f>*l- S~* /"VV T /"** /% 
 
 She CONGO 
 
 B^ JOHN M, XPRINGER 
 
I LIBRARY 
 
 tMVEftWrr OP 
 CAUFOtNIA 
 
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REV. AND MRS. JOHN M. SPRINGER 
 
PIONEERING IN 
 THE CONGO 
 
 By 
 JOHN McKENDREE SPRINGER 
 
 Author of The Heart of Central Africa 
 
 THE KATANGA PRESS 
 
 150 FIFTH AVENUE 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, 
 BY JOHN M. SPRINGER 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
 
-gyms 
 
 THIS NARRATIVE IS WRITTEN MAINLY IN THE FIRST 
 PERSON SINGULAR, BUT ALSO AT TIMES IN THE 
 PLURAL, AND IT HAS BEEN WITTINGLY AND FIT- 
 TINGLY SO IN EACH CASE. ONE THERE IS WHO 
 FOR MORE THAN TEN YEARS HAS SHARED WITH 
 ME ALMOST EVERY THOUGHT, PLAN, JOURNEY, AND 
 
 HARDSHIP, AS WELL AS EVERY JOY AND RICH 
 DIVINE COMPANIONSHIP IN THE SERVICE HERE RE- 
 CORDED; AND SO FULLY HAS HER LIFE FLOWED 
 OUT IN A RARE SINGLENESS OF DEVOTION TO THE 
 WORK WHICH SHE CHOSE TO SHARE WITH ME, AND 
 TO WHICH SHE FELT ALSO A LIKE PERSONAL CALL, 
 AND SO LARGE HAS BEEN HER PART IN THE PREP- 
 ARATION OF THIS NARRATIVE, THAT SHE MUST BE 
 RECORDED AS JOINT AUTHOR, AND THAT ONE IS 
 
 MY WIFE 
 HELEN EMILY SPRINGER 
 
 338 
 
THE CONGO MISSION 
 
 IS AN ANSWER 
 TO 
 
 PRAYER 
 
 BY 
 MANY INTERCESSORS 
 
 MAY THE PERUSAL OF THIS 
 NARRATIVE INSPIRE MANY 
 OTHERS TO PREVAILING 
 PRAYER FOR THE EXTENSION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 KINGDOM 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 I. THE FIRST JOURNEY 1 
 
 II. STRIKING THE TRAIL AGAIN 12 
 
 III. KALULUA TO LUKOSHI 25 
 
 IV. BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 38 
 
 V. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS AND ITINERATING. .. 62 
 
 VI. FLOODS AND FEVER 68 
 
 VII. LANGUAGE STUDY 82 
 
 VIII. ON TO MWATA YAMVO 97 
 
 IX. KAFUCHI TO MUSUMBA 114 
 
 X. MUSUMBA WA MWATA YAMVO, THE CAPITAL 
 
 OF MWATA YAMVO 125 
 
 XI. AT MUSUMBA (CONTINUED) 139 
 
 XII. LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 160 
 
 XIII. THROUGH DILOLO 176 
 
 XIV. A DELUGE OF BELGIANS 195 
 
 XV. SECOND SEASON AT LUKOSHI 201 
 
 XVI. THE EXODUS FROM LUKOSHI 213 
 
 XVII. KAMBOVE 225 
 
 XVIII. A NEW EPOCH 241 
 
 XIX. THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 260 
 
 XX. A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 279 
 
 XXI. As TO THE FUTURE 298 
 
 APPENDIX . 313 
 
 vii 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 REV. AND MRS. JOHN M. SPBINGEB FRONTISPIECE 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 VILLAINOUS LOOKING FERRYMEN 16 
 
 ON THE TRACTION ROAD, KANSANSHI-BAYA 16 
 
 Fox BIBLE TRAINING SCHOOL, KALULUA, 1910 26 
 
 A SITE CARVED Our OF THE WILDERNESS 42 
 
 MUSHROOMS 88 
 
 JIM BAKING BREAD IN CAMP 88 
 
 MR. AND MRS. SPRINGER ON WHEELS 88 
 
 DENTISTRY, AN INCIDENTAL PROFESSION 88 
 
 MPERETE'S VILLAGE AND PRESENT 102 
 
 MWATA YAMVO IN MACHILLA 132 
 
 MWATA YAMVO AT THE EVENING SERVICE 132 
 
 LUKOSHI STATION, 1912 208 
 
 KAYEKA AND FAMILY 218 
 
 Fox BIBLE TRAINING SCHOOL, LUKOSHI, 1913 218 
 
 CAPE-TO-CAIRO RAILWAY REACHES KAMBOVE 232 
 
 KAMBOVE STATION AFTER DEPARTURE OF TRAIN 232 
 
 DR. AND MRS. PIPER AT KAMBOVE 246 
 
 MISSION HOUSE AT MWATA YAMVO'S 246 
 
 MWATA YAMVO AND A FEW OF His WIVES 246 
 
 ORE TRUCKS FROM STAR OF THE CONGO MINE 262 
 
 JACOB INTERPRETING AT RAILWAY SERVICE 262 
 
 A SERVICE IN COMPOUND AT SMELTER 262 
 
 MOTHER MILLER AND WOMEN 262 
 
 THE HILL AND BUILDINGS, KAMBOVE MISSION 266 
 
 BISHOP HARTZELL AND MISSION GROUP, 1915 266 
 
 THE VICTORIA FALLS 274 
 
 A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 288 
 
 CHURCH, STATE, COMMERCE 308 
 
 LIVINGSTONE'S MONUMENT, CHITAMBO 312 
 
 MAP OF CENTRAL AFRICA 317 
 
 MAP OF CENTRAL AFRICA SHOWING PROTESTANT MIS- 
 SIONS 318 
 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 BY BISHOP J. 0. HARTZELL, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 THERE is a new Africa, and a part of the 
 world, especially the commercial interests of 
 Europe as well as of America, have fully awak- 
 ened to that fact. The great missionary ex- 
 plorer David Livingstone opened the path 
 into and across Central Africa, and reported 
 to the world, highlands in the interior with 
 salubrious climate, and with indications of 
 vast wealth of gold, copper, and ivory, and the 
 possibilities of unlimited water power, where 
 mighty rivers descended in magnificent falls, 
 from the elevated watersheds and plateaus of 
 the interior. After Livingstone, came other 
 missionaries who confirmed and enlarged the 
 report. Traders and prospectors followed in 
 increasing numbers, until the discovery of 
 diamonds at Kimberley, of gold at Johannes- 
 burg, and of gold and copper at various other 
 parts of the continent, awakened the keen 
 interest of Europe and led to more extended 
 explorations. Then the industrial centers of 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 Great Britain, of Germany, and of France 
 were looking for new markets for their prod- 
 ucts, and a continent of nearly 150,000,000 
 people waiting to be clothed, appealed to the 
 imagination. 
 
 The last quarter of the past century wit- 
 nessed a great scramble for continental 
 "spheres" for trade in this great continent. 
 Then in 1884 at the Berlin conference 
 there was a partition of nearly all of the 
 12,500,000 square miles of Africa, among the 
 powers of Europe ; an arrangement which con- 
 tinued until the war of 1914. Traders have 
 pressed on into all parts, until it is the rare 
 village even in the remotest regions, where 
 cloth from Birmingham, blankets from Ham- 
 burg, and beads from Vienna are not in evi- 
 dence. The governments have policed all 
 parts and have caused the inter-tribal wars 
 to cease; have crushed out the inter- tribal 
 slave traffic, and are making great headway 
 in the ultimate abolition of domestic slavery 
 everywhere. In a little more than a brief 
 quarter of a century has been witnessed the 
 industrial and political occupation of prac- 
 tically all of this vast continent. Christian 
 missions originally led in this modern move- 
 ment, but they have in these later years been 
 
INTKODUCTION xi 
 
 left behind, and to-day more than half of the 
 population of Africa more nearly three 
 fourths have never seen the missionary, and 
 are without the privileges of the church and 
 the school. v 
 
 But the line of missions has ever been slowly 
 advancing, through the heroic faith and noble 
 consecration of men and women called of God. 
 This narrative tells of a notable advance of 
 missions in Africa, and any one wishing to 
 study the details of such progress will find 
 here a mine of information. 
 
 The Kev. and Mrs. John M. Springer have 
 been missionaries to Africa for fourteen years. 
 It has fallen to their lot to labor continually 
 in what the world regards as Livingstone's 
 country. Their first period of nearly six years 
 was spent in the gold-bearing region of Manica 
 land, first spoken of by Livingstone in 1857, 
 and where, at Old Umtali, they were in the 
 midst of the gold belt from which, in all prob- 
 ability, gold was taken nearly three thousand 
 years ago and shipped to Jerusalem in the 
 ships of Hiram and Solomon, for the adorn- 
 ment of the great temple. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Springer are both of pioneer families, and 
 since their marriage in 1905 have been one in 
 rare union of endeavor, devoted to exploration 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and of missionary pioneering. Probably no 
 other persons have touched Livingstone's trail 
 at so many and so widely separate points as 
 they. In their trip to the Zambesi River in 
 1906, in exploring the district of which Mr. 
 Springer was superintendent, they came on 
 Livingstone's trail along the Zambesi River 
 above the Kabrabasa Rapids, and followed 
 it down that river four hundred miles to 
 Senna, near Shupanga, where Mary Living- 
 stone's body rests, her grave cared for by a 
 Roman Catholic Mission. Later that year 
 they crossed his path at Victoria Falls, where 
 were spent three days in contemplation of that 
 marvelous cataract. Then, in 1907, on their 
 long journey to the west coast, they started 
 from Broken Hill, three hundred miles north- 
 east of Sesheka, where Livingstone started on 
 his first great trip, and going northwest they 
 continually approached Livingstone's trail 
 until they reached it near Lake Dilolo, and 
 from there to the west coast for six hundred 
 miles followed it approximately. 
 
 In 1910 it was my privilege to appoint Mr. 
 and Mrs. Springer to the Lunda country, of 
 which Livingstone wrote in his first book. By 
 extensive travel in Central Africa, they com- 
 pleted the exploration of that field, and in 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 1913 built stations at two strategic centers. 
 January 2, 1915, I met with them and others 
 in conference at Kambove, and organized the 
 Congo Mission of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. We sat only two hundred and fifty 
 miles from Chitambo Village, where David 
 Livingstone, in the heart of Africa, upon his 
 knees, in prayer, commended his spirit to his 
 God and entered into his rest. His face, at 
 that very time, was turned in the direction of 
 the vast copper mines, near which we gathered 
 for this conference. 
 
 This small conference met in council in that 
 unhappy interior land that had been raided 
 by slavers from the east and from the west. 
 From the east for decades, if not for centuries, 
 had come the Arabs with their guns, and with 
 a force of natives from near the coast, to cap- 
 ture and enslave native Africans. The victims 
 were taken to the neighboring hills of mala- 
 chite ; made to smelt copper in crude furnaces 
 still existing in the country; loaded with ore 
 and marched to the east coast, where copper 
 and slaves were sold. From the west coast had 
 come native tribes, sometimes alone and some^ 
 times headed by half-caste Portuguese and 
 other degenerate white men, who had also 
 raided these interior tribes for slaves to supply 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 the North American markets, and later to 
 supply laborers for the cocoa islands along the 
 west coast. Thus had the population of the 
 interior been decimated. In the regions of 
 this vast mineral belt are the tag ends of fifty 
 or more tribes that had escaped from these 
 various raids. 
 
 Livingstone's great and particular conse- 
 cration had been, like that of Lincoln's in 
 America, to abolish the slave traffic as a neces- 
 sary clearing of the ground for the building 
 of the Kingdom. It is interesting in this con- 
 nection to note that at Sarenge, near Chi- 
 tambo, where the heart of that great explorer 
 rests under a monument erected to his 
 memory, there was established in 1907 the 
 Livingstone Memorial Mission. For this pur- 
 pose his nephew, the Rev. Malcolm Moffat, 
 grandson of Robert Moffat, was sent out by 
 the Free Church of Scotland, and in the years 
 intervening, between 1907 and the Livingstone 
 Centennial in 1913, Mr. Moffat had been able 
 to effect the translation of the four Gospels 
 into the language of the people of that region. 
 About this same year he was joined in his 
 mission work by two grandchildren of David 
 Livingstone, children of his daughter Anna 
 Mary, who married Rev. Wilson, a missionary 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 of Sierra Leone. These two are Hubert Liv- 
 ingstone Wilson, M.D., and Kuth Livingstone 
 Wilson, a trained nurse, who have joined their 
 cousin at this Livingstone Memorial Mission. 
 
 What a great contrast throughout that 
 country since Livingstone's day. Here in the 
 region toward which his faltering steps, broken 
 by the years of racking fever, were headed; 
 and which he was unable to reach, we now sat 
 in a well appointed house, and I had come into 
 that region from Cape Town, twenty-five hun- 
 dred miles from the south, in a comfortable 
 train of European cars, with excellent dining 
 and sleeping service. Throughout the land 
 government was established, commerce was 
 active, and mining companies were spending 
 millions of dollars in development, and were 
 employing tens of thousands of natives. Medi- 
 cal science was present, skilled surgeons and 
 nurses were at hand, and at Elisabethville was 
 a well laid out European town, with good 
 streets, electric lighted stores, high grade mov- 
 ing picture cinematograph ; dodging about the 
 streets were motor cycles, motor trucks, auto- 
 mobiles, and already the output of the smelt- 
 ing works supplied by three of the mines 
 was fifteen hundred tons of bar copper per 
 month. On coming through Elisabethville I 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 could scarcely believe that only five years be- 
 fore, this town site had been but virgin Cen- 
 tral Africa forest. Anew I was profoundly 
 impressed with the fact that the commercial 
 and industrial agencies of the world can com- 
 mand resources almost unlimited, while the 
 Kingdom of God must plod along supplied 
 with only paltry sums. And then what an 
 utter contrast from that early day of Living- 
 stone in the attitude toward the natives of 
 the region! Then they were being taken by 
 many thousands into hopeless slavery; now 
 government and commerce were seeking for 
 the concentration, in this rich mineral region, 
 of tens of thousands of workmen, while this 
 mining company has a large department, 
 which is really a separate organization, whose 
 sole business it is, under the management of 
 Mr. A. A. Thompson, who took me about in his 
 automobile, to secure an adequate number of 
 workmen for these mines. One batch of six 
 hundred natives, most of them Mohammedans, 
 had been brought from a point one thousand 
 miles east on the coast near Quilimane, and 
 had been transported at much expense by rail 
 through Beira, two thousand miles, to work 
 for a year on these mines, and then to be re- 
 turned to their homes. 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 This suggests the relation of the Moham- 
 medan world to the interior of Africa. The 
 commercial routes are now open and are being 
 extended. The rail communication is com- 
 pleted with the east coast right into this in- 
 terior region, and to the north the Cape-to- 
 Cairo route is nearing its completion, and soon 
 there will be similar communication from 
 Khartoum; and from Alexandria on the Nile 
 and the Mediterranean, both centers of Mo- 
 hammedan education and propaganda. Fol- 
 lowers of the False Prophet are as alert in 
 these days to take advantage of the commer- 
 cial routes and of railways to carry forward 
 their propaganda, as are commerce and Chris- 
 tian missions. To-day this interior region is 
 almost wholly virgin pagan soil ; to-morrow it 
 will be shot through with Islamism. How im- 
 portant that Christian missions be pushed 
 rapidly. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Springer, after five years of 
 strenuous pioneer work, were due for fur- 
 lough. On reaching home, instead of resting, 
 they entered upon an active campaign for se- 
 curing additional funds for carrying forward 
 the work for the next five years in the area of 
 the Congo Mission. With great faith they 
 blocked out the mission area of four hundred 
 
xviii INTKODUCTION 
 
 miles square, in which the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church is the only Protestant society. 
 This is an area the size of Michigan, Illinois, 
 and Indiana combined, and only two stations 
 for this vast area! What Johannesburg and 
 the rich gold regions about it are to South 
 Africa, this vast mineral area will be to Cen- 
 tral Africa, with its unlimited wealth of cop- 
 per, iron, lime, tin, and possibly of coal, gold, 
 and diamonds. Within this vast area are the 
 Victoria falls of the Congo, and several large 
 rivers. The climate is salubrious, resulting 
 from the elevation of four thousand feet above 
 sea level. Here are to meet the great conti- 
 nental railroad systems of Africa. Already 
 two of these railroad lines are complete, con- 
 necting with the south and east coasts at six 
 different ports, and with other lines under 
 construction connecting with the other coasts 
 of the continent. 
 
