After leaving Semagombe, where our darling child was buried, we had some very difficult marches. The path which we had been following was somewhat overgrown, and we had to appoint men with tomahawks to cut a way for the porters. Sometimes for a few miles, the bush or forest through which we were passing was so dense that the rays of the sun were excluded. Very often the carriers had to make their way in a stooping stance which must have been painful to them, while bearing heavy loads on their heads. Here they climb over some huge fallen tree: there they bend underneath the giant creepers and intertwining branches, which droop over the narrow, darkened and tortuous path: now they descend into steep gullies, and again make their way along dry river beds, with a great mass of matted forest growth overhead.
After several days, we came to a beautiful river called Mto-wa-mawe, the signification of which is Stony River. Here our porters seemed to revel to their hearts' content. They drank of it, bathed in it, and, those of them who were so inclined, washed their loincloths in this purling stream. We enjoyed very much the enchanting scenery which stretched along its banks, and the beautiful sylvan hills, which formed part of its watershed. Gaily plumaged birds flitted from tree to tree, and some outstanding acacias had weaver birds' nests hanging from every tiny branch. Antelopes of many kinds abounded in the open, grassy glades of the forest, and seemed to be unusually tame. We saw a herd of giraffe standing quite near to us, like giant phantoms among the mimosa trees. Lions and leopards were more numerous in this district than nearer the Coast, due to the abundance of game on which they prey.
The sloping and undulating banks of this Mto-wa-mawe are a genuine paradise for the entomologist, for no matter where one looks the ground is crawling with insect life. To us the river was little less than such, for we had the privilege of getting our clothes washed, as this was the first water we had met with, since leaving the Coast, really clean enough for washing purposes. As we wend our way further west, we get into more park-like country, covered with shorter kinds of grass; and here and there are dotted clumps of trees, which give a beautiful and never-ending variety to the landscape.
On reaching the banks of the Wami river, we were, for the first time, brought into close touch with crocodiles. They lay basking in the sun on the river banks, or on little islets in the midst of the stream. Many of them measured twenty to twenty-five feet long. The natives have to be very careful when drawing water, for many of the women lose their lives while getting the necessary water to cook their millet and other grains which they grow in these parts. The crocodile is a very expert swimmer, and can get along under water at an amazing rate. When lying still on the scummy surface of the sluggish river, the great reptile can hardly be noticed by the thirsty animals of the forest, which come down to the stream to drink. The crocodile is ever on the alert, and, the moment it sees the animals, it dives quietly underneath, and swims up to the place where they are drinking. With a sweep of its mighty tail it knocks one of the animals into the water; and then, seizing it with its unrelaxing grasp, holds it below the surface until it is drowned, after which the victim is slowly eaten.
The jaws of the crocodile are of amazing strength, and once the prey is caught there is no chance of escape. The natives tell me that sometimes the crocodile will quietly catch hold of a buffalo by the nose while drinking, and draw the animal below the water without attempting to use its tail. The sharp blow with the tail, however, is the usual mode of getting the smaller and more alert antelope under water. The victim is amazed and rendered helpless by the speed and force of the attack. Along the banks of some of the rivers, crocodiles' eggs are numerous. The reptile digs a hole in the sand, and lays thirty to forty large eggs, covering them with the loose earth, and leaving them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. Many small animals are very fond of these eggs, and scrape them out and eat them, thus reducing the descendants of these awe-inspiring reptiles.
When we got into a higher altitude, we found the country more open, and marshes not at all so numerous as in the earlier part of our journey; and these conditions made traveling infinitely more pleasant and less tiring. Food became more plentiful, so that our porters were able to replenish their supplies two or three times a week, by inducing the natives to exchange their millet and sweet potatoes for small pieces of calico and strings of beads. Before leaving the island of Zanzibar on the Coast, we secured a number of loads of various colored beads and blue and white Indian calico. Each porter of the caravan received two yards of this material, or ten strings of beads every seven days, with which to purchase food from the different tribes through which we passed. The men clubbed together in parties, to the number of seven or eight, for cooking purposes, and thus were enabled to secure a greater variety of food than if each man purchased and cooked his own.
