of travelling, and might make me discontented and extravagant at other times." It was on this journey from the Barotse Valley to Benguela that he fell in with the messengers of King Msidi, as mentioned above, and resolved to make Garenganze the goal of another expedition in the interior.
It was in the beginning of June, 1885, that he set out on this journey, which was to occupy between eight and nine months. In its earlier stages the march lay along a well-trodden route in Portuguese territory, from Benguela to Bill& First came the low-lying desert region between Benguela and Cantumbela, which is just at the foot of the hills that mark the beginning of the lower section of the characteristic African plateau. These hills climbed, he found himself for a time in a fertile tropical country; but by and by another and a higher table-land rose before him, on climbing which he passed so suddenly out of the climate of the tropics that he could almost mark the line of demarcation between trees like the baobab and the more familiar vegetation of the temperate zone.
At Bihe, Arnot had no end of difficulty in getting porters to accompany him on his tramp into the unknown regions which now stretched before him like an unexplored ocean. But at length he succeeded in gathering a motley company, some of the members of which he has sketched for us as typical African characters:—
“Chipooka stammers as he speaks, but is lively under all circumstances; has a bad festering toe, which, however, does not prevent him carrying his sixty-pound load. Though limping badly, his only response to expressions of sympathy is a broad grin. Saombo is another representative man, perfectly hideous in his looks, but vanity has made his ugliness appear comical. All who come to the camp, he seems to think, have come to see him. So, as soon as a few strangers gather, he is not prepared for more hut-building or wood-cutting, but must go and sit down in front of them, laughing and clapping his thighs with delight, and trying to crack jokes. Then we have the sulky grumbler amongst us, who has always something to complain of. Now his load is not right, next his rations, then his pay; or a thorn pricks his foot, and he can carry no longer that day. The work has to be done, but certainly not by him.”
Besides his men and his horned steed, for once more he took an ox as his bearer, Arnot numbered on his camp-roll a faithful dog and a parrot. Senhor Porto, his recent companion, was accustomed to carry a cock with him on his travels by way of an animated chronometer, whose morning crows announced to all that it was time to commence the day's march. Arnot found a cock unnecessary, the cooing of the wood-pigeons being a sufficient signal to his men that dawn had come and that it was time to be stirring. But he recommends a parrot as a valuable addition to the resources of an African caravan. His Poll was of great service in keeping up the spirit of his boys. It was a true Mark Tapley of a bird, seeming as if it watched for opportunities when there would be some credit in being jolly. When everyone was dull and depressed it would suddenly make some ridiculous remark or break out in imitation of an old man's laugh. So it relieved the monotony of the march, and put the weary carriers into good humor again.
Mr. Arnot gives us a clear picture of the daily routine of an African journey. By break of day the camp is astir, for the porters are always anxious to get well along the road in the cool of the morning. Breakfast they do not trouble about, being content to have one good meal at the close of the day. They buckle on their belts, shoulder their loads of 60 lb. each, and trot off through the forest. Probably someone begins a solo in a high key, and all join lustily in the chorus. One or two halts are made, and there may be considerable delay when rivers have to be crossed. But for the most part all press on steadily for the next camping-place, which is generally reached by noon.
When a site for the camp has been fixed upon, some of the party are sent out to the nearest villages to buy food—the staple diet being maize meal made into a thick porridge, of which an African will consume an astonishing quantity. Meanwhile the others busy themselves with erecting shelters for the night. Poles are cut down in the forest, and stacked after the manner in which soldiers pile their rifles. Against these, branches are rested, and if it is the rainy season a thatching of the long African grass is added. Then fires are kindled to cook the supper, and these are kept up through the night to scare away wild beasts. An African camp at night, says Mr. Arnot, would make a fine picture on canvas—the blazing fires; the black faces clustered round them; the men singing, talking, laughing; and all about a pitchy darkness, Made doubly deep by the dense shadows of bush and forest. Every night it was the leader's habit to sit with his men around the camp fires, trying in every possible way to convey to them intelligent thoughts as to his mission. He felt that it was of the first importance that they should understand something about his message and his motive in bringing it, and so should be able to give an answer to the thousands of natives who would be sure to bombard them with questions as to who this white man was and why he had come.
One of the districts traversed by the caravan was the Chibowke country, a land of beeswax-hunters, who spend weeks on end in the depths of the forest gathering beeswax to sell to the Bihe traders, and living meanwhile on little else than wild honey. A high region was crossed where one day, in the space of two or three hours, they saw the fountain-heads of streams which flow respectively into the Congo and the Zambesi, and so ultimately into the Atlantic on the one side of the continent and the Indian Ocean on the other. Then came a wide tract where population was scanty and food scarce, and Arnot had a good deal of trouble with his men. They demanded more rations, and especially more meat. One day they flung down their loads crying, "Monare" (their name for Arnot), "give us meat. Why don't you hunt? You are starving us." Anxious though he was to press on, he saw that there was nothing for it but to devote the day to hunting. He seized his gun, forgetting that it was loaded, and as he was pulling off the cover, the charge suddenly went off, shattering the point of his left forefinger. There was no one with him who could dress a wound, and he thought it best to get one of the men to cut off the top joint according to his directions. The accident had a subduing effect on the men, who felt as if they were to blame for it; and in spite of hunger they tramped on bravely. Starvation, however, had begun to stare them in the face when Arnot succeeded one day in shooting two wart-hogs, one of which weighed over 200 lb. and had tusks over a foot long. A time of feasting followed. And as the men marched along once more, their leader heard them saying: "Don't you remember what things we said of the white man and his God? What names we called them! But the white man's God has been with us, and has filled our bodies with pig-meat.”