 There are great benefits to the country aris- 
 ing from the presence of stable governments 
 and of legitimate commerce and industry, but 
 their presence alone does not uplift the people ; 
 there is need also of the third great factor 
 the church with the regenerating gospel of 
 Jesus Christ, which is needed by the incoming 
 foreigners quite as much as by the natives of 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 the country. The best thought and methods 
 of the church for meeting the needs of the 
 people in other lands are required to solve the 
 problems arising from the complex conditions 
 found in these new centers in Africa. The 
 beginnings of this mission, with the agencies 
 of school, book store, press, and living evan- 
 gels, contain the true hope for the future of 
 this section, destined to be the commercial 
 and industrial capital of all Central Africa. 
 
 God has wonderfully led Mr. and Mrs. 
 Springer day by day and year by year. They 
 are one, in a noble and effective consecration 
 of heart and faith. They believe that the gospel 
 which has saved them spiritually is the funda- 
 mental need of the heathen world, and the one 
 weapon by which through the Divine Spirit 
 the Moslem world is to be redeemed. 
 
 In spite of discouragements, frequent illness 
 of body, owing to unhealthy climatic condi- 
 tions, they have wrought well. The Congo 
 Mission is the result of five years of unremit- 
 ting toil and sacrifice, and is a foundation well 
 laid. Its strategic importance to the multi- 
 tudes of native barbaric blacks in Central 
 Africa is very great, while the importance of 
 its relations to Mohammedanism in that sec- 
 tion of the continent cannot be overestimated. 
 
xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 Another great fact concerning this mission 
 center is, that as the work among the Moslems 
 extends northward sooner or later it will 
 touch the advancing influences coming south- 
 ward, of the same type of work, being carried 
 forward by the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 and other mission bodies among the followers 
 of the false prophet in North Africa. 
 
 Twenty thousand dollars a year for the next 
 five years put into the work of that Congo 
 Mission would lay foundations permanent and 
 tremendous in their influence for the future 
 over a vast area of barbaric and Mohammedan 
 Africa. 
 
 December 3, 1915. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE FIRST JOURNEY 
 
 Two months after we went into temporary 
 camp at the abandoned government post of 
 Kalulua, a tall, lean Lunda came to us. He 
 did not knock, as we had no door, but, making 
 his presence known, told me his story. He was 
 born seventy miles north of where we were at 
 that time, in the Lukoshi Valley. When a lad 
 of about ten or twelve years of age, a band of 
 natives from the Portuguese territory of An- 
 gola came to the interior to capture slaves for 
 the Angola and Saint Thomas markets. With 
 many others Kayeka was seized and taken 
 eight hundred miles west, where he was sold to 
 a native master, whose village was near one of 
 the mission stations of the American Board. 
 Evidently Kayeka's master was kind and he 
 permitted the youth to attend the Mission 
 School, where he was converted. 
 
 Not long after his conversion there came 
 upon Kayeka a burden for the salvation of his 
 people. He saw what the Mission was doing 
 for the Umbundu people among whom he was 
 
 1 
 
2 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 then living and he began to pray for a mission- 
 ary for his own tribe. He married a young 
 Christian girl, also a slave, owned by another 
 master, and to them were born four children 
 to whom, as a good start in life, they gave the 
 names of Sarah, Rachel, Esther, and Moses. 
 
 Kayeka's prayers so impressed the congrega- 
 tion of erstwhile Umbundu slavers of his own 
 people that they finally said if he would go as 
 a missionary to his people they would send him 
 his support year after year. However, it was 
 impracticable for him to go alone, and when 
 the matter was presented to the missionaries, 
 they considered it carefully, but were obliged to 
 reply that it was impossible for them to extend 
 their field to the interior at that time, and so 
 the project had to be abandoned. 
 
 But Kayeka kept on praying. Caravans 
 laden with rubber were constantly returning 
 from the interior, many of them from the 
 Lunda country. Kayeka visited their camping 
 places at nights and asked them about the in- 
 terior and particularly whether there were any 
 missionaries among his people. He was always 
 answered in the negative. 
 
 Soon after the establishment of the Portu- 
 guese Republic, the officials in Angola were 
 informed that they were seriously to effect the 
 
THE FIRST JOURNEY 3 
 
 emancipation of the slaves held in the country. 
 However, Kayeka seemed to consider himself 
 as beholden to his master and he was moved 
 to make this proposition to him. His master 
 should furnish him with trading goods and he 
 would go to the interior and buy rubber, the 
 profits of the trip to constitute his redemption 
 price. To this the master consented, and, leav- 
 ing his wife and babies as sort of hostages, 
 Kayeka left for the interior early in the year 
 of 1910, probably not long before the time that 
 we left America. 
 
 He had established himself at a village one 
 hundred and fifty miles west of Kalulua, and, 
 hearing of our arrival in the country, at once 
 came to see us, for while he was endeavoring to 
 secure his freedom, the main object of his jour- 
 ney to the interior was to find out the mission- 
 ary prospects for his tribe. I was very glad 
 to be able to assure him that we were appointed 
 to the Lunda people and that after the rains 
 were over we would advance into the Lunda 
 country. He told me of the earnest desire of 
 his heart to join in the work of the evangeliza- 
 tion of his people and of his prayers for years 
 for a missionary to come to his people. When 
 I asked him more particularly how long he had 
 been praying for this missionary he answered 
 
4 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 somewhere between seven and ten years. 
 Thinking back to the time when I first felt a 
 definite responsibility for this interior part 
 of the continent, I noted that it was just seven 
 years previously. As this humble slave boy 
 stood before me and told of those years of 
 continued prayer for a missionary for his peo- 
 ple, there came to me an overwhelming con- 
 viction that while many others had been pray- 
 ing for the opening of mission work in the 
 heart of Africa, he was the instrument upon 
 whom God had laid the final burden of im- 
 portunate intercession that would not be 
 denied through many years. I was convinced 
 that before me stood the one who had prayed 
 us into Central Africa. And when I have since 
 recalled how time after time in the years 1905- 
 1906, in testing what was increasingly a com- 
 manding call to go and explore that interior 
 part of Africa on our way home to the United 
 States on furlough, we put it from us over and 
 again as an utterly impossible thing for us to 
 do, and the conviction came back to us each 
 time with increased force until we were im- 
 pelled and compelled to make that trip across 
 the continent, I have come to understand that 
 it was because this faithful pray-er who was 
 two thousand miles away on the other side of 
 
THE FIRST JOURNEY 5 
 
 the continent was holding on to God in child- 
 like faith for his own Lunda people in their 
 unrelieved heathen darkness. 
 
 Kayeka remained with us two days witness- 
 ing in the villages about to the saving power 
 of God and then went back to complete his 
 trading. He was to bring in his wife and chil- 
 dren and join us somewhere to the north, 
 where we would be building a station the next 
 year. We shall be able to report later the safe 
 arrival of Kayeka and his party in the Lunda 
 country. 
 
 With this party of Kayeka's was a young 
 man named Kaluwasi of the adjoining tribe to 
 the east. Like Kayeka, he was about thirty- 
 five or forty years of age. He had never been 
 a slave, but on one occasion, when an Um- 
 bundu group of rubber traders had been in his 
 country, he had joined them as a carrier and 
 had gone to the same part of Angola as where 
 Kayeka was living. Kaluwasi married a 
 woman of that country and settled near one of 
 the Missions. He also had three or four chil- 
 dren. 
 
 On Kayeka's return from his rubber trading 
 expedition, the news soon spread that he was 
 to return to his country, as now there was a 
 
6 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 missionary there to father and protect him. 
 This news came to the many villages of Baluba 
 in Angola and in KaluwasFs village there was 
 held a consultation which resulted in the de- 
 cision that one member should go into the in- 
 terior with Kayeka to spy out the land and the 
 conditions there and return and report as to 
 whether it were feasible for the Baluba to re- 
 turn to their country. These Baluba selected 
 Kaluwasi to be their representative and told 
 him that as he visited villages on his journey 
 and would be telling the gospel story they did 
 not want him, their representative, sitting on 
 the ground. So he must take a steamer chair 
 for such occasions, an article very commonly 
 used in their Christian homes in Angola. 
 
 Neither did they want him to carry his own 
 load, so they contributed a sum to pay a carrier 
 named Mbundu to accompany him. They re- 
 mained with us a month at Lukoshi in 1913, 
 and with letters to government officials these 
 two men started out on their long journey to 
 the north, and after some weeks reached the 
 former home of Kaluwasi on the banks of the 
 Lufungoi River. He found his father, some of 
 his brothers, and a few other near relatives, 
 and after spending two months there came 
 down to Kambove, whither we had moved in the 
 
THE FIRST JOURNEY 7 
 
 ? 
 
 meantime. When I asked him about his coun- 
 try and whether there were many people there, 
 he waved his hand in the direction of the trees 
 of the forest in which we were encamped and 
 said the people w r ere many, many, like the trees 
 of the forest. Then he told us that when the 
 news of his arrival had spread in the villages, 
 the people came in and listened to his story, 
 especially to the message of his conversion and 
 of the new life in Christ. They kept him talk- 
 ing throughout the hours of the day, day after 
 day, new deputations coming and going. This 
 continued until he was weary and worn and 
 his voice completely gave out, and yet the depu- 
 tations would come in and they would plead 
 for just a few words. They sent a message by 
 him asking that a missionary be sent to settle 
 among them and bring them the blessing of the 
 Gospel and of education as well. 
 
 I was most delightfully surprised to find 
 that Kaluwasi was a mason. He was able to 
 lay the brick house for our residence at Kam- 
 bove, thus earning money to finance him on 
 his return to Angola to bring in his wife and 
 children. 
 
 In November, 1914, he returned from Angola 
 to the Belgian Congo at the head of a party of 
 four families and from Bukama he sent a mes- 
 
8 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 sage to me at Kambove, but which reached 
 there after my departure, asking if his ("my") 
 missionary was ready now to go to his country 
 and whether he should go on and build the 
 house and the school so as to be ready for the 
 missionary on his arrival. 
 
 These two and their comrades are helpers 
 for our work in the Congo Mission that have 
 come out from the West, and others are at 
 hand that have come from the East also. 
 
 In April, 1914, I received a telegram from 
 Elisabethville to come down and baptize the 
 infant of a Belgian doctor there. I took with 
 me a young native evangelist and colporteur 
 and left him there to visit the various mining 
 camps, sell books, and get acquainted with the 
 situation and report to me, as I had very little 
 time to stay in Elisabethville myself. On his 
 return he reported great interest among the 
 young men, and I later sent him down on an- 
 other trip with additional books for sale. On 
 his return on that occasion he brought me a 
 petition signed by twenty-four native young 
 men from Nyasaland, who were Christians, but 
 who had no church privileges in Elisabethville. 
 They begged me to come down and organize a 
 church. In a month or two I was able to get 
 
THE FIRST JOURNEY 9 
 
 away and respond to their request. I found 
 their leader to be one named Joseph Jutu. 
 Just about the time of my visit, there had come 
 to Elisabethville a young man named Moses 
 Kumwenda, who had been for some years a 
 teacher and evangelist in the Presbyterian Mis- 
 sion in Nyasaland. Joseph had been at Elisa- 
 bethville for three years or more. He had 
 faithfully gathered the men in on Sabbaths, 
 and on other occasions, for singing, Bible read- 
 ing, and prayer, trying thus to hold them true 
 to their Christian faith. He had seen scores 
 of his former classmates swept away by the 
 surging tide of temptation but had been able 
 to hold a few true to their profession. It is not 
 to be wondered at that so many of these native 
 young men had fallen, since the example of 
 many of the white men of the country is so 
 pernicious. 
 
 On the arrival of Moses, Joseph at once with 
 a rare spirit of modesty stepped back and said, 
 "You are my senior ; you must lead us." Moses 
 was also of a beautiful humble spirit and tried 
 to decline and urged Joseph to retain the 
 leadership of the little band in Elisabethville. 
 But Joseph insisted upon Moses assuming the 
 position of leader. These two men have 
 worked together with a rare spirit of unity and 
 
10 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 devotion in caring for the infant church which 
 I organized there in December of that year. 
 
 Our presence in Central Africa and our asso- 
 ciation with these young men had come about 
 thus. 
 
 In 1901 I was appointed missionary to East 
 Africa and was stationed at Old Umtali. In 
 the party with which I went out was Mrs. 
 Helen E. Rasmussen, who in 1905 became my 
 wife. As I have already indicated, in 1903 there 
 came to me a very definite sense of responsi- 
 bility for the interior of Africa, which was but 
 the hinterland of the district in Rhodesia of 
 which I was then superintendent. After our 
 term of six years on the field, we returned to 
 America. We came across the continent, pro- 
 ceeding by rail via Bulawayo and Victoria 
 Falls to Broken Hill in northern Rhodesia, at 
 that time the head of the Cape-to-Cairo Rail- 
 road. On May 13, 1907, we left Broken Hill 
 with a caravan of fifty natives and, proceeding 
 northwest, visited the mining camps of Kan- 
 shanshi, Kambove, and Ruwi, also the mission 
 stations of the Plymouth Brethren at Kaleni 
 Hill and Kavungu, thence northwesterly for 
 six hundred miles to Malange in Angola. Dur- 
 ing the last stage of our journey we saw no 
 
THE FIRST JOURNEY 11 
 
 white settlements. In this journey we had 
 skirted the southern part of the Lunda field, 
 but were not permitted to penetrate the coun- 
 try and visit the town of Mwata Yamvo be- 
 cause of the war which was then being prose- 
 cuted against the Waleji cannibals, who had 
 come into the country from the north. Our 
 travel by native trail of fifteen hundred miles 
 had been through country almost untouched 
 by missionary effort and the Lunda field to 
 the north of us, comprising a territory as large 
 as the States of Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana 
 combined, had not a single missionary. For 
 two years we gave the message of Africa to the 
 churches of America and in 1909, in connection 
 with the Africa Diamond Jubilee, pledges for 
 four thousand dollars per year for five years 
 were made for work in the interior of Africa. 
 On the basis of these pledges, the Board of 
 Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church and Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell sent us 
 to open the work in the Lunda field. 
 
 Leaving America in February, 1910, we 
 spent three weeks in Sweden, speaking in the 
 churches there on our mission work in Africa, 
 and, returning to London, sailed for South 
 Africa and reached Cape Town in May, from 
 which point we proceeded to the north again. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 STRIKING THE TRAIL AGAIN 
 
 ON June 2, 1910, after three years' absence, 
 Mrs. Springer and myself again arrived at 
 Broken Hill. We found the little depot in the 
 same place, nearly a mile from the town. 
 There was still but the one hotel ; this time it 
 was run by Mr. Boon and had by way of im- 
 provement a corrugated iron dining room. The 
 sleeping quarters were mud and pole huts as 
 of yore. The rates of three dollars a day also 
 remained the same. As our purse was in the 
 same state as three years previously, we re- 
 mained at the hotel just one day and then were 
 grateful for the offer of an old, two-roomed 
 mud and pole house belonging to the mine. 
 The secretary and caretaker of the mine prop- 
 erty, Mr. Teagle, loaned us a single cot bed 
 (all that he had at his disposal). The cot, 
 guiltless of a mattress, was, with two steamer 
 chairs we had brought with us, our only furni- 
 ture for some days. I was able to borrow a 
 soap box which we used as a table, and so we 
 
 12 
 
STRIKING THE TRAIL AGAIN 13 
 
 began our work again with the simplest equip- 
 ment imaginable. 
 
 We had brought with us from Cape Town four 
 of the boys whom we had left in Angola with 
 Brother Kipp. Jacob (you will recall) had 
 been a linker-in on the railroad when he first 
 came into contact with us nearly four years 
 previously and, although a man in his twenties, 
 his whole schooling up to that time had con- 
 sisted of six months in a village day school. 
 Three years had done wonders for him and I 
 was able to use him at once as interpreter and 
 evangelist. The other three boys, Jim, Mu- 
 sondo, and Songoro, were less developed, 
 though useful with some of the many dialects. 
 