At night, when the camp fires were lighted, my husband, who was daily getting more capable in the language, used to take up his time in seeking to express to the porters of the caravan some winning aspects of Gospel truth, which seemed to be well received by these semi-barbarous men, who, for the most part, as slaves of coast Arabs, had been for a longer or shorter period under Muslim influence. When we arrived at a district named N'guru, we had barely pitched the tent and got the camp into order for the night, before the chief of the country came with a considerable entourage, bringing a present of a big fat tailed sheep for the "White man." We were always delighted to see the natives coming into our camp, as it gave us an opportunity of having a word or two with them, in the language we were learning, and of which some of them understood a little.
After we had given an equivalent for the present which had been brought, the chief made a very serious proposal which quite frightened me. He said that in their country, when a stranger came to visit them, it was their custom to exchange wives, and that he would bring his three wives to our camp, so that my husband could choose which he would prefer in exchange for me. My husband blandly declined and turned the conversation to more interesting subjects. He explained the teaching of the Son of God regarding the matter of having only one wife, and the greater happiness which follows. The dear old man seemed quite delighted with the higher ideas, which were put before him so openly, and we parted the best of friends.
Up till now I had had fairly good health, even while traveling through very marshy fever-laden country, but on our next day's journey I became seriously ill with fever. It is not considered a good thing, when one is struck down with malaria, to remain camped in one place; and for this, and several other reasons, it was desirable to push on to our destination. A hammock was strung to a pole, and each morning at dawn I was taken out of my camp bed and laid in the hammock, which was carried by four porters. The agony I endured when the sun got high in the heavens is indescribable. The jolting and swinging motion of the hammock was, to me, unspeakably painful. The porters were instructed to carry me always with my face towards the direction in which we were going, except when ascending a steep incline, when they were to reverse the hammock to prevent my feet being higher than my head. Sometimes, however, when going up out of deep gullies, the pathway was so narrow, and the bush on either side so thick, that it was impossible for the men to turn; and therefore my head was much lower than my feet, a most uncomfortable position for one exhausted with fever.
Occasionally when we encountered obstacles in the pathway, or were crossing slippery places after rain had fallen, one of my carriers would stumble or lose his footing, and thus throw me to the ground, while it was no unusual thing for the hammock to strike against some high stump of a tree, causing a severe concussion to the body. Day by day the paroxysms of fever grew worse, and my weakness and prostration more acute. My husband treated me with quinine, which in those days was considered a cure-all for malarial fever. Very few can fully realize how soon this great tropical scourge can lay low the strongest human frame. The death rate of Missionaries, in both east and west Equatorial Africa, has been terrible during the past twenty five years, so that Central Africa has been described as "the white man's grave."
The late Henry Drummond, in referring to this matter, very pathetically tells his experience on first entering the Scottish Mission Station, near lake Nyassa,—"A neat path through a small garden," he says, "led up to the settlement, and I approached the largest house and entered. It was the head Missionary's house. It was spotlessly clean; English furniture was in the room, a medicine chest; familiar-looking dishes were in the cupboards, books lying about, but there was no Missionary in it. I went to the next house—it was the school, the benches were there and the blackboard, but there were no scholars and no teacher. I passed to the next, it was the blacksmith's shop; there were the tools and the anvils, but there was no blacksmith. And so on to the next, and the next, all in perfect order, and all empty. Then a native approached and led me a few yards into the forest. And there among the mimosa trees were four or five graves. These were the Missionaries."
The same story might be repeated many times in various parts of the Equatorial Belt. A chain of English graves stretches across from east to west of the Great Continent. The strongest and most robust athlete falls a victim, as readily as the person of more frail and delicate structure. After a week's journeying in the hammock, though greatly withered, I was sufficiently free from pain to enjoy the landscape, as the men carried me along on our daily march. We were now getting into more hilly country, and approaching the district to which we had been appointed by the Church Missionary Society. Two Missionaries had been in this district for a short time, and one of these had orders to proceed to Uganda, while it was the express desire of the Secretary of the Mission that the other should assist in the work among an adjoining tribe, and that we should dwell in the Mamboia Station, vacated by these men.