The trials of the long journey were now nearly over. A few days more brought them to the Garenganze country, where, after so many days in a desert region, it was a delight to see fields of grain and abundance of food, and still more to be hospitably received on every hand. On reaching the capital Arnot expected to have an early interview with the king. But it was not Msidi's habit to welcome strangers all at once. For some time the white man was placed in a sort of quarantine, while various tests were employed by witch doctors and diviners to see whether his intentions were good or bad, and "whether his heart was as white as his skin." A little piece of bark, for instance, was placed at night in a certain decoction. If next morning the bark appeared quite sound, that showed that the heart of the new-corner was equally so. If, on the other hand, it was in the least decomposed, the inference was that his heart was rotten, and that he must not be trusted. Fortunately, after several days had been spent in experiments of this kind, everything turned out in Arnot's favor, and the king accorded him a public reception.
The reception was both friendly and imposing. Msidi, an elderly man with a white beard, folded his arms around the traveler in the most fatherly manner, and then introduced him to his wives, of whom he had 500, as well as to his numerous brothers, cousins, and other relatives. Arnot found that Livingstone's name was one to charm with. Msidi had heard of the Doctor's approach from the east in 1873 and of his death at Ilala, and was pleased to learn that his visitor was a man of peace and goodwill like Livingstone, and that he hailed from the same country. He begged Arnot to remain in Garenganze and to build himself a house on any site he pleased; and this was the beginning of the Garenganze Mission.
For two years Arnot toiled on all alone in that remote land, making tours of exploration from the capital into the surrounding districts. In most places the people had never seen a white man before, and his appearance created a great sensation. The very print of his boots on the path was a portent. "His feet," they said, "are not a man's feet; they are the feet of a zebra." He had many strange adventures and not a few narrow escapes. But perhaps his most trying experience was when he spent a whole night in the open, alone and in pitch darkness, surrounded by a ring of hungry wild beasts.
He had gone out in the company of a native to shoot antelopes at a time when food was scarce, and after a long tramp had succeeded in getting near to a herd and bringing down three. By this time, however, the sun was setting, and the dismal howl of the hyena began to be heard. The nearest village was far off, but Arnot sent his companion to bring assistance, resolving to keep guard himself over the game throughout the night. He had no means of kindling a fire, and to make matters worse, his ammunition was all expended, so that he had no weapons but an empty rifle and a hunting knife. One of the antelopes, which lay at a distance of about a hundred yards from the rest, he soon had to surrender, but he marched up and down beside the other two, shouting and stamping and making as much noise as possible. The cold grew so intense by and by that he drew his hunting knife and skinned one of the antelopes as best he could in the dark, rolled himself in the warm hide, and lay down on the ground. But no sooner had he done this than he heard stealthy footsteps approaching, so that he had to spring up again. Only by rushing up and down for several hours, shouting all the time, was he able to keep his savage assailants at bay. When daylight came he saw from the footprints that he had been surrounded through the night by a band of hyenas and cheetahs. It was fortunate for him that no lions had been attracted to the spot.
For two years, as we have said, Arnot held this missionary outpost single-handed before any reinforcements arrived, and during all that time he never had a chance of receiving even a letter from the outer world. The oppression of this loneliness was increased by the heathen vices and cruelties which went on in Garenganze just as in other parts of Darkest Africa. All around him in particular the horrors of the slave-traffic prevailed and infants were constantly done to death because their owners had no use for them. The slave-traders regarded them as positive nuisances, not only encumbering their mothers on the march, but preventing them from carrying loads of ivory or some other commodity. And as no one wanted to buy the helpless little creatures, the slavers quite commonly flung them into a river or dashed out their brains against the trunk of a tree. As we read of the sights that were to be seen in Garenganze day by day, we do not wonder that the saying passed from mouth to mouth among the slave population, "Cheer up, slave! The Emperor (death) is coming along to save you.”
One day the body of a fine little boy, with a fatal spear gash through and through, was picked up on the road. It was a child whose owner shortly before had pressed Arnot to take it. Another infant whom he had felt unable to accept was thrown into the bush and devoured by the beasts. And so he was led to resolve that he must at all costs save these poor slave children—a decision which soon brought him an embarrassing family of youngsters to whom he had to take the place of both father and mother.
Not less painful than the accompaniments of slavery was the prevalence of human sacrifice. Msidi never entered upon any enterprise without seeking to ensure himself of success by putting someone to death. No one knew beforehand who the victim might be. The king simply said that So-and-so was to be taken, and straightway the appointed man or woman was led out to the slaughter.
There is a heroism of patient endurance and continuance as well as a heroism of bold achievement. It sometimes needs more courage to hold the trenches than to lead the forlorn charge. Arnot showed himself a hero in both kinds. His marches through Africa, first from Natal to the West Coast, and then again from Benguela to Garenganze, reveal some of the best qualities of the intrepid explorer. But his quiet persistence in his chosen work as a messenger of Christ, through loneliness and sickness, through danger and disappointment, tells of other qualities which are nobler and finer. It is men like this hero of Garenganze who are the true saviors of Africa.
Mr. Arnot's book, from which the above sketch is drawn, is entitled Garenganze, or Seven Years' Pioneer Mission Work in Central Africa (London: James E. Hawkins).