 I found here now, as previously, that no 
 Christian work was being done for these native 
 workmen along the railroad construction, and 
 my advent was hailed with great pleasure by 
 many of them. We held services nearly every 
 evening through the week and several on Sun- 
 day. I counted sixteen tribes at one of the 
 Sunday services. More than ever we were 
 convinced of the need of workers for this class 
 of natives and the almost criminal neglect of 
 the Church to provide such for them. We 
 longed to see the great needs here met, but 
 could do nothing about it ourselves, as our in- 
 
14 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 structions were to proceed at once to the 
 Lunda country and we knew that our work lay 
 there. 
 
 We were delayed a month at Broken Hill 
 getting our baggage from Cape Town, repack- 
 ing, and getting carriers. It is impossible to 
 mention a hundredth of the cases of marked 
 Divine providence that attended us during the 
 following years. But one case of a caravan 
 which arrived just as I had finished one lot of 
 packing is still strongly impressed on my mind. 
 This caravan was returning to Kaleni Hill, ten 
 miles from Kalalua, where we were to spend 
 the next rainy season (though we did not know 
 that then). We did know that they were 
 bound along the same general route that we 
 were to take, and thanked God devoutly for 
 the chance to send seventeen loads right 
 through. 
 
 The month spent here was a valuable one in 
 many ways. I was thus enabled to reach and 
 get acquainted with some of the natives work- 
 ing on railroad construction, many of whom 
 I was to meet nearly four years later at Kam- 
 bove, particularly one named Mashona, who 
 had once been a Christian at Bulawayo, but 
 during the three years among ungodly sur- 
 roundings along the railroad, had back- 
 
STRIKING THE TRAIL AGAIN 15 
 
 slidden. However, during this time at Broken 
 Hill, he turned back to God and was one of 
 the first to welcome our coming to Kambove 
 and to join our church there and become an 
 active lay worker. 
 
 On June 29, at three o'clock in the afternoon, 
 we trekked northward out of Broken Hill for 
 the second time, but this time taking the direct 
 trade route. At the last moment we had the 
 first of many disappointments in finding that 
 we were short of carriers and fourteen loads 
 must be left behind. I sought out a Jew who 
 had charge of certain lines of transportation 
 and arranged with him to send our loads after 
 us. He assured me that in all probability the 
 loads would reach Kansanshi a day or so ahead 
 of ourselves. Vain delusion! Yet to leave 
 them with him was all I could do under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 Our caravan was among the last to follow 
 this old trade route. Two reasons led to its 
 abandonment. In the first place the railroad 
 had been constructed from Broken Hill some 
 distance into the Belgian Congo and most of 
 the passengers went that way. But as the 
 construction company were charging twenty- 
 four cents a mile for passengers and enormous 
 rates for freight we could not pay it. More- 
 
16 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 over, it would still leave us one hundred miles 
 from Kansanshi, at a point where no carriers 
 could be obtained except at impossible rates 
 and quite off the main paths. 
 
 The other reason was that this route was 
 now attended with no little danger from rob- 
 bers. A certain white man had trained a small 
 band of natives to assist him in the life of an 
 outlaw. The end was that he was murdered 
 by these same pupils who had learned his les- 
 sons too well. Knowing their fate if caught, 
 they had been terrorizing caravans and com- 
 mitting many robberies, especially in the re- 
 gion of the Lukanga swamp where they could 
 be successfully hidden. Ugly rumors were 
 afloat before we left Broken Hill and our men 
 were none too cheerful about taking that route. 
 I have never heard of any other caravan taking 
 that route after us: it is doubtful if carriers 
 could have been persuaded to go. 
 
 The rumors increased and so did the anxiety 
 of our men as we went along. For ourselves, 
 we were less concerned, having long since 
 learned how little of such scare news can be 
 believed. Nevertheless when we reached the 
 Lukanga swamp and were met by the most 
 villainous looking lot of native ferrymen we 
 had ever seen, we felt that we would rather 
 
A VILLAINOUS LOOKING LOT OF FERRYMEN 
 ON THE TRACTION ROAD, KANSANSHI-BAYA 
 
STRIKING THE TRAIL AGAIN 17 
 
 deal with a better class of native. But here 
 we were at the swamp and at the mercy of 
 these men. So I picked out two of them and 
 arranged for them to take us and our loads 
 through the worst of the swamp in their 
 canoes. These canoes were as unpromising as 
 their owners. The first one nearly sank at the 
 start and I had to get into a second one, leav- 
 ing my wife as the only passenger in the first. 
 As mine was plastered up with clay all along 
 the side, I removed shoes and stockings so that 
 I could wade or swim in case the clay side 
 caved in. We were nearly an hour going 
 through the swamp to where we could wade 
 out on the other side. When all our belongings 
 were over, ten men came up and demanded a 
 shilling each for the work. This was five times 
 the price we should have paid, but under the 
 circumstances I paid rather than get into a 
 quarrel at this time. 
 
 The next day we came to a village from 
 which most of the people had fled and those 
 who remained were about to leave in terror of 
 their lives. From that on the rumors grew 
 uglier until there could be no doubt but that 
 there was actual danger along that route. A 
 few days later I was at the front of the caravan 
 and we noticed a lot of vultures a little to the 
 
18 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 left of the path. Two or three of my carriers 
 stepped aside to see what had called the vul- 
 tures and to their horror they came upon four 
 murdered natives. They had evidently camped 
 at this small stream and had been murdered 
 during the night and their loads seized. From 
 that time on our carriers kept close to us by 
 day and at night slept all around our tent, as 
 close as it was possible to get, until we reached 
 our last camping place at the Mission occupied 
 by the Kev. A. W. Bailey, fourteen miles 
 south of Kansanshi. This station of the South 
 Africa General Mission had just been opened. 
 During our stay at Kansanshi we saw much 
 of our countryman, Mr. Bailey, whom we 
 found a man after our heart and a brother 
 indeed. 
 
 On arriving at Kanshanshi, two more disap- 
 pointments were in store for us. We found 
 that our loads had not arrived and that we 
 could get no house in which to stop while wait- 
 ing for them. Thinking that it would be but 
 a matter of waiting a week at the most, we 
 occupied an old abandoned camp of a char- 
 coal burner, sleeping in our tiny tent by night 
 and living out of doors by day. It was very 
 cold and windy so that conditions were ex- 
 ceedingly disagreeable during the time of our 
 
STRIKING THE TRAIL AGAIN 19 
 
 stay, which eventually lengthened into two 
 whole months. 
 
 The mining work had gone ahead during the 
 three years since our previous visit, and 
 already a thousand tons of smelted copper 
 were stacked up awaiting the arrival of the 
 railway to the nearest point sixty miles east 
 of there, now called Baya, whence it could be 
 transported by traction engines. This was 
 being done the following year when we passed 
 through Kansanshi for the third and last time. 
 
 One notable item regarding the mine was 
 that much of the smelter had been cast on the 
 spot. The iron ore required was available 
 only a few miles away,. and so nearly pure was 
 it that it needed to go through no preliminary 
 purifying process. 
 
 As Brother Bailey was doing the missionary 
 work at Kansanshi, I did little among either 
 whites or natives except by means of personal 
 work. As we were not allowed to hold any 
 services in the mine compound, I held them at 
 a distance from the compound and at our 
 camp, and many came there to attend. A few 
 boys joined our school and traveled west with 
 us when we left. 
 
 The most notable feature of our stay here 
 was the inaugurating of the Fox Bible Train- 
 
20 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 ing School, funds for building the station 
 of which had been given us by Dr. C. Vernon 
 Fox and wife of Dakota. We started with 
 but six pupils, with only the sky for a roof, 
 logs for benches, and a very limited supply of 
 books. But primitive as it all was, we began 
 the next day but one after reaching Kansanshi, 
 that is, on July 20, 1910, and from that day 
 this institution has been meeting and will con- 
 tinue to meet a great need in that section of 
 the country. It is a well accepted fact that 
 Africa must be evangelized largely by her own 
 people. Therefore the best work of the mis- 
 sionary is not preaching important though 
 that may be and much as he loves it but in 
 preparing the natives to preach, to teach, and 
 to lead their own people. 
 
 A week passed and still no loads, so I wrote 
 to ask about them, and when the reply came 
 it bore the surprising information that the 
 loads were still at Broken Hill and probably 
 would remain there indefinitely. There was 
 but one thing to do and that was to go to rail 
 head, which was now nearly up to the traction 
 road, running east from Kansanshi, and have 
 them sent by rail. 
 
 This I did, and as the traction road was 
 newly cut and not yet much used, I shall never 
 
STRIKING THE TRAIL AGAIN 21 
 
 forget the painful experience of doing sixty 
 miles on a bicycle in one day my first cycling 
 for years. I wired for the loads to be sent, and 
 after some delay they arrived safely, and I re- 
 turned with them to Kansanshi after two 
 weeks' absence, during which time Mrs. 
 Springer had been alone at our camp alone as 
 far as white people were concerned. Shortly 
 after I left for rail head two groups of carriers 
 arrived for us, one of raw Andembwe who had 
 never been so far from home before and a 
 smaller one of Aluena some thirty in all for 
 her to take care of until I returned. 
 
 We were now just three months behind the 
 time we had planned ; this was a serious mat- 
 ter, as we might now expect the rains any day. 
 These unexpected and unavoidable delays had 
 given us no little concern, but we came to feel 
 that since these delays were in no part what- 
 ever our fault, in some way or other the Lord 
 would provide for us and our school during 
 the rainy season so near at hand. 
 
 The day before leaving Kansanshi I had to 
 call on the District Magistrate, Mr. Hazle, con- 
 cerning my carriers. In the course of the con- 
 versation he asked me what was our ultimate 
 destination. I replied that it was the Lunda 
 country. He then asked if I had any station 
 
22 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 prepared in which to spend the rainy season. 
 I told him that I regretted very much to say 
 that I had not. He then offered us the use of 
 Kalulua station if it were still standing. The 
 government had abandoned it some months 
 before and he did not know if it had been 
 burned or not. Whereupon we thanked God 
 and went forward with renewed hope and cour- 
 age. 
 
 We left Kansanshi on September 13, the 
 hottest time in the year, but though the rains 
 were already due, we had none until two nights 
 before we reached our journey's end. Nearly 
 all of the veld had been burned over and the 
 very ground under our feet was parched and 
 cracked. Native food was scarce, but at the 
 worst juncture I was able to shoot a sable 
 antelope and thus furnish food for ourselves 
 and caravan. I had been fortunate in supply- 
 ing a lot of meat to the caravan on the traction 
 road, but game was more scarce from this on. 
 
 Right here I wish to say that it has been 
 wonderful to us to see how the Lord has pro- 
 vided for us at all times. Once we had camped 
 too late in the evening for me to go out hunt- 
 ing. The next morning we had to be on the 
 trail early, but while the others were breaking 
 camp, I took two men and went down to the 
 
STRIKING THE TRAIL AGAIN 23 
 
 water hole to see if I could bag a pig. We 
 did not see a thing and were returning empty 
 handed when we saw that something heavy had 
 been dragged across the path since we came 
 out. We followed the spoor and found a zebra 
 which a lion had just killed and was dragging 
 along. Evidently the lion fled as he heard us 
 approach, and my men raised a shout which 
 brought the whole caravan on the run and the 
 zebra was soon cut up and carried off. That 
 night we had juicy, tenderloin zebra steaks for 
 our supper. 
 
 At another time I had occasion for thanks- 
 giving for quite another reason. I had had to 
 walk along the Kansanshi traction road for 
 nearly three hours after dark. I was alone 
 with only my bicycle and did not relish the 
 walk at all. Returning later over the same 
 trail by day, I found bits of a zebra skin, all 
 that was left of the poor beast that had been 
 killed and eaten by a lion on this same section 
 of road over which I had passed. 
 
 At Mwinilunga we were most cordially and 
 hospitably received by the Commissioner, Mr. 
 Bellis, who then and ever afterward showed 
 himself ready to give us any assistance in his 
 power. He was engaged in building the new 
 government station and assured us that the old 
 
24 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 one at Kalulua was still standing and would 
 provide us excellent shelter during the rains. 
 
 Two nights later we slept near the source 
 of the Zambesi River, and the next night 
 reached Kaleni Hill, where we were once more 
 welcomed by Miss Eileen Darling and her asso- 
 ciate, Miss Hoyt. Here again we met Mr. 
 Sawyer and Miss Ing, who proudly introduced 
 to us the youngest member of the Mission, Miss 
 Betty Sawyer, five days old. Dr. and Mrs. 
 Fisher were in Ireland at the time. 
 
 The next noon, October 1, we reached Kalu- 
 lua, ten miles north of Kaleni Hill, where two 
 days later we were joined by Mr. Herman 
 Heinkel, who was associated with us for the 
 next three and a half years. We found a set 
 of commodious buildings admirably adapted 
 to our needs and, although there were neither 
 doors nor windows on any of them, we were 
 very comfortable there for the next seven 
 months. Our later experience in the building 
 of two stations has accentuated our apprecia- 
 tion of this station and our gratitude to God 
 for providing Kalulua for us at this time. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 KALULUA TO LUKOSHI 
 
 THE very night that Mr. Heinkel joined us, 
 the rains began in dead earnest with one of the 
 characteristic thunder showers that seem to 
 rend heaven and earth. It is a rare thing in 
 many parts of the center of Africa to have a 
 whole rainy day: the rain is poured out in 
 showers, and most of them are terrific. 
 
 At Kalulua, as at Broken Hill, the houses 
 were unfurnished, and we had no furniture 
 except what we could make and that was little 
 enough. A small table for the dining room 
 w r as made of our provision boxes; the beds, 
 chairs, and other furniture were largely made 
 of sticks and poles tied together with bark 
 rope. Yet we did not have any reason what- 
 ever to complain. We were reasonably com- 
 fortable and happy with the school work, 
 which for the most part occupied our attention. 
 Connected with this was the visitation of the 
 neighboring villages and the work on new text 
 books suitable for native use. 
 
 25 
 
26 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 In the matter of food we were far from satis- 
 fied. The natives in that vicinity were the 
 most shiftless we have ever seen. They be- 
 longed to the class aptly described as "having 
 nothing and wanting nothing." Neither would 
 they work, so that we had to draw very lightly 
 on what European stores we had and live 
 mostly on sour mush and beans, a diet on 
 which we truly lived,, but did not thrive. 
 
 Not only was it difficult to buy or obtain 
 food for ourselves, but for our boys as well. 
 More than once we had to pray earnestly that 
 the food would come in and in every instance 
 our faith was rewarded. Mr. Heinkel had 
 charge of the buying of native food, and after 
 experience in trying to buy in the villages, he 
 used to say, "It is of no use sending out to buy 
 it but the Lord will send it to us," and He 
 did. But even so, there was very little variety, 
 and but for the mushrooms our boys would 
 have fared ill also. In no place that we have 
 lived in Africa have we seen so many and such 
 large mushrooms as grow around Kalulua. 
 We tried to eat them but were unable to do so, 
 though the natives were very fond of them. 
 
 But while the ground at Kalulua raised 
 enormous mushrooms, it refused to raise any- 
 thing else. We wasted a lot of seed and labor, 
 
KALULUA TO LUKOSHI 27 
 
 as had Mr. Bellis before us, in the effort to 
 have a garden, but reaped no benefits whatever. 
 
 Once during our stay at Kalulua we were 
 fortunate enough to get seventeen carriers to 
 go down to the railroad for supplies for us. 
 Alas ! After nearly three months they returned 
 with ten loads for others and only seven for us, 
 and these were so badly packed that there were 
 really only about three loads of provisions in 
 all. It was very apparent that if we were to 
 have inland stations we must have someone at 
 the railroad who could load caravans properly 
 when they were sent down. 
 
 We had hoped to make some progress in the 
 language as these people glibly called them- 
 selves Lunda, but we soon learned that they 
 were neither Alunda nor spoke the Lunda lan- 
 guage. As to their origin one theory told us 
 later is that they were an offshoot of a lot of 
 Kosa slaves who had been brought by one of 
 the former Mwata Yamvos to work his great 
 salt pans to the east of Kambove. They cer- 
 tainly do not speak a pure Bantu tongue. Dr. 
 Fisher and other members of the Garanganze 
 Mission of Plymouth Brethren, however, have 
 made marked progress in reducing this mixed 
 language to writing and in starting a Chin- 
 dembwe literature. 
 