One day, as we got into the camp, some messengers arrived with a letter from the senior of these Missionaries, saying that we should return to the Coast, as there were only two Mission houses, and therefore no room for any more Missionaries. My husband sent his salutations, and replied per the native runners that the matter of housing was of very little importance to us, and presented no obstacle to Missionary work; and that we could use our tent as a dwelling place in the meantime, while we carried out the instructions of the Home Committee. Two days afterward we arrived within the grounds of the Mission station. The Mission houses were situated within a short distance of the head of a mountainous elevation where huge boulders stood out prominently on the face of the hill. In a few places, between these rocky protuberances, there seemed to be a great depth of rich soil, which had been washed down from the summit of the hill. These places had been enclosed with a fence, and turned into a thriving English vegetable garden.
My carriers had some difficulty in climbing the long zigzag path up the hill, although my weight at this time was not very great, for the fever had reduced me to a mere skeleton. How rejoiced I was when they laid me down on the verandah of one of the Mission buildings. A portion of the largest house had been generously vacated for us, and the junior Missionary on the station did all in his power to give us a hearty welcome. After a day's rest our porters were sent back to the coast, each man receiving sufficient barter goods to enable him to purchase food on the way down country.
The Station of Mamboia was a comparatively healthy one; but its most glaring disadvantage seemed to be its great distance from the native people, who occupied the plains below, and among whom the work must, of necessity, be done. We had nothing to put into our two empty rooms except a couple of camp beds and a few boxes. The native caravan cook had been so destructive with our light enameled cooking vessels on the way up country, that they were now leaking, and we had to turn tinker and get them repaired.
Shortly after our arrival at the Station, it was our privilege to meet Dr. Baxter, the Field Secretary of the Mission, whose station at Mpwapwa was about fifty miles from ours. He and his wife, on hearing of our arrival, came to see us and have a conference concerning the work in the district. When he reached our station I was again laid low with very severe fever, and he did all he could to relieve me. We have never met in Africa a more Christlike man than Dr. Baxter—a most devoted follower of the Savior, a faithful doctor, an indefatigable nurse and a fine cook. Under the blessing of God I gradually regained strength, and soon joined my husband in the work of the station. The acquiring of the language was the first and most important duty we set ourselves to achieve. I was very slow at it, but my husband made rapid progress in mastering the seemingly unintelligible languages of the different tribes. Every morning we had a meeting in our dining room. There was not much furniture in the way, and our natives squatted down on the floor. Rarely did we get more than fifteen to twenty at these meetings, consisting of Wasagara and Wanyatnwezi, and one or two Swahili workers on the station.
The monotony of our daily routine was broken, one day, by the welcome arrival of Rev. P. O'Flaherty of Uganda, who was returning home on furlough. This venerable man was a convert from the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. With his long, flowing beard and dressed in multi-colored pants and jacket, which had been patched by his own hands, he looked like a veritable "King of the Wilderness." This Missionary had much to tell us of the great difficulties and conquests of the work in Uganda. He was talkative, blunt and outspoken, but one who had a place very near to his heart for the work of God and the Kingdom of Christ in Africa. He brought a good deal of life and sunshine wherever he went. In him the ingenuous Irish spirit was ever visible. After a short and very profitable stay with us, we commended him to God, and he went on his way to the Coast.
How little we thought, when we said good-bye, that we should never see his face again in this world. The African fever had been troubling him much, and on his way home he had another severe malarial attack. All that was within the doctor's power was done for him, but he died on board ship, and was buried in the Red Sea. Our hearts went out very much in sympathy to the wife and relatives who were anxiously waiting to welcome him on his return to the homeland.
While our time was mainly engaged in the early days in learning the language, yet as a rule we made daily excursions among the villages of the natives, seeking to get quite familiar with them and their habits of life, so that we might be the better prepared for passing on to them properly the Message we had come to deliver.