28 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 And now, as the new year came in and the 
 end of the rains might be expected in three or 
 four months, we were confronted with the 
 question of our next move. Our understand- 
 ing with Bishop Hartzell had been for us to 
 proceed to the Lunda country and this we had 
 not yet reached. In no case could we have 
 considered remaining at Kalulua so near to 
 Dr. Fisher's work, even had this been in the 
 Lunda country. But had we been willing so 
 to do, it was impossible as the buildings at 
 Kalulua had been sold to a Swedish trader, 
 Mr. Frykberg, who came to occupy them in the 
 latter part of April, though he and his wife 
 urged us most cordially to remain where we 
 were and share the station with them. 
 
 It is hard for the reader to realize how very 
 difficult it is to get reliable information in 
 Africa except at first hand, and sometimes 
 difficult even then. We could get very little 
 information at Kalulua concerning the Lunda 
 country, so in March I made a trip to the 
 nearest important Lunda chief named Ka- 
 zembe. He was a true Lunda though more 
 than half his people were not. He expressed 
 great pleasure at the prospect of having us 
 come and settle near his village. I then went 
 to the nearest Belgian post to get the necessary 
 
KALULUA TO LUKOSHI 29 
 
 permission to settle in the country. They 
 could not grant it, but sent me to a second and 
 superior post, where I was told that I must 
 get the permission from Elisabethville. 
 
 So there seemed nothing for it but to go in 
 person to this capital of the section of the 
 Congo known as Katanga. We built a small 
 hut near a native village four miles from Ka- 
 lulua and Mr. Heinkel and Jacob remained 
 there with our goods while Mrs. Springer and 
 I went to Elisabethville. Mrs. Springer was 
 taken very ill just before leaving, but Dr. 
 Fisher had just returned to his station and 
 he kindly came over and attended her and she 
 was seemingly quite well when we started. 
 
 And right here I wish to record our grati- 
 tude and appreciation of all the help and kind- 
 ness shown us by these our fellow workers, by 
 Miss Darling, who had charge of the station 
 during her uncle's absence, and by Dr. and 
 Mrs. Fisher after their return during the next 
 three years. 
 
 The one marked incident of our three weeks' 
 journey down was a relapse of Mrs. Springer's. 
 She became so very ill that we had to stop one 
 noon near a small stream of water but with no 
 villages for two days ahead, and none near nor 
 behind us. The situation was most serious. 
 
30 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 We could not remain there long and it looked 
 as if it would be fatal to her to go on. But 
 while lying there on the floor of the tent there 
 came to her a message as though spoken in an 
 audible voice, "Go on in the strength of the 
 Lord." 
 
 Our carriers on this trip were of very raw 
 caliber and they were the most troublesome 
 crowd that we ever had. Many of them were 
 going down light to bring back loads, and thus 
 a larger number than usual were available for 
 carrying Mrs. Springer, but the more there 
 were the more quarreling there was to see who 
 could keep from carrying at all. Evidently 
 each wished to go along free "like a gentle- 
 man" and be paid at the same time. I was 
 riding a crippled bicycle, which I could not 
 pedal, but by having a boy push with a long 
 stick from behind and coasting down the hills, 
 I was relieved of a certain amount of walking. 
 But on the traction road, beyond Kansanshi, 
 it was so billowy, as a result of the heavy 
 traffic, that the strain broke the fork of my 
 wheel and I had to walk. 
 
 The puffing of the traction engines along 
 this road, in taking out the thousand tons of 
 copper, had driven the deer and other wild 
 animals away, so that where the year before 
 
KALTJLUA TO LUKOSHI 31 
 
 I had shot several heads of game right from 
 the path, we now saw none from one end of 
 the road to the other. 
 
 The change at Elisabethville was indeed 
 marvelous. Only nine months before I had 
 seen them beginning to fell the trees for the 
 streets. Now we came into a town with twenty 
 miles of well laid-out streets with a population 
 of more than one thousand Europeans, living 
 for the most part, at this stage, in mud huts, 
 wood and iron houses, and many under buck- 
 sails (water-proof canvas). From being a 
 wilderness ten months before Elisabethville 
 had leaped in one year to the distinction of 
 being the largest settlement of Europeans in 
 the entire Belgian Congo. 
 
 A large number of brick yards were in full 
 operation to supply material for the many 
 excellent buildings, public, private, and com- 
 mercial, which were under construction. 
 Along the brow of the hill, overlooking the 
 Lubumbashi River, had been laid out a wide 
 boulevard along which some of the finest resi- 
 dences were being built. All these activities 
 were being pushed at top speed to build this 
 capital town of the Katanga, which is the 
 southeastern province of the Belgian Congo, 
 including all south of 5 south parallel, and 
 
32 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 east of the Kasai Kiver. A very comfortable 
 town is the result, one that would do credit 
 to European countries. This was completed 
 at an enormous expense because of the speed 
 with which it was accomplished and because 
 of the large demands for native workmen, 
 making wages very high. Portland cement 
 was used largely in construction, the cost be- 
 ing between six dollars and ten dollars per 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 We pitched our own camp a little outside 
 of the town for two reasons, one being that it 
 was much cheaper than stopping at hotels, and 
 the other so as to be near our carriers in order 
 to prevent their being stolen by some contract- 
 or in search of laborers, a very common prac- 
 tice throughout the country at this time. 
 
 We were most cordially welcomed by Vice- 
 Governor General E. Wangermee. He later 
 invited us to tea at the residency to meet the 
 heads of the various departments of the gov- 
 ernment. The Governor expressed his pleasure 
 in welcoming us as representatives of an 
 American Missionary Society. He said that 
 in Katanga there were now both British 
 Protestant and Continental, particularly Bel- 
 gian, Catholic societies. He had asked the 
 Roman Catholic authorities at home to send 
 
KALULUA TO LUKOSHI 33 
 
 out to the Katanga the Catholic society actu- 
 ated by the broadest sympathies, namely, the 
 Benedictines, and it was his wish that, while 
 each of the societies should pursue the work 
 in its own way, all should work in harmony. 
 
 The Belgian government is most kindly in 
 its attitude toward the natives. It is generally 
 recognized, both by the officials and the public 
 in general, that now the government errs on 
 the side of too great leniency and that in courts 
 and elsewhere the natives are given a point 
 of vantage against the white man, to the detri- 
 ment of both. They are seeking to correct this 
 tendency and to take a medium attitude. 
 
 With the death of Leopold, a radical change 
 had taken place in the administration of the 
 Congo. It is not generally recognized that the 
 Belgian nation, as a nation, was in no sense 
 responsible for the former atrocities. King 
 Leopold, as independent sovereign of the 
 Congo Free State, and the group immediately 
 under him, many of whom were of other Euro- 
 pean nationalities, were alone responsible for 
 that terrible regime. For the credit of the 
 Belgian nation, it must be said that during the 
 years of his misrule there was no greater oppo- 
 sition to King Leopold and his methods any- 
 where than in his own parliament 
 
34 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 The present King Albert is a man of an al- 
 together different stamp from his predecessor. 
 In 1907, as Prince, he made a journey across 
 the Belgian Congo in spite of the opposition 
 of his uncle and others. In coming up from 
 Cape Town and through Ehodesia and passing 
 through this very region where Elisabethville 
 was now being built, he showed himself to be 
 of a most democratic spirit, and frankly con- 
 fessing the inexperience of Belgium in colonial 
 matters, sought advice in regard to the admin- 
 istration of natives from every possible source. 
 
 On the evening of June 22 we attended the 
 concert in celebration of the coronation of 
 King George, the British and Belgians uniting 
 in the celebration as they were united in the 
 club and in other activities. Governor Wan- 
 germee told us later of his desire that the Bel- 
 gians should acquire the habits of the British 
 and Americans in the matter of recreation and 
 sociability, as shown in sports and clubs, thus 
 securing among themselves greater unity and 
 effectiveness. 
 
 Happily our visit to Elisabethville coincided 
 with the visit of Kobert Williams, that astute 
 financier, in many respects a successor to Cecil 
 Rhodes, but still following distinct lines of his 
 own. In the late 90's he had sent his prospec- 
 
KALULUA TO LUKOSHI 35 
 
 tors a thousand miles ahead of the railroad, 
 and in 1900 discovered the copper field put on 
 the map of Africa by Livingstone in 1857. By 
 marvelous genius he had interested millions of 
 capital in prospecting and then in building 
 one hundred and twenty miles of the Cape-to- 
 Cairo Railroad from Broken Hill to the Bel- 
 gian border, from which point a Belgian com- 
 pany had pushed it forward to the Star of the 
 Congo Mine and to the site where the smelting 
 plant of that southern group of mines of the 
 copper belt was being built on the Lubumbashi 
 River. Mr. Williams was on his first personal 
 visit to these mines and witnessed the begin- 
 ning of the smelting operations. As that 
 molten stream of copper began to flow, he 
 remarked, "This is the beginning of the stream 
 that is to completely revolutionize Central 
 Africa." He was most optimistic over the 
 development of the mining operations and 
 looked forward eagerly to the completion of 
 the Benguela Railroad direct from the West 
 Coast to these mines, now completed over one 
 third of the distance. 
 
 He knew of me, having read my book, The 
 Heart of Central Africa, and was interested 
 and pleased that we were beginning mission 
 work in the country and promised cordial co- 
 
36 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 operation in our propaganda. Mr. Williams 
 made a trip by caravan or "Safari" to Kam- 
 bove and other copper deposits. 
 
 Elisabethville being the rail head, was the 
 commercial center for all the region hundreds 
 of miles north. Messrs. Ullman & Co. 
 were perhaps the strongest group of traders 
 and frequently had caravans of from three to 
 six hundred natives bringing in ivory and 
 rubber from the north. As these raw Baluba 
 marched down the street to the station, to the 
 strains of music from their native instruments, 
 they presented a picturesque sight and created 
 great interest in the town. 
 
 The extension of the railroad to Kambove 
 was just beginning, and thousands of natives, 
 recruited from practically all of the tribes in 
 every direction for hundreds of miles, were 
 concentrated here for work on the mines and 
 on railroad construction. Many of them recog- 
 nized me from our meetings at Broken Hill 
 and begged me to stay and open a school and 
 church. It was a strong, attractive appeal 
 and my heart bled for them and for the King- 
 dom, as no one would be there for the follow- 
 ing three years to shepherd them. But the 
 Divine leadings for us were again to go to the 
 wilderness and the Lunda Land, which also 
 
KALULUA TO LUKOSHI 37 
 
 sorely needed us, and thither we turned our 
 faces after this brief and fresh touch with 
 civilization. 
 
 From the well-provisioned shops we were 
 able to secure all our needed provisions, and 
 we loaded up some sixty carriers, twenty-five 
 of whom w r e had brought with us and thirty- 
 five of whom followed us under the leadership 
 of our old boy, Jim, who has a particular talent 
 for commanding others. 
 
 The trip out from Elisabethville was with- 
 out particular incident except for the deser- 
 tion of some ten carriers in all, but on some 
 of these occasions other natives traveling 
 empty handed came along and helped us on 
 our way. On several occasions I had to draw 
 on Mrs. Springer's machilla carriers, thus 
 making it necessary for her to walk a large 
 part of the day, which was very trying on her. 
 The new sprocket wheel on my bicycle soon 
 went wrong and I had a wheel that was free 
 both ways and which frequently needed to be 
 beaten before it would catch again. For days 
 we passed along a country rich in deposits of 
 iron of excellent purity. 
 
 After twenty-six days of tedious marching 
 we reached the village of Kazembe on the 
 Lukoshi Kiver where we were to build. 
 
CHAPTEE IV 
 BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 
 
 THE one word that is preeminently before 
 our minds whenever the name of Kazembe or 
 the station of Lukoshi is mentioned is the 
 one so often used by the natives to describe 
 their own strongest feelings "hunger." 
 
 The day before we arrived, we walked a 
 weary twenty miles and then found that the 
 village where we had hoped to find food was 
 abandoned, and our carriers had to go to bed 
 hungry and start out hungry the next day. I 
 encouraged them by the assurance that we 
 would reach Kazembe's in the afternoon and 
 that then there would be enough to fill their 
 empty stomachs. I noticed that they did not 
 seem very enthusiastic over the prospect as I 
 naturally thought they would be, but I had to 
 learn from months of sad experience what my 
 carriers, whose homes were less than 100 miles 
 away, knew already that food was always 
 scarce around Kazembe's. 
 
 We walked into Kazembe's village about 
 
 38 
 
BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 39 
 
 three o'clock on July 26, 1911, hot, dirty, 
 dusty, and very weary. The chief came out 
 and gave us a hearty welcome and so did his 
 people and we were exceedingly thankful to be 
 at the end of our toilsome trip covering two 
 months. We hastily picked out a site to camp 
 under a clump of trees not far from the village 
 and then expected that the chief would appear 
 with the customary present of meal and fowls. 
 I told him that my men were hungry and that 
 I wanted to buy food for them, but beyond a 
 few sweet potatoes, no food came. 
 
 The next day the chief brought me a small 
 present of meal and two small fowls, and 
 explained that his was a new village and the 
 people all had their gardens some distance 
 away so he could only bring a small present 
 at that time. He said that he had sent out 
 word far and near for his people to come and 
 bring food, so that in a day or two there would 
 be much ; all of w T hich I believed. 
 
 Not so my carriers. I had engaged most of 
 them to stay and work for me a month and 
 thus help build the station. Several of them 
 were to work two or three months. But with 
 the exception of four they all absolutely re- 
 fused to stay, saying that if they did they 
 w^ould starve to death. In vain I quoted Ka- 
 
40 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 zembe's assurances, but they knew the facts 
 of the case and taking their pay, cleared out 
 as fast as their legs could carry them. 
 
 Then we began looking for a site for the 
 Mission. Kazembe was emphatic in wishing 
 us to build close to his village. But it was 
 evident that he had built too near the river, 
 in a most unhealthy location. So we chose the 
 best site in all that locality, which was on the 
 other side of the Lukoshi River nearly a mile 
 away. The next rainy season proved the wis- 
 dom of our choice, for the river rose to the very 
 edge of his village and flooded the lowlands 
 all around, so that Kazembe himself had to 
 move to higher and dryer ground. 
 
 I had first visited Kazembe on the 25th of 
 March. The chief and his people had expressed 
 themselves as very keen to have us come and 
 live among them. I told the chief then that 
 there would be obligations on the part of him 
 and of his people if we did come. I explained 
 that it would be necessary for them to sell me 
 food and to furnish me carriers for the neces- 
 sary transport connected with a mission sta- 
 tion, for all of which there would be adequate 
 compensation. They agreed readily and prom- 
 ised all most heartily. 
 
 I now told Kazembe that I must have some 
 
BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 41 
 
 carriers to go the seventy miles to Kalulua for 
 loads; lie said I should have them. Neverthe- 
 less, they did not appear and in the end I 
 had to go out and recruit the men myself, and 
 it was with considerable difficulty that I finally 
 got our loads from even that short distance. 
 I was to learn that in the matter of carriers 
 the chief had really little or no power at all. 
 
 The next day, August 1, we cut the first trees 
 and proceeded to put up a rude shelter 
 from the midday sun, particularly for Mrs. 
 Springer. Mr. Heinkel and I were necessarily 
 employed in the open all day long. In fact, an 
 event occurred a month later which made it 
 necessary for one of us to go out to the villages 
 miles away to buy food to keep our boys from 
 starving. 
 
 I told Kazembe that I must have men to help 
 build the station. He said he would bring 
 some the next day. So about ten o'clock, Ka- 
 zembe and ten men arrived and began to cut 
 down the trees about three feet from the 
 ground. I told him that I did not want all 
 the trees cut indiscriminately, but that I did 
 want those which were cut to be cut properly. 
 Bo they worked a couple of hours and then 
 said it was time to quit and go home. The 
 next day I said that we would give them their 
 
42 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 lunch so that they could work longer, but the 
 chief said he never ate in public like common 
 people, and the only way that he would eat at 
 all was behind some bushes shielded by an um- 
 brella. Even though he and his men ate lunch, 
 they soon stopped work and went back to the 
 village and we saw that that plan would not 
 work. I told Kazembe to tell his men to come 
 early in the morning and for each to bring a 
 good pole for building along with him. 
 
 But all our efforts to get any real labor out 
 of the men of the village were in vain. They 
 could not be persuaded to do more than two 
 or three hours' work in a day, and after three 
 days they intimated that a present would be 
 very acceptable. In fact, they expected more 
 than the customary wages for a full day's work 
 for the small amount they had been doing. 
 They were not satisfied with their "present" 
 and Kazembe found that official business re- 
 quired his attention in his village. 
 
 Then I went out into the villages and at last 
 hired ten men to come and work for a month. 
 They had worked a week when Kazembe and 
 several of his followers passed through our 
 grounds one morning stating that he had to 
 "sit" on a case in one of the villages about nine 
 miles away ; a case in which he was personally 
 
BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 43 
 
 interested. The chief is the judge in this coun- 
 try, so in this case as is not infrequent 
 Kazembe was both judge and defendant. He 
 asked me for a present of a certain kind of 
 cloth. I did not have what he wanted, but 
 he finally saw a red bandana handkerchief 
 and wanted that. He took it, snatched the hat 
 from off the head of one of my boys, put the 
 red handkerchief around the hat and went 
 away laughing, as we thought because he con- 
 sidered his getting the hat as a good joke. We 
 learned later that the wearing of the red was 
 his way of declaring war, for before the day 
 was done he had shot down his enemy and 
 that whole section of country was in a state 
 of war. As one of our ten workmen was a 
 son of the murdered man, and the others were 
 relatives or subjects, they were horror stricken 
 and overwhelmed with grief at the dastardly 
 deed and went back to mourn and to fight, if 
 need be. So again, we were left with no work- 
 men except our own small force. 
 
 The very first day that we moved to our 
 mission site, while yet everything was in con- 
 fusion, Sanyangala brought a native visitor 
 to me saying that he was a Lunda proper and 
 spoke the Luunda. So we immediately sat 
 down on a fallen log and worked out a trans- 
 
44 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 lation of a Chindembwe hymn into the Luunda, 
 sung to the tune of the 'Sweet By and By. It 
 was the first hymn ever translated or written 
 in the Lunda language and has always been 
 very popular. 
 
 Linguistically, Kazembe's village was a sort 
 of half-way station between the Lunda and 
 Chindembwe languages, for which the Congo- 
 Zambesi Divide was the boundary line, just as 
 it is between Northern Rhodesia and the Bel- 
 gian Congo. In the northwestern section of 
 Northern Rhodesia the language is Chin- 
 dembwe, though it has been considered as 
 Lunda by many Europeans and is loosely so 
 called by the people themselves. 
 
 The confusion in the name of the language 
 has arisen evidently from the fact that the 
 once powerful Lunda chief, Mwata Yamvo, 
 conquered the Andembwe and incorporated 
 them into the Lunda Empire and they were 
 called Lunda. 
 
 Very probably the conquering warriors re- 
 mained in the land and took the Andembwe 
 women as their wives. But in all lands the 
 speech of the mothers becomes the speech of 
 the children and so, in this case, it is the Chin- 
 dembwe, and not the Lunda, which has been 
 perpetuated. 
 
BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 45 
 
 At Lukoshi, as in many other villages of the 
 Belgian Congo just within the border, the men 
 were mostly Alunda and these spoke and un- 
 derstood the Lunda language. But their wives 
 were largely Andembwe and the common 
 speech was rapidly becoming Chindembwe. 
 Many of the children were quite unable to 
 understand their fathers' language, though 
 they held the Luunda in high esteem and 
 admiration and considered it a marked accom- 
 plishment to be able to speak it. 
 
 The European governments have greatly 
 modified the nature and extent of native rule. 
 So while the Andembwe in Rhodesia still say 
 that Mwata Yamvo is their chief, they no 
 longer pay him any tribute or give him any 
 service nor have any vital connection with 
 him whatever. There is a stronger bond be- 
 tween the Andembwe subjects in the Congo, 
 but they are so far away and have so little to 
 fear from failure to obey his commands, that 
 they, too, fail to meet* any of the demands of 
 their paramount chief. Kazembe, although 
 ruling chief of this Lukoshi province of the 
 Lunda kingdom, for several years now had 
 failed so far to send a present or tribute to 
 Mwata Yamvo, which tribute was formerly re- 
 quired annually. 
 
46 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 At Kalulua, since we did not come in con- 
 tact with any natives speaking the Lunda lan- 
 guage, we were not able to do any language 
 work. Here we found the Luunda quite 
 generally understood and spoken by the older 
 people, so we were able to enter with vigor at 
 once into the reduction of this language to 
 writing. 
 
 The building of a mission station means 
 more than the putting up of poles and plaster 
 and getting roofs over heads. It means estab- 
 lishing and advancing every phase of mission 
 work. 
 
 Two days after our arrival at Lukoshi, a 
 very surprising and important incident oc- 
 curred which meant much to our new mission 
 and to one of our boys. The reader will 
 perhaps remember the two boys, Kitchen and 
 Songoro, of whom I told in The Heart of Cen- 
 tral Africa. These two boys went across with 
 us to Angola, where they remained in school 
 for nearly three years. At the end of that 
 period, we had them sent by boat to Cape 
 Town, as it was not safe at that time to send 
 them back alone across country by trail. As 
 we mentioned previously, we met them in Cape 
 Town and took them along with us. 
 
 The youngest of the four boys was Songoro, 
 
BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 47 
 
 a lad of stormy temperament, who was most 
 devoted at times and at others sullen and very 
 trying to handle. During our year at Kan- 
 sanshi and Kalulua, Songoro was a veritable 
 thorn in the flesh. Most of the time found him 
 in a darkly sullen mood, obstinate as a donkey. 
 He protested against staying any longer in 
 school and his one cry was, "I want to return 
 to my own people. I have not seen them for 
 many years." 
 
 I finally told him that when we went to 
 Elisabethville, I would take him along and 
 then he could go on another three hundred 
 miles and visit his own people. When we got 
 there, he said that he would not go home 
 empty handed, but wished to work and earn 
 money so that he could take plenty of presents 
 with him. I told him that he was free to do 
 as he wished, and that if he ever desired to 
 return to the school he would be welcome. He 
 sullenly declared that he never intended to 
 come to school again never. 
 
 So we had to leave him. We knew that much 
 of his restlessness was due to his age and hoped 
 that when the period of adolescence was passed 
 he might repent and return. Musondo, 
 "Kitchen," did not wish to leave the school, 
 but said that he felt that he must stay with his 
 
48 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 brother Songoro. Therefore we left the two 
 of them. 
 
 It was now the third day of our camp at 
 Lukoshi, and just after lunch I asked Mrs. 
 Springer if she wished to go down with me to 
 the river' where it would be necessary to put 
 a second bridge, and where now there was a 
 tree felled across on which it was possible for 
 the natives to cross, although it was under 
 water and very slippery and dangerous. 
 
 As we came through the thick jungle to the 
 river bank, the boys who were with us ex- 
 claimed in one breath, "Songoro!" I looked, 
 and there on the other side was Songoro in- 
 deed. He hastily let himself down the steep 
 bank and began to dip up the water in his hand 
 to slake his thirst. He was hot, dusty, and 
 very tired, and so overcome with emotion that 
 he could hardly speak. Later on in the cool of 
 the day when he had eaten and rested he told 
 me his story. 
 
 He said that after we left Elisabethville he 
 got work as a table waiter in a good family 
 and thought he would be happy. But one night 
 there came to him, as of an audible voice, the 
 question, "Songoro, what is this you want? 
 You want money. When you get the money 
 and buv a box and fill it full of clothes and 
 
BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 49 
 
 blankets and everything you want, what then? 
 What will all these things profit you if you 
 lose your own soul thereby? Your place is 
 with your teacher in the Mission school, not 
 here." 
 
 He could not get away from this thought. 
 He felt that if he stayed in Elisabethville he 
 would lose his soul, and he suddenly discovered 
 that that was the one thing that he wanted 
 most to save. He went up to Musondo and 
 said, "Musondo, I want to go back to Mr. 
 Springer." Musondo, who had left on Son- 
 goro's account, was in no mood to listen now 
 to his sudden resolve to return. 
 
 "Give me my money," said Songoro, for he 
 had asked Musondo to keep some of his wages 
 which I had paid him. Musondo refused. 
 
 "Give me my blankets," he demanded. Still 
 Musondo refused. 
 
 Waiting until Musondo was busy on some 
 errand for his new Belgian master, Songoro 
 found his blankets hidden in the master's bed- 
 room and, taking them, left the house, setting 
 his face toward the west. He could not follow 
 us, as we had taken a route unknown to him, 
 a path entirely within the Belgian Congo, so 
 he started back by the way he had come. 
 
 At the traction road he asked a white man 
 
50 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 for work on one of the engines, telling him 
 who he was and where he was going. 
 
 "All right, I will let you work on my engine 
 to Kansanshi. I know Mr. Springer, for I am 
 an American too," said he. So this man from 
 Port Huron gave the boy work during the five 
 or six days' journey to Kansanshi, and then 
 gave him ten shillings to buy food the rest of 
 the way ; a truly generous act. 
 
 At Kansanshi Songoro joined the post 
 boys, but before very long his money was gone. 
 What should he do? He asked his Heavenly 
 Father to feed him. The next day as he was 
 going along he smelled meat and leaving the 
 path soon found a dead animal that Dr. Fisher 
 had shot a few days before, but had not been 
 able to find. He cut up the animal and carried 
 away all the meat he could stagger under, and 
 was able to exchange this in the villages for 
 meal, and thus he was provided with food until 
 he reached Mr. Heinkel, near Kalulua, when 
 he was all right again. 
 
 There was no doubt in our minds as to Son- 
 goro's conversion. He was a new boy indeed. 
 He would always be impulsive, but he became 
 a true follower of the Master. When he was 
 baptized we gave him the name of Peter, which 
 character he so much resembled. 
 
BUILDING AT LUKOSHI 51 
 
 This story would be incomplete without an- 
 other reference to Musondo. He stayed in 
 Elisabethville and lost his soul. We have 
 never seen him since. But we have reports of 
 him that show that he fell before the tempta- 
 tions of that wicked town. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS AND 
 ITINERATING 
 
 FOR the first week, we looked with hopeful 
 hearts for the meal which Kazembe said he had 
 sent for and which he daily expected to arrive. 
 It never came and we have a strong suspicion 
 that when meal did come in from his villages 
 Kazembe kept it for his own use. We had not 
 been there long before we learned that food 
 was indeed scarce. 
 
 Food we must have for our own boys and for 
 the four extra workmen who had stayed with 
 us. It is customary to ration the natives two 
 pounds of meal a day, with beans or something 
 as a relish to eat with the mush that is cooked 
 therefrom. So while we had a small force of 
 about a dozen boys, twenty-four pounds of 
 meal a day soon made a big hole in a bag. 
 
 All our buying here, as elsewhere in the 
 interior, has to be done by barter and no one 
 who has not had experience can believe how 
 much trouble this is. In the first place styles 
 
 52 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 53 
 
 change among the natives as they do in the 
 home lands. It may be all the rage to wear 
 white calico or white beads one year and the 
 next they cannot be given away. And we suf- 
 fered much during our first few months at 
 Lukoshi because we did not have the latest 
 styles in beads and cloth. This is particularly 
 interesting when the calico was not worn for 
 warmth and, as far as we could see, scarcely 
 any of it was on show. Most of it seemed to 
 be used to pay up debts, fines, etc. But what- 
 ever use the natives made of it, our trade cloth 
 did not suit them and they would not bring 
 food to buy it. 
 
 So after Mr. Heinkel finally reached Lukoshi 
 with the last of our loads, I decided to take 
 some of our boys and go out into the surround- 
 ing villages and buy food, thus getting ac- 
 quainted with the people and the country at 
 the same time. I had to go at least ten miles 
 to find any quantity of food, which meant that 
 I had to stay over night in every case. We 
 were too short of boys for me to take along a 
 tent and it is not safe to sleep in native houses 
 as they are infested with a species of tick 
 called a tanpan. The bite of this tanpan 
 causes a low and obstinate type of fever which 
 is far more serious than malaria. So I slept 
 
54 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 out in the open, usually under the native 
 granaries where I was exposed to the malarial 
 infected mosquito, not to mention other physi- 
 cal discomforts. I succeeded in getting a little 
 meal. 
 
 We had brought one goat with us, Nannie, 
 who had trotted along the trail with the cara- 
 van for two weeks. Then one day Kazembe 
 came over and presented us with a young Billy. 
 As we w T ere accepting his present, we heard a 
 snort and there stood Nan on the top of an 
 anthill looking down with wrath in her eyes. 
 No sooner was the unfortunate little beast tied 
 to a tree than she set upon him. Fearing that 
 she would kill him were he left tied, we let him 
 loose and for about three days the two fought 
 as only goats can fight. Billy's horns bled and 
 he must have had the headache many a time, 
 but he had plenty of grit and finally Nan ac- 
 cepted him as a friend and comrade. Which 
 was quite otherwise with the sheep. 
 
 One day Kanuka brought a half-starved 
 sheep to us to sell. He said it was so poor 
 because they had had to keep it in for fear 
 gome of their enemies would steal it. Under 
 any other circumstances than the ones we were 
 in, I should never have dreamed of buying it. 
 But he assured me that it would soon begin 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 55 
 
 to fatten on the new grass which was coming 
 on and so I bought it. 
 
 But that sheep was the biggest fool I have 
 ever seen. It would not stay near the goats 
 and it was an hour's job every night to get it 
 into the goat house for the necessary safety. 
 We had that sheep for more than a month but 
 never succeeded in teaching it anything. 
 Neither did it fatten. Also it took to wander- 
 ing off by itself. 
 
 One day about five o'clock, Mr. Heinkel said 
 to one of the pickaninnies, "You go now and 
 bring in the sheep." He started rather unwill- 
 ingly, though he was the best of them all at 
 getting hold of its long rope and bringing it in. 
 Soon the other boys who were thatching on the 
 roof said that the boy had called for help. As it 
 was quite a common thing to need two or some- 
 times three to get that sheep home, another 
 boy was detailed to help him. 
 
 Then there came another yell and the boys 
 said that there was a leopard, so a dash was 
 made toward the river, taking our guns along. 
 We found the two boys in trees, but no sign 
 of the leopard and not much left of the sheep. 
 Financially, that sheep was a dead loss : but 
 as a valuable illustration, we never had a bet- 
 ter one. The most willful boy could not refrain 
 
56 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 a grin when that fool sheep was brought to his 
 mind. We never regretted the money, though 
 it was hard to lose it at the time. 
 
 On August 29 came the shooting of Nya- 
 hamba by Kazembe to which I have already re- 
 ferred. The incidents and causes of the shoot- 
 ing dated back a few years to a time when one 
 of Nyahamba's wives ran away from him and 
 appealed to Kazembe. She stated her grievance 
 and Kazembe told her to remain in his village 
 and he would settle the matter with Nya- 
 hamba. 
 
 When Nyahamba came to get his wife, a 
 lengthy palaver followed and in the end Ka- 
 zembe demanded of Nyahamba a fine of two 
 guns and two slaves to be paid over in order 
 to get his wife back. The price was exorbitant 
 in the extreme, but it was the only way that 
 Nyahamba could get possession of his truant 
 wife and so he paid it. But, as Uncle Eemus 
 says of Brer Kabbit, he laid low. Nyahamba 
 was a Chokwe and the Chokwe were not used 
 of late years to taking orders from the Lunda, 
 but since they were in the minority in this 
 section they thought it wise to submit for the 
 time being. 
 
 Now it came to pass that about the time we 
 arrived at Lukoshi, one of Kazemba's young 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 57 
 
 men was strolling along the path to a village 
 beyond Nyahamba's with a rooster under his 
 arm, probably for barter. On the way he 
 passed through some gardens belonging to 
 Nyahamba's wives and being hungry he did a 
 very unusual thing : he dug up a small cassava 
 root and began to eat it as he went along. The 
 root was not worth more than half a cent and 
 the lad went on merrily without a shadow of 
 concern. 
 