One day, when out a short distance from the Station, my husband had a wonderful experience with a large snake. He was busy in thought over the grave of a Missionary, who, but a few weeks before, had been cut down by malarial fever. Standing in daydream beside the grave, thinking of the high hopes with which the departed had set out for the Mission field, and of the suddenness with which his life had been taken away, he heard behind him a unusual rattling sound, and, turning round, he saw a snake with an unusually large head approaching. The unearthly and terror inspiring noise of the reptile for a moment transfixed him to the spot; and then, realizing his helpless position, he jumped aside and ran to the Station for his gun. On returning to the place he found that the huge snake had disappeared. Although he has been now a quarter of a century in Central Africa, he has never seen another sample of the same kind.
We found that the Wasagara tribe, which occupied this district, believed in a Supreme Being and in a future state. They had, however, no ceremonies whatever, which could be at all designated as worship. About the villages were raised here and there some very tiny shrines, about three feet high and two in diameter, made of a few sticks and grass. In these they occasionally laid offerings of grain or some other food, which they dedicated to the Great Being. These gifts represented their gratefulness of heart to the God who had supplied their wants, and by them they appealed to Him for His favor and forgiveness.
The circular dwelling houses of these natives, formed of thin saplings bound together and covered with grass, are about twelve feet in diameter, and nine feet high in the center, from which point they slope on a slope to the ground. In these huts there are very few tools or gear of any kind. A cooking pot of burned clay, a scooped-out gourd shell for carrying water, together with a few spears, bows and arrows form the principal equipment of these primitive homes. To go in and out among them is to have lived before the first Pharaoh sat upon the throne of Egypt, and to be convincingly assured that, in this part of the world at least, "Man wants but little here below."
Despite the apparent gulf between the modern European from the native, "the whole world is kin." When we fully master the different languages of these tribes, and can sit down quietly and talk to them, how quickly we realize that they are members of the one great universal family of Him, who made of one, every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. They have the same inexpressible desire, which we ourselves have experienced, to look into the future and get a vision of what is beyond: the same consciousness of sin and guilt: the same eager desire which is expressed in the words of Job, "Oh that I knew where I might find HIM." The desire is written in their hearts, and they have an anxious probing after peace and pardon, which is evident by their desire to beg the Almighty through those offerings of the fruits of the earth, which, like of Cain, they present to Him in their small shrines.
In those days in the heart of lonely Africa, when there were very few Missionaries or travelers, it was an inconceivable joy to meet with a white-skinned man of any nationality. We were therefore delighted beyond measure when, one day, a caravan belonging to a European camped near the station we occupied. He was a German traveler, named Giesikie, who had been sent out to Central Africa by a Hamburg firm to purchase ivory from the natives of the interior. He was the first European trader who had ever entered this part of Africa. We gave him a hearty invitation to our house. What a long and interesting talk we had over our mutual experiences in Africa!
My husband has a very quick way of getting to know the spiritual state and need of those with whom he talks, and always seeks an opportunity of saying a word for his Master. Christ says to His regenerated followers, "Ye shall be my witnesses"—witnesses not only to the far-off heathen but also to our own kith and kin, to men of our own color and race. On that day it was necessary, however, for my husband to dig deeply, for our visitor was given to unbelief and agnosticism. He was, nevertheless, brought up in a Christian home, and told us that he honored the religion of the Christ of whom his father was a faithful follower, stating that he believed him to be the best man in Hamburg. Our hearts yearned for the salvation of this young man, who had just left the parental roof, and was now entering upon a sphere of work in which there were so many dangers and difficulties, and where life was so uncertain and insecure. He was much impressed when my husband told him of his own young life of atheism and infidelity, and how the whole course of his life was changed when he accepted of Jesus Christ as his own Savior. The following day we said good-bye to our friend, who seemed to be halting between two opinions, and he and his followers went on their way to the next camping place.