 But here was the chance that Nyahamba 
 wanted to start a quarrel, and he demanded 
 the rooster in payment of the cassava root, 
 since it had been stolen, not bought. Of course 
 the youth roundly refused to pay a hundred 
 times as much as the root was worth, but Nya- 
 hamba insisted. 
 
 Finally seeing that there might be serious 
 consequences, the youth said, "All right, here 
 is the cock and the matter is settled. 7 ' 
 
 "Not so," said Nyahamba. "If you had paid 
 in the first place, it would have been, but you 
 have waited so long and given so much cheek 
 that now you must pay four pieces of calico of 
 eight yards each." The native word for one of 
 these pieces is a chilala. 
 
 Then the matter had to go to Kazembe and 
 nearly a month was spent in sitting on the 
 
58 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 case. In matters of this kind, the native will 
 not be hurried. He loves to indulge in long 
 oratorical and dramatic speeches. And in this 
 case, no sooner did Kazembe agree to settle the 
 case at one figure, than Nyahamba put up his 
 price until at length he had made a demand 
 for three guns and two slaves. The reader will 
 note now that he was getting back what he 
 had had to pay, with interest. And from this 
 figure he absolutely refused to budge. 
 
 So when Kazembe found that he must pay 
 this sum in order to settle the matter at all 
 amicably, he took his men and went out to the 
 village nearest Nyahamba's where again there 
 was a palaver. At last Nyahamba got up in 
 disgust to leave for his own village, when 
 Kazembe's men, in accordance with previous 
 orders, fired a cowardly shot into his back, and 
 he fell dead. 
 
 Then Nyahamba's people demanded the life 
 of the man who shot him and the whole coun- 
 try was up in arms for nearly a month or more 
 until at last the remnants of Nyahamba's small 
 village moved away. But for a year or more 
 Kazembe's people were afraid that Nyaham- 
 ba's brother would return and avenge his 
 death. And he may do this even after ten or 
 twenty years. 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 59 
 
 I have gone into the details of this case as 
 it is such a typical one of that section of coun- 
 try. 
 
 The following Sunday after we had had our 
 service in his village, every man with his gun 
 in his hand to prevent surprise, Kazembe 
 launched into a long and heated defense of his 
 action, stating that he had acted judicially 
 "after the manner of their custom since they 
 left the capital of Mwata Yamvo." This made 
 our food question worse than ever, since we 
 had been getting our meal from these Chokwe 
 villages some ten miles to the north, and now 
 we were shut off from them. 
 
 From the time of our arrival we had heard 
 of the great quantities of food at Ifunda, 
 thirty-five miles to the southwest. So Mrs. 
 Springer and I decided to make an evangelistic 
 trip there and buy meal at the same time. 
 
 Since we could get no carriers, Mrs. 
 Springer had to walk, and as she developed a 
 very sore toe from a jigger under the nail, when 
 at the farthest point away from home, she had 
 a hard time walking back, and it took a whole 
 month after her return for the toe to heal. 
 
 We found several large villages among 
 which was one whose chief was called Mpumba. 
 He was a true Lunda and the Luunda was the 
 
60 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 common speech of his people. We very much 
 enjoyed a night's stay at his large village. We 
 bought several bags of meal there, and all day 
 and late into the evening there was a crowd 
 around our tent all keen to give us Luunda 
 words, hear what we had to say, learn our one 
 or two hymns in Luunda, and in every way 
 show us all courtesy and friendliness. We 
 went away with the mental picture of swarms 
 of little children who might be won to God, 
 the songs of women pounding their meal, men 
 weaving baskets and making fish nets, and of 
 the merry little stream through which we 
 gladly waded on that hot September day be- 
 fore we could reach the village. We had sel- 
 dom seen a village which so attracted us as 
 this one, with its kindly-faced chief and the 
 gladsome ring of childish laughter throughout 
 the place. It is such scenes as this which make 
 the passing traveler feel that the heathen are 
 always happy and laughing and glad, and that 
 they do not need the gospel. There is quite 
 another side which we saw at this same village 
 just a year later quite another side, indeed. 
 
 On this trip, we came across a group of 
 women at one of the rivers. They were gather- 
 ing large quantities of a certain weed, which 
 they were burning to get salt from the ashes. 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 61 
 
 Salt is very scarce in this section of the coun- 
 try, but even when they can buy salt easily, 
 the natives like that which comes from these 
 weeds, as it combines other chemicals as well. 
 This weed grew in the marshy land along the 
 river. There is a weed in the rivers, not unlike 
 seaweed in appearance, which they also gather, 
 dry, and burn for the salt. 
 
 While we were wonderfully pleased with our 
 visit to Mpumba, we were equally disappointed 
 in our visit to Katarurnba, who proved to be 
 a Chokwe chief with a great many Luena peo- 
 ple in his large village. He had just moved 
 to a new site and so his people had very little 
 food at hand to sell. We had passed his old 
 village and noticed that it had beeji heavily 
 stockaded. Katarumba was an old slaver and 
 took no chances on a surprise from his foe. 
 He was on the very border of the Portuguese 
 territory and had done a flourishing business 
 in slaves and rubber. He was drunk the day 
 we got there, and from his appearance, I 
 should judge that that was a chronic condition 
 of many years' standing. He looked to be and 
 undoubtedly was an old villain. 
 
 This section of country is called Ifunda. It 
 derives its name from the prevalence of a cer- 
 tain kind of jungle thicket so dense as to be 
 
62 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 impassable unless a path is cut through. This 
 kind of country is wonderfully adapted to the 
 raising of cassava and to guerilla warfare. It 
 suits the slave-raiding and outlaw chiefs and 
 their people to a nicety. But as one travels 
 through that dense forest, it does not take a 
 very vivid imagination to feel that every mile 
 is marked with tragedy, murder, and pillage. 
 It is a dark jungle for dark men of dark deeds. 
 
 I should have liked to remain on the station 
 and expedite the work there, for the rains were 
 already due and our house was building very 
 slowly. But the need for carriers and for food 
 necessitated my making another trip, this time 
 into Angola, in Portuguese territory. 
 
 Kazembe gave me Chidiani, whom he called 
 his nephew, but who we learned a year later 
 was only his slave, to go with me to tell the 
 men in the villages to go and carry for me. 
 Chidiani declared that he was equal to any- 
 thing and started out with a great show of 
 pomp and power. When we came to a village, 
 we would sit down, and after the preliminaries 
 were over I would call on Chidiani to give the 
 chief's message. With much oratory he would 
 then tell the men assembled that the chief said 
 that they were to furnish me carriers. Then the 
 local head men would begin to tell of the work 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 63 
 
 that each and every man in the village had on 
 hand and at the end Chidinai would give me 
 a hopeless look and say, "You see how it is. 
 There is no hope here: we must go on to the 
 next town." The ultimate result was that we 
 got no carriers. Chidiani as a recruiting agent 
 was worse than useless. 
 
 One reason for the failure to get carriers at 
 this time was that there were several circum- 
 cision camps in progress along this route. 
 
 Among the Alunda, as among many, if not 
 most other Bantu tribes, there is a very rigid 
 custom of circumcision. Until after this cere- 
 mony, the boys are not allowed to eat with 
 their elders nor enjoy many other associations 
 which markedly belong to adults. After this 
 ceremony they are considered full-fledged 
 adults and permitted to take their places at 
 the counsels and other notable occasions of 
 village life. 
 
 Once a year all the boys between twelve and 
 fourteen years of age are gathered approxi- 
 mately a mile or so from the village far 
 enough to ensure seclusion and near enough 
 to facilitate feeding them and are kept in 
 these camps about a month. During this time 
 they have a course of lectures by their elders 
 and some of the instruction is very good, deal- 
 
64 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 ing as it does with the responsibilities they 
 will have as members of the tribe and family. 
 There are other features which are less bene- 
 ficial and some that are exceedingly perni- 
 cious. We find that many of the boys are 
 quite willing and even prefer to have this rite 
 done by a Christian physician, and certainly 
 this is far better for the boy. 
 
 On my stumbling on a circumcision camp 
 one evening, the boys fled precipitately and I 
 was asked by the older men who were in charge 
 to retire, as visitors were not allowed. Women 
 also are rigidly excluded from these camps 
 until after the camp is broken up, when the 
 whole village celebrates with an all night's 
 dance. 
 
 On this trip I decided to press on south 
 across the national boundary between the 
 Congo and Angola, formed by the Congo- 
 Zambesi watershed. Eight in the northeast 
 corner about ten miles from both the Congo 
 and Khodesian borders was a little trading 
 post called Mbumba. Two years previously 
 there had been some fourteen stores in this 
 place and I thought that possibly I might be 
 able to buy some trading goods there. But I 
 now found only two traders left and they were 
 doing very little business. 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 65 
 
 A few years previously there had been an 
 area of perhaps about one hundred and fifty 
 miles square, including the three corners of 
 Northern Rhodesia, Angola, and the Belgian 
 Congo, which was, to all intents and purposes, 
 no-man's land. There was rubber in this sec- 
 tion, though most of it was found in the Congo 
 section. However, the natives from Angola 
 and Ehodesia went up there and gathered their 
 rubber and then went over to the Portuguese 
 and sold it. The natives told me that they 
 had until recently found there a market for 
 slaves as well, and that seems to be pretty well 
 authenticated. 
 
 But in 1907, Major Boyd Cunningham on 
 behalf of the Tanganyika Concessions Limited, 
 a prospecting company for minerals, had 
 opened up a transport route twelve hundred 
 miles in length between Benguella on the west 
 coast and Ruwi on the Lualaba River, and 
 had brought in several ox-wagon loads of 
 goods, machinery, and supplies from the west 
 coast following approximately the old slave 
 trail most of the way. The Britishers had 
 made it hot for any Portuguese caught with 
 slave caravans and put a greater damper on 
 that nefarious business. 
 
 But in 1909-1910 there was a tremendous 
 
66 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 boom in rubber, and although it was illegal to 
 export rubber from either Khodesia or the 
 Congo without paying export duty, neither of 
 these sections had come under the control of 
 their respective governments, and the natives 
 poured in a stream into Mbumba and the 
 Portuguese traders there flourished. 
 
 But there had come officials into this corner 
 and a slump in rubber into the outside world 
 so that by this time, 1911, the rubber trade was 
 very low indeed, and the two Portuguese trad- 
 ers left at Mbumba scarcely made a living, if 
 they did that. 
 
 This no-man's land has not to this day been 
 thoroughly administered by the three govern- 
 ments concerned, least of all by the Portu- 
 guese, and the process will be necessarily a 
 slow one though we are glad to report progress. 
 
 At first, the natives were determined not to 
 be under the control of Europeans. They pre- 
 ferred their accustomed methods of living, pre- 
 carious as they were. So when the British 
 official tried to register his people, they 
 skipped over the border into the Congo. 
 
 Pretty soon the Belgian official came along 
 and as soon as they got wind of his coining, 
 back they scooted into Khodesia. Then when 
 these two governments began to cooperate and 
 
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS 67 
 
 the nets were more tightly drawn around the 
 natives, they decided that Angola was the land 
 of freedom and moved over there. 
 
 This suited the Angola natives to a nicety. 
 When any of them had a debt to pay with 
 slaves, they simply raided the villages of the 
 new-comers and took some of these people, 
 either holding them to be ransomed at an enor- 
 mous price or selling them outright. 
 
 So there has steadily grown the idea that 
 it is better to live in Ehodesia and enjoy a 
 measure of security and pay a tax of ten shil- 
 lings a year than to live in Angola and never 
 know what is going to happen next. 
 
 We found that Kazembe and his people had 
 never paid any taxes and they were very appre- 
 hensive of the day when they would have to 
 do so. They were casting about for some 
 method whereby they could enjoy the protec- 
 tion of the Belgians without paying their 
 taxes. 
 
 What a wild and woolly country this no- 
 man's land was as it unfolded itself before 
 our eyes and to our better understanding ! 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 FLOODS AND FEVER 
 
 THE first shower struck Lukoshi on the 29th 
 of September, and although we had pushed 
 our building operations as rapidly as our 
 crippled condition would allow, we were still 
 in tents and unprepared for the rainy season. 
 
 Mrs. Springer and Mr. Heinkel were on the 
 station on that date and I had gone to a group 
 of villages to the north to get more meal. I 
 had slept on the ground that night under a 
 granary and fortunately for me, being ten 
 miles away, we got only the tail end of the 
 shower. 
 
 When I reached home the next afternoon, I 
 found my wife sitting amidst dire confusion 
 on our veranda among boxes and chairs. It 
 was not exactly an ideal picture of "Home, 
 Sweet Home," but we both were thankful that 
 at least the roof was on and that it was fairly 
 water-tight. And I was glad to undress and 
 get into a bed that evening even though it was 
 made on a pile of grass in the corner of the 
 
 68 
 
FLOODS AND FEVER 69 
 
 bedroom on the floor. After all it might have 
 been worse. 
 
 For a week the air had been very sultry and 
 there had been mutterings of thunder all 
 around us so that we had expected rain any 
 day or night, and had got the most of our loads 
 in under the roof on the back veranda. 
 
 On this day it had been particularly sultry, 
 and when Mrs. Springer and Mr. Heinkel had 
 their four o'clock tea, a welcome and really 
 necessary bit of refreshment in that climate, 
 they spoke of the probability of a shower ; but, 
 after all, it seemed less likely that one would 
 occur than it had for a week, so no further 
 preparations were made for it. 
 
 At five o'clock, however, it began to sprinkle, 
 but in such large drops that there was no 
 reason to suppose it would amount to any- 
 thing. Mrs. Springer went over to the little 
 shelter, but in a few minutes it began to drip 
 like a sieve, so she went to our tent and had 
 hardly got inside before a tropical tornado 
 burst on the place in all its fury. 
 
 The tent rocked and swayed before the wind 
 and streams of water began to trickle in 
 through the holes that had been eaten out of 
 the roof by the mischievous crickets. The 
 thunder and lightning were terrific and hail 
 
70 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 pelted noisily on the steel poles. The daylight 
 had suddenly been swallowed up in the black- 
 ness of the storm, and then, as another wave 
 of angry tempest surged from the northeast, 
 the tent was lifted as by the hands of a mighty 
 monster and then collapsed, burying Mrs. 
 Springer under its wet, clammy folds. 
 
 "I concluded," she remarked humorously, 
 "that it was about time for me to be moving, 
 so I crawled out as best I could from under 
 the wet, heavy folds of the tent and made a 
 bolt through the downpour for the house 
 several yards distant. Here I found Mr. 
 Heinkel and all the boys looking for all the 
 world like so many wet chickens standing on 
 one foot after being caught in a shower." 
 
 It was quite dark already, only relieved by 
 the blinding flashes of lightning. It had 
 grown very cold too during the hailstorm. The 
 collapse of the tent and the sudden fury of 
 the storm had caused her to go out without 
 first getting a wrap and she thought she would 
 go inside the house to see if it was warmer 
 there. Alas ! we had not yet filled in the floors 
 on the inside of the house nor dug a drain 
 ditch at the back, so she stepped into six inches 
 or more of icy water which did not add to her 
 comfort. 
 
FLOODS AND FEVER 71 
 
 After another half hour the storm abated a 
 trifle and Mr. Heinkel was able to get to a bale 
 of trading blankets which they gratefully used 
 to wrap around themselves. There wasn't a 
 dry chip nor a dry piece of wood in the house, 
 but about seven o'clock the fury of the storm 
 had passed over so that the boys w r ere able to 
 cast about and, in spite of wet wood, to make 
 two fires, one in each bedroom. It was neces- 
 sary for them to occupy our bedroom that 
 night, and as Mr. Heinkel's tent was flooded 
 and his bed soaking wet, for him to occupy the 
 other. At eight o'clock Mrs. Springer's tent 
 was set up again and the middle of her bed 
 was found to be dry. They had some smoky 
 tea by an awfully smoky fire and then she went 
 to bed. 
 
 As I said, the center of her bed, which was 
 on a pile of grass, was dry, an island around 
 which was an inch or so of water. But the 
 next day was bright and sunny so that all the 
 blankets and soaked contents of bags and 
 boxes could be dried. 
 
 So when I arrived, I found her in the midst 
 of trunks and all sorts of other impedimenta 
 which had just been moved up to the house, as 
 it was evident that we could no longer remain 
 in safety in our tent. 
 