On the afternoon of that day we noticed that one of our boys was missing. He was a little fellow about ten years of age, who, to escape from his slave master at Zanzibar, had secretly attached himself to our caravan and come up into the interior of the country with us. I had been teaching him to read, and felt greatly interested in him, as he was a very intelligent boy. At this time he was not to be found anywhere about the station and, inasmuch as he was fond of traveling, we thought he might have gone on with the caravan belonging to the German trader. Although the sun was now declining, and the next camping place fifteen miles away, my husband started off to reach the camp, hoping to find the boy among the carriers. It was a five hours' march over rough, rolling and, in some parts, abrupt country, with many small streams to cross. He got into the camp some time after sundown and found that the boy was not there. A warm welcome however was given to him, and an invitation to remain over night; and this he was glad to do, as he found his friend very much concerned about the conversation they had had together regarding the matter of conversion.
Very soon they were sitting side by side at a little folding table in the tent, talking gleefully over the dinner, which the native cook had brought in from the campfire. When the meal was over, the camp had to be put in order for the night, and some cut grass laid down in the tent as a temporary provision for an extra bed. My husband had no time to take his camp bed or any impedimenta with him, bringing only one porter to carry the necessary rifle and cartridge bag. When all was settled for the night, and the camp fires gaily blazing in the loneliness of the forest, the two young Europeans were reclining in the tent, and talking over matters which affect ordinary life and eternal destiny.
The German traveler unburdened himself to my husband, and said that his father had pleaded with him to give his heart to God before starting for Central Africa. When the father found that his entreaties were all in vain, he presented his son with a Bible, as a parting gift, telling him that in that book he would find the source of eternal life. The Bible, however, was inadvertently left behind at Zanzibar. My husband commended to him the advisability of giving his heart, there and then, to the Savior, and accepting of Jesus Christ as his own personal Redeemer. For some time he tried to drop the matter and put off decision but eventually God enabled him, that night, to accept of his father's Savior as his own. It was near to midnight when kneeling down together, they commended themselves to God in prayer, and very soon the eyes of both were closed in refreshing sleep.
In the early dawn of the morning they bade each other an affectionate farewell and each went his way. On arriving home, my husband sent after him a copy of the New Testament; and, on receipt of this, he wrote us a letter of thankful appreciation for our interest in him, and re-affirmed his determination to follow Christ. In a few months, we heard the sad news that he had been cruelly murdered near to Tabora, while lying in his tent. We wrote to his parents in Hamburg, breaking the tragic tidings, and comforting them with the news of their son's conversion. The grief-stricken father replied, telling us that he had received a letter from his son, written before the murder; and had also the joy of reading, in his son's diary, the full particulars of the change in his heart and life, and how he had met with us on his way up into the interior. I attach a copy of the father's most pathetic letter which we received from Germany:
Kellinghusen, 8th July, 1888.
The Rev. Stuart Watt.
Honored Sir,
I express to you today for the first time my thanks for the letter you sent me. In some degree we were familiar with the news contained in your letter, as my dear Hermann had not only informed me by letter, but also had noted it down in his diary. As you had made the friendship of our dear son you will be able to understand what pain the loss has caused us. The heart asks, "Lord, why hast Thou dealt so with us?" Nevertheless it is for us to be patient, knowing that the ways of the Lord are past finding out. We hope and believe that it was well with our son. God sent him to the Dark Continent in order to bring him to Himself, and I have now no doubt that he received the grace of God and is with Him in His Kingdom. Already four children, and now our Hermann, have gone on before us. What Hermann said to you about me pictures in a beautiful light his love for me. The truth is, I am a poor sinner and only by grace through the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ am I saved. Our Hermann had not many pleasant days in Africa. He suffered a great deal from fever, and had many other difficulties through the whims of the chief, and others at Tabora, which ended at last in his murder. He never complained once in his letters or in his diary. I need not say all this to you, who by your own experience are well acquainted with Central Africa. I have often been astonished at the great love of the Missionaries who sacrifice themselves in order to bring the Gospel to the heathen. On behalf of my dear Hermann I return to you and your wife my thanks for all kindness which you showed him. God reward you for it. With kindest regards from my family and self, I remain,
Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) A. Giesikie.