72 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 The next day I hastily nailed a few poles 
 together and we filled a mattress, which Mrs. 
 Springer had made from native cloth with 
 grass, and, crude and clumsy as it was, we 
 rejoiced in the luxury of a bed of a sort after 
 five months of sleeping on the ground. 
 
 We slept in the room planned for my study, 
 and the work of plastering our bedroom and 
 filling in its earthen floor was pushed rapidly 
 and fires were kept burning to dry it as rapidly 
 as possible. It was necessary for me to build 
 a leopard-proof goat house, for we now had 
 several goats which were supplying our table 
 with milk. I could hardly drive myself to do 
 the work, I felt so utterly weary, but Mr. 
 Heinkel was pushing the work on the house for 
 all he was worth, and so there was no other 
 way to get the goats cared for than to do it 
 myself. Then, too, I had to send Mr. Heinkel 
 down to Ifunda to get meal and to try to get 
 carriers, but he returned without being able 
 to get either. The situation was exceedingly 
 depressing. 
 
 I realized that I must again go forth and 
 make one more desperate effort in the matter 
 of food and men, but before going it was im- 
 portant to get Mrs. Springer installed in the 
 east bedroom, though it was still wet with a 
 
FLOODS AND FEVER 73 
 
 fresh coat of plaster and the new-made mud 
 floor. But we kept a fire burning in the center 
 of the room which somewhat mitigated the 
 dampness. 
 
 While I was gone Mrs. Springer tried to 
 get the house into a somewhat homelike 
 appearance. We had no doors nor windows 
 at all, so the first day after I left she wrote in 
 her diary, "I have felt wonderfully fit all day 
 [two days previously she had been in bed]. 
 Moved my bed and made canvas curtains for 
 the two doors, and had Mutombo put a shelf 
 in the back room for our boxes" (to keep them 
 off the floor and safe from the white ants, or 
 termites). 
 
 A few days later she made a desperate effort 
 to get the dining-room in shape for my home- 
 coming and wrote, "I quite overdid to-day; I 
 was so keen to get the dining-room to look 
 like a room rather than a barn." (We had so 
 far been eating on the veranda while the din- 
 ing-room was being floored and plastered.) 
 "I nailed a lot of pole legs into boxes and then 
 I nailed two of them together with boards so 
 that I got a very respectable sideboard. Two 
 more boxes fitted into the bay window for the 
 letter trays, typewriter, etc." Incidentally 
 she mentions three loads of meal which arrived 
 
74 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 from me, then, "Songoro stepped on a knife 
 this evening and cut quite a gash in his heel." 
 
 O those weary, weary days ! Even now, after 
 four years and transported thousands of miles 
 away from these scenes, though in bustling, 
 luxurious America, we can still feel the 
 chronic ache of nerves and muscles of those 
 days as we review those experiences. Pioneer- 
 ing in mission work has its romance, but it is 
 chiefly in prospect and retrospect, the reality 
 being one of plodding, yet interesting, routine. 
 
 For weeks we had all toiled incessantly 
 through sultry heat and unutterable physical 
 discomfort. But now our house was at least 
 habitable, the boys were under roofs, and the 
 goats in a leopard-proof pen, the schoolroom 
 was ready and we looked forward to opening 
 school on Monday morning. 
 
 On Sunday we held our first service in the 
 new schoolhouse and had the Holy Communion. 
 Kazembe and a large crowd were over at the 
 service. I found myself in an unusually emo- 
 tional mood, and at the end of the service 
 realized that I had fever and had to go to bed. 
 This was my first touch of fever since 1907, on 
 that trip across the continent, when only one 
 hundred and twenty-five miles due east of our 
 present site, then all terra incognita to us. 
 
FLOODS AND FEVER 75 
 
 My temperature speedily ran up to 104, and 
 it was several hours before I could be brought 
 to perspire, and it did not then get down to 
 normal. The next morning it started up again 
 and went higher still. The third day it was 
 still above 101, but on the fourth day I seemed 
 all right. Mr. Heinkel now had to go to bed 
 with fever and Mrs. Springer was having all 
 she could do to keep out of bed. I got up and 
 sat on the veranda while the grass was taken 
 out of our mattress and sunned. One can 
 hardly believe how damp it was from my exces- 
 sive sweating. 
 
 That night I was very restless and the room 
 seemed stifling. This illness was due to long 
 weeks of exposure and overwork, the sleeping 
 in native villages with neither mosquito nets 
 nor proper shelter and, on my last trip, run- 
 ning out of a supply of quinine. As I lay on 
 my bed I felt as if I should go mad if I lay 
 there any longer. Mrs. Springer was sleeping 
 the sleep of exhaustion, so I stole out quietly, 
 wrapped myself in my dressing-gown and read 
 for an hour before she awoke and persuaded 
 me to return to bed. 
 
 The next morning was rainy, and Mr. 
 Heinkel was still confined to his bed with 
 fever, so Mrs. Springer took the school in the 
 
76 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 forenoon. I got up about noon and ate lunch 
 with her, but before I had finished I was seized 
 with another chill. I soon learned that I had 
 the dreaded haematuric or blackwater fever. 
 Noting the fact to my wife, I took her in my 
 arms saying, "We are in the hands of God and 
 can but leave the issue with him." Then we 
 knelt down and in a few words committed our 
 case to the Great Physician, and I went to bed, 
 not to get out again for more than a month. 
 
 We now realized to the full our isolation. 
 Our nearest white neighbor was the govern- 
 ment official seventy miles east at Kayoyo, and 
 the nearest physician was Dr, Fisher at Kaleni 
 Hill, eighty miles distant over in Northern 
 Rhodesia. It was useless to send for him, as 
 he could not get there in less than eight days 
 under the best conditions, while now the 
 flooded rivers made the trail almost impass- 
 able. 
 
 None of us had ever had any experience with 
 a case of haematuria. We had one of the two 
 standard remedies with us, having kept our- 
 selves provided with it for years. But un- 
 fortunately vomiting set in so that the medi- 
 cine would not remain long enough in the 
 stomach to take action. All that long after- 
 noon and through the longer night, Mrs. 
 
FLOODS AND FEVER 77 
 
 Springer fought with death. Over in the west 
 room Mr. Heinkel lay too ill to be of any assist- 
 ance. I myself was barely conscious of any- 
 thing but excruciating pain, broken by vomit- 
 ing spells, after which I would relapse into 
 delirium. As no medicine would stay on my 
 stomach, there was but one thing to do, and so 
 for ten or twelve hours I was bathed from 
 head to foot, carefully avoiding any chance of 
 chill. At eleven that night the thermometer 
 registered 105 and over, but at midnight I 
 began to perspire and the next problem was to 
 change my drenched clothing rapidly enough 
 to prevent another chill. By morning all my 
 changes of night clothes had been drenched 
 and Mrs. Springer had to borrow from Mr. 
 Heinkel. 
 
 But before noon that day the hemorrhage 
 had ceased, though the vomiting continued 
 unabated for nearly a month, being provoked 
 afresh by the slightest thing. The most up- 
 setting thing was our Billy goat with his 
 strong musk odor. If he passed the house 
 within thirty feet and the wind was houseward 
 it would set me into a violent fit of vomiting. 
 
 Now fresh milk is one of the first articles of 
 diet a fever patient can take, and there is noth- 
 ing more easily digested usually than goat's 
 
78 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 milk. We were getting a good supply from our 
 two milking goats, but it seemed to me that 
 the goat odor was most pronounced. Perhaps 
 my imagination was working overtime, but 
 each attempt to drink the goat milk only 
 brought on fresh nausea. 
 
 Absolute quiet and freedom from care is a 
 necessary part of convalescence from fever, but 
 this was impossible in my case. There being 
 neither doors nor windows nor ceilings, and as 
 the partitions of the rooms only went up to 
 the height of the walls, I could hear everything 
 that was going on inside and outside the house. 
 I simply could not shake off the burden of 
 responsibility which rested upon me. It was 
 also necessary for me to call in Mr. Heinkel 
 from time to time in order to consult about 
 the work and to tell my wife of some important 
 letters which must be written. It is hardly 
 necessary to add that all of these occasions 
 were followed by exhaustion and attacks of 
 vomiting. 
 
 School had begun the next morning after I 
 was taken sick, but it had to be looked after 
 by Mr. Heinkel when he was well enough, and 
 when he too was ill with fever, Jacob and Jim 
 did their best to keep things going. 
 
 My thought was also concerned with the 
 
FLOODS AND FEVER 79 
 
 problem of getting the further supplies that 
 were necessary. Now that the rains were on 
 in earnest, all thought of getting the carriers 
 that I had been seeking to go down to the rail- 
 road for supplies had to be abandoned. Parcel 
 post was now our only hope, and it was our 
 temporal salvation for the year and a half that 
 we remained at Lukoshi. One of the things 
 that had to be done during my illness was the 
 making out and sending our initial orders to 
 the stores at Bulawayo, one thousand miles 
 distant. The Belgian post route through 
 Kayoyo was not opened up for a long time 
 after we came to Lukoshi, so we got our mail 
 from Dr. Fisher's station, which had been 
 made a government post office, as mission sta- 
 tions frequently are in the remote interior. 
 
 While I lay there on my back the rains con- 
 tinued to fall in force and the rivers to rise. 
 The bridge at the east of our grounds was first 
 swept away and then the one at the west. On 
 one occasion before I was up, at about sun- 
 down, there was a shout from the opposite 
 bank and there stood two mail boys from 
 Kaleni. But how to get the mail over. "Kun 
 and get the bath," commanded Mrs. Springer. 
 The boys got our smaller tin bath and Songoro 
 and Kalinswiki, who were excellent swimmers, 
 
80 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 towed it across the river for two trips, thus 
 bringing all the mail over by this unique 
 method. 
 
 And as the rains fell and the rivers swelled, 
 vegetation fairly jumped, and millions of in- 
 sects sprang into being. Our garden seeds 
 sprouted and appeared, only to be instantly 
 devoured by the hosts of insects that seemed 
 to be just waiting for them. 
 
 Only the brakes and grass defied this vora- 
 cious army and the superiority of man. We 
 had not been able to cut away much of the 
 forest around our house before I was taken ill, 
 and I shall never forget the powerful impres- 
 sion made upon me in those days of weakness, 
 as though the wilderness would press in on and 
 crowd upon, overwhelm, and smother us. 
 When I had gone to bed there was practically 
 no grass to be seen and our station site had 
 been hoed so that it was bare of vegetation. 
 On the first day that I was up and looked 
 through the open door, the sight of that mass 
 of brakes and grass nearly two feet high 
 scarcely a yard away from the veranda, seemed 
 to my weakened body like some great monster 
 fairly holding me by the throat. 
 
 From my earliest years in Africa, in clear- 
 ing building sites, subduing gardens, making 
 
FLOODS AND FEVER 81 
 
 and maintaining paths and roads, and other- 
 wise introducing the conditions of civilized 
 life, I have ever been impressed with what I 
 can no better describe than the strength, the 
 challenging vitality of primitive and as yet 
 unsubdued Africa. 
 
 But strong and vital as is nature in Africa, 
 there is in man a greater strength and vitality, 
 that of the spirit; and in all parts of Africa 
 men are meeting the challenge and subduing 
 the wilderness in obedience to God's first com- 
 mand to man. And though often individually 
 beaten back and even overcome by the Grim 
 Messenger, yet collectively man flashes back 
 the challenge and advances steadily as a con- 
 queror, aided by the facilities of industry and 
 the knowledge of modern science. 
 
 And in me in those days, as returning 
 strength began to pulsate in my veins, there 
 arose the answer to nature as I looked out 
 through the open doorway, that we would con- 
 quer and subdue her and make her great 
 vitality and resources subservient to man. 
 
 Serious as I knew that illness to be, my spirit 
 never for a moment despaired of recovery 
 and I learned afresh the mighty lesson of the 
 essential mastery of mind over matter, of spirit 
 over nature, and of God over all and in all. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 LANGUAGE STUDY 
 
 THE rest of 1911 was one of continual sick- 
 ness of one or two of our party. I had hardly 
 got out of bed when Mrs. Springer went in for 
 ten days of hard fever. At Christmas I had 
 an ulcerated tooth and a face like a gorilla. 
 It is hardly possible to have a "Merry Christ- 
 mas" under such conditions. Just at the close 
 of my illness, Mr. Heinkel had a severe attack 
 of fever and for two or three days Mrs. 
 Springer feared that he had blackwater as 
 well. It was an anxious time for her, with 
 myself helpless in the east end of the house 
 and with him sick abed in the west end. 
 
 But with the passing out of the old year, 
 there came a happy change in the tide of our 
 affairs. The last day of the old year came on 
 Sunday and the new era was then ushered in 
 with the baptism of Songora, who took the 
 Christian name of Peter, his prototype. We 
 had the Holy Communion for the first time 
 since that other Sunday when I had to take to 
 
 82 
 
LANGUAGE STUDY 83 
 
 my bed, and we all thanked God and took fresh 
 courage. 
 
 On New Year's Day Kazembe came over 
 with a present of meal ; an act so unusual as 
 to be worthy of note. The food situation was 
 somewhat relieved now by getting meal and 
 salt through Mr. Frykberg of Kalulua, seventy 
 miles away. Of course it made the expense 
 of living very high indeed, but was unavoid- 
 able at that time. 
 
 On January 8th the first Lunda boy came 
 to the school. He had been hanging around 
 for some time doing odd jobs for Jim, receiv- 
 ing in payment an old shirt in which his little 
 figure was nearly swallowed up. He was a 
 funny looking lad, mere skin and bones, from 
 scant feeding. His name was Kapenda. We 
 did not have the remotest idea that he would 
 stay a whole month, but he is still in the 
 Mission after four years. While Mrs. Springer 
 was working on the revision of the Luunda 
 translation of Mark at Kambove in 1914, 
 Kapenda was one of her best helpers. At pres- 
 ent writing he is with Dr. and Mrs. Piper at 
 Mwata Yamvo's. 
 
 Two days after this a man came from the 
 village and said he wanted a job to teach us 
 Luunda, so we hired him on the spot. What 
 
84 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 with all our building and illness, we had not 
 made great headway in reducing the language 
 to writing. The only work along this line ever 
 accomplished was a very meager portion ; done, 
 more than twenty-five years before, by Senhor 
 Cavalho, a Portuguese. He had made his study 
 of Luunda on an expedition from the west 
 coast to Mwata Yamvo, east of the Kassai 
 Kiver. Nevertheless, we found the little work 
 he had done remarkably accurate and a great 
 help to us in settling difficult questions, espe- 
 cially of grammar. 
 
 We had taken with us an Edison business 
 phonograph, and we now had the natives speak 
 into it, making Luunda records to which we 
 listened, getting considerable benefit, though 
 not as much as we would have gotten had we 
 been able to get teachers who knew English 
 as well. Our "teachers" knew Luunda all 
 right, but they had not the remotest idea how 
 to impart their knowledge, and they grew very 
 tired of answering questions which seemed to 
 them silly and pointless, but which were to us 
 of vital importance. It was unfortunate that 
 most of the natives who came to sell food 
 spoke the Chindembwe rather than the Luunda, 
 for consequently we did not have a chance to 
 practice the language in our daily intercourse 
 
LANGUAGE STUDY 85 
 
 with the natives. We have mentioned that 
 Jacob, Jim, and Peter had spent nearly three 
 years in our Angola missions near Malange, 
 where they had learned the Kimbundu, which 
 is a kindred language to the Luunda. Jacob 
 was essentially a linguist and his help in the 
 work of learning the Luunda was very valu- 
 able. In the earlier stages of our work, we 
 found that we could make the greatest prog- 
 ress and produce the best results by translat- 
 ing the excellent Kimbundu versions into the 
 Luunda. By this means we soon had the 
 Lord's Prayer, the twenty-third psalm, several 
 hymns, and part of the catechism for our daily 
 use. 
 
 Although there has been so much written 
 on the Bantu languages, there still remains 
 much misconception of them in the popular 
 mind. There is an idea that they must be a 
 missing link between monkey language and the 
 human speech. Nothing could be more errone- 
 ous. The Bantu languages follow most exact 
 rules of grammar and are far more perfectly 
 constructed than English and some of the 
 European languages. 
 
 They are all noted for two things. They are 
 absolutely devoid of gender and form their 
 plurals by means of prefixes instead of suffixes. 
 
86 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 They generally have ten to twelve classes of 
 nouns and three classes of locative nouns, 
 which are used instead of the English preposi- 
 tion. All these features are very bewildering 
 to the new student of the Bantu, but when 
 one has once mastered the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of one Bantu language, it is a compara- 
 tively easy matter to learn another. 
 
 The first class is usually the one from which 
 the word bantu is taken. Muntu is a man, 
 often a head also, the generic term of man, that 
 is, a person. Bantu is the plural. Huti is one 
 tree ; miti are two trees. Chitanda, one chair ; 
 zitanda, chairs. So far it is not so rough sailing. 
 But in some of these classes, the original pre- 
 fixes have been dropped in the word itself, but 
 must appear in the other parts of the sentence, 
 for it is another rule of all the Bantu lan- 
 guages that these prefixes must appear in the 
 adjectives and verbs and take the place of 
 many of the pronouns. Thus in Luunda, a good 
 man is, muntu muwampi; good men, antu 
 awampi. A good tree, mutondo muwampi; 
 good trees, mitondo miwampi. A good ox, 
 ngombe yawampi; good oxen, ngombe zawampL 
 
 The first word in the translation of the 
 Gospel of Mark, is an illustration of the loca- 
 tive classes. "In the beginning," is translated 
 
LANGUAGE STUDY 87 
 
 "Kusambishe." Now the preposition "of" con- 
 sists of "a" with the consonants of the prefix 
 of the word to which it belongs. Therefore in 
 the following sentence the preposition "of" is 
 spelled in three different ways following an 
 inflexible rule. "Kusambisha kwa rusangu 
 rwa Jesu Kristu, Mwana wa Nzambi." "In 
 the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God." 
 
 Just at this time we were intensely inter- 
 ested in the advent of three men from the north 
 with a message from Mwata Yamvo to Ka- 
 zembe that he was to send his tribute at an 
 early date. They said that Mwata Yamvo had 
 heard of us and had sent them to tell us also 
 that he wanted a missionary to come to his 
 town to teach his people. These men sat down 
 and gave us several hours' help on the Luunda 
 and at that time, as we have ever found since, 
 there was shown the greatest gratification that 
 we were taking up the study of the Luunda 
 and making books out of it which could be 
 taught to the youths of the country. As we 
 got further into the language, we found it to 
 be one of the best of the many Bantu lan- 
 guages, a delight to learn and to use. 
 
 We were decidedly limited at this time in 
 our enjoyments and recreations. Part of the 
 
88 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 time both our bridges were swept away and we 
 were cut off from most of the near villages. So 
 one of our diversions was the setting up of a 
 marked stick at the river's edge and noting its 
 rise and fall. The natives had built a large 
 fish weir across the wide part of the river on 
 the east side just below our first bridge, and 
 the question as to when that dam would burst 
 was the only real excitement we had for some 
 weeks. We were quite gleeful when at last 
 the mass of waters swept it down the river, 
 even though it meant the carrying away of the 
 west bridge, leaving us no connections with 
 the other side. It also meant that we had to 
 build two new bridges, which involved hard 
 wwk. Nevertheless we got a lot of keen enjoy- 
 ment out of watching the river, which seemed 
 almost like a living thing in its varying moods 
 and phases. 
 
 Speaking of the river, one day Kanuka, our 
 Luunda teacher, came to me with an air of 
 great secrecy. He had sought Jacob out first 
 and explained the situation to him, and then 
 the two came to me. He had caught an enor- 
 mous fish, which he had brought (crossing the 
 river about two miles below us on a tree that 
 had been felled across the stream, and which 
 was now covered with two or three feet of 
 
MWANAGATWE BRINGING IN 
 MUSHROOMS 
 
 JIM BAKING BREAD IN 
 CAMP 
 
 MR. AND MRS. SPRINGER 
 STARTING ON A JOURNEY 
 
 DENTISTRY WAS AN INCIDENT- 
 AL PROFESSION 
 
LANGUAGE STUDY 89 
 
 water), and he had hid the fish in the tall 
 grass by a tree on the river bank in order to 
 come up quietly and talk the matter over with 
 us. 
 
 What he wanted to do was to sell us the 
 fish. But the custom of the olden time had 
 always been that whosoever caught one of these 
 particular big "king" fishes must take it to 
 the chief as a present, or be accused of witch- 
 craft. This was the only one he had caught 
 this year and he wanted the pay that he could 
 get from it, but did not want to take any 
 chance of being accused of witchcraft. I had 
 him go and fetch it. It weighed twenty-four 
 pounds and looked good to us, as we had been 
 so hard pushed to get any kind of food since 
 coming to Lukoshi. I assured Kanuka that 
 according to the white man's law he had a 
 perfect right to sell the fish and that I would 
 not advertise the buying of it, so that he might 
 be spared the charge of witchcraft. The result 
 was that for the next two or three days every- 
 one on our station had a good feed of fish. Our 
 boys were quite successful fishers all through 
 the rainy season. 
 
 Fetishism and witchcraft were the prevail- 
 ing forms of religion, if such they could be 
 called. At least these were the outward ex- 
 
90 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 pressions which indicated the gropings of the 
 soul within. One day Kazembe sent word to 
 me that a certain witch doctor, the Nkishi, had 
 come to his village and would give a dance the 
 next day, and that if I wished to come over and 
 see the performance I might. 
 
 Mr. Heinkel and I went over and, by the 
 way, nearly got sunstroke from standing on a 
 totally unshaded vlei to witness the dance. 
 Why in the name of common sense he should 
 have chosen the hottest and most uncomfort- 
 able place in that whole region, I have never 
 been able to comprehend. In that forest coun- 
 try it was far easier to find a cool, shady spot 
 for his performance than the hot one which he 
 selected. 
 
 He was dressed in a pair of European 
 trousers, a heavy, striped sweater, and had a 
 large, heavy mask surmounted with feathers 
 over his face. He had a sort of dressing room 
 on the edge of the forest and Chidiani and 
 another young buck acted as attendants. 
 
 Every man, woman, and child in that whole 
 group of villages was gathered on that hot 
 vlei and there was a thrill of expectancy and 
 mystery over the whole place. The Nkishi 
 would emerge, clad in his terrible looking garb, 
 and dance till he was nearly suffocated and 
 
LANGUAGE STUDY 91 
 
 exhausted, when he would retire and after a 
 little rest come forth again. The dance was 
 offensive, to put it very mildly. He kept this 
 up for two or three days, impressing on the 
 people the necessity of their holding to their 
 old customs and rites. When he left he carried 
 away with him a lot of rich presents in the way 
 of cloth, guns, etc. 
 
 .On the fifth of March we sent Jacob and 
 Peter on an evangelistic trip to the north to 
 explore that country, get acquainted with and 
 preach to the natives, and investigate the 
 report that had come to us through the natives 
 that only four days north of us there was a 
 store in charge of white men. 
 
 During the three weeks they were gone they 
 endured no few hardships it rained much of 
 the time, they lost their way, and their guide 
 fell ill and died. In spite of all this they 
 returned with an enthusiastic account. Jacob 
 had taken paper and pencil with him and, as 
 instructed, made a map as he traveled, putting 
 on every village, stream, lake, swamp, and 
 anything else that would be of interest and 
 importance, also the distances as he judged 
 them. He computed the distances from his 
 watch, allowing about three miles an hour. I 
 went over this whole route later with compass, 
 
92 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 bicycle, and cyclometer, and was surprised to 
 find how accurate he had been. 
 
 He had found several large villages where 
 the people were intensely interested in the 
 Good News that he was the first to bring to 
 them, and two of the sub-chiefs in particular 
 were very eager to have us come and build 
 near them. 
 
 He also found a store of the Kassai 
 (Rubber) Co., and brought back a letter from 
 the agent stating that we could buy salt, cloth, 
 beads, and brass wire at the store; and what 
 was more, I found that I could get it there 
 cheaper than I could bring it in from the rail- 
 road. This for the next year was an untold 
 blessing to us. 
 
 Jacob was at his best in evangelistic work. 
 He had had a deep religious experience. He 
 was a notable illustration of what Miss Mac- 
 kenzie mentioned years ago when she said, 
 "Only God can explain the miracle of resurrec- 
 tion in a native African soul, the joy where 
 there has been such misery, the innocence 
 where there has been such vice, the native 
 youth where there has been such age-long 
 iniquity, the immediate access to God where 
 there has been such estrangement. There is an 
 intimacy between God and the renewed African 
 
LANGUAGE STUDY 93 
 
 soul which makes the missionary feel every 
 now and then the twinge of the elder brother's 
 jealousy as though left out of some happy 
 secret." 
 
 Just after the return of Jacob and Peter an 
 incident occurred which threw a gloom over 
 our mission even as the murder of Nyahainba 
 had done seven months before. It was on a 
 Sunday and we had had an unusually good 
 morning service and were in a very happy, 
 cheerful mood. We three were sitting out on 
 the front veranda pleasantly anticipating the 
 announcement that dinner was on the table. 
 You know the mood. The station was alive 
 with the sounds of chattering, laughing groups 
 of boys wandering around also waiting for 
 their dinner. 
 
 One group of boys strolled by toward the 
 west bridge not that they intended to fish 
 O, no ! but, at any rate, it would do no harm 
 to just stroll down and see if they could see 
 the fish from the top of the new bridge, that 
 was all. In this group was a Mundembwe boy 
 by the name of Chiwahi, a fine young lad. 
 
 Just a year previously, while passing 
 through Chiwahi's village, his mother had 
 brought the lad out and presented him to me 
 saying, "Here is my boy and I want you to take 
 
94 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 and teach Mm. We are too old to learn, for 
 our heads are now thick. But I want you to 
 take my boy along with you and let him learn." 
 
 So the lad had been with us a year and was 
 making rapid progress in his classes, and in 
 every phase of his temporal and spiritual life. 
 He had a winsome personality. We often com- 
 mented on his favorable progress. 
 
 Now as we sat there waiting for our welcome 
 call, a terrible scream suddenly broke on the 
 air and then another and another. What could 
 it mean! We caught a glimpse of Chiwahi 
 fairly flying up from the river bank to the com- 
 pound, the others close at his heels. It didn't 
 look like a row. What could it be? 
 
 Before we could make a move in the matter, 
 Mwana Gatwe reached us on the run. He said 
 that they had met two men down on the bridge 
 and that these men had come to tell Chiwahi 
 that a day or two before his father had been 
 killed, a neighbor wounded, and his mother 
 and all the children captured and taken away 
 into slavery. A few minutes later the men 
 came along and we learned from them that the 
 story was all too true. Just then another boy 
 came to say that Chiwahi had started to run 
 to his village, so I hastily sent others to over- 
 take him and bring him back, saying that I 
 
LANGUAGE STUDY 95 
 
 would go early on the morrow, it being too late 
 to start then, and would take Chiwahi along. 
 
 The rest of the day we were unable to think 
 of anything but the horrible picture that had 
 been put before us. I hastily collected a few 
 articles of clothing, medicine, and bandages, 
 a little food, a hoe and shovel, and taking 
 nearly all the school along with me, started 
 early the next morning for Chiwahi's village, 
 about fifteen miles away. 
 
 Although we now had another bridge across 
 the Lukoshi, I had to wade in water a half a 
 mile on the other side. Then at the end of 
 our journey I had to cross the river again to 
 get to ChiwahPs village, another half mile of 
 wading, together with crossing on a submerged 
 log, and a quarter of a mile further on we came 
 to the deserted village. 
 
 The sight was a ghastly one. Here were 
 evidences of where a tolerably large party had 
 made the attack and Chiwahi's father had 
 been killed in the attempt to protect his 
 family. One could see that there had been a 
 desperate struggle, and pools of blood lay dried 
 and blistered under the early afternoon sun. 
 We found Chiwahi's father lying in his hut 
 with the door heavily barricaded on the out- 
 side. His friends had carried him in there 
 
96 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 after the attack, and then sent the two messen- 
 gers to tell their chief Kazembe and Chiwahi. 
 
 The first thing to do was to bury the dead 
 man, who had been dead already two days. 
 While the boys were digging in the hard 
 ground I went to the adjoining village, which 
 had also suffered attack and where the head- 
 man had been shot through the arm near the 
 elbow. The wound was in a fearful condition 
 and I feared blood poisoning would set in. I 
 dressed it carefully and tried earnestly to get 
 the men of that village to bring him to the 
 Mission where I could treat him. But the 
 heathen usually know little of mercy and 
 brotherly kindness, and they would not lift a 
 finger to save the man's life when it meant any 
 trouble to themselves. I slept that night in 
 this little village and returned the next day to 
 the Mission, but Chiwahi went on to tell his 
 nearest of kin, his uncle, the dreadful news. 
 
 We all expected that in a week or two, or a 
 month at the most, Chiwahi would return to 
 the Mission and resume his place in the school. 
 But matters arose of which mention will be 
 made later, that first delayed and finally pre- 
 vented his ever returning to us. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 ON TO MWATA YAMVO 
 
 ON May 17, just five years and four days 
 after our setting out from Broken Hill to ex- 
 plore this unknown section of country for our- 
 selves, we left LukosM to go to the capital of 
 Mwata Yamvo. 
 
 In 1907 it had been impossible to penetrate 
 the Lunda country to the capital on account 
 of the activities of the cannibals throughout 
 the whole southwest portion of the Congo. 
 
 In 1910, after reaching Kalulua, I spent 
 nearly a week in vain attempts to get carriers 
 to take me there. 
 
 In 1911, just after reaching Lukoshi, I found 
 some Ambunda in one of the Chokwe villages 
 who wanted me to go with them and help them 
 rescue the daughter of one of the men who had 
 been seized as a slave. As the Ambunda were 
 principally the ones to prey on and enslave the 
 Alunda, it was an exceptional case to have one 
 of their own people caught. 
 
 I had agreed to go and help them and 
 
 97 
 
98 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 planned then to press on to Mwata Yamvo's, 
 and they promised to furnish the carriers, but 
 when Kazembe killed Nyahamba the whole 
 affair was off, since all the men in the region 
 were needed at home to defend their own vil- 
 lages. 
 
 In all of these cases we sought to know the 
 Divine will and plan as to time, and the events 
 that followed made it clear to us. 
 
 We were now convinced that the time had 
 come to go. Our present building operations 
 could be cared for by Mr. Heinkel, and 
 although I had not yet fully recovered from my 
 illness, I felt that strength would be given me 
 for that trip. The fact is that I was in bed 
 with fever the week before starting, but as 
 there are only three months when one can be 
 certain of not having rain, it was necessary to 
 go at that time or put it off until the next year. 
 
 I thought that I would have no difficulty 
 whatever in getting carriers for the entire trip. 
 Surely the young men would be only too glad 
 to visit their paramount chief, making the 
 journey under the protection of the white man. 
 Then, too, Kazembe had been notified twice 
 that he must bring his tribute, and he had 
 especially requested me to go with him, which 
 would also give him protection. He had most 
 
ON TO MWATA YAMVO 99 
 
 of his tribute ready and we had waited a week 
 or two for him, but he said that he was just 
 waiting for some salt to add to his tribute and 
 then he would go. However, when we were 
 ready and I told him that we could wait no 
 longer, he said that he had received word of a 
 contemplated attack on him by one Chipepela 
 and he dared not leave. Eventually Kazembe 
 and his people ate the cow, the meal, and other 
 portions of the tribute prepared for Mwata 
 Yainvo, and to this day no tribute has been 
 sent. 
 
 As usual, I got no help from Kazembe in 
 procuring carriers. On the contrary he im- 
 pressed on all his young men that they should 
 not go with me, but wait for and go with him. 
 I sent Jim out, but the best he could do was to 
 engage two or three to go with me four days 
 and then turn back. One of these men came 
 a two days' journey to Lukoshi and then 
 backed out before ever we started. Such a lot 
 of faint-hearts as this country contained ! 
 
 I had greatly desired to take the phonograph 
 and get some records made by Mwata Yamvo 
 himself, but there was no one to carry it. Had 
 I not been confined to my bed by fever while 
 all the preparations were being made, I might 
 have gone out and had better success in getting 
 
100 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 men. By leaving the phonograph and reduc- 
 ing our loads to such a minimum that we suf- 
 fered for food on the road and were compelled 
 much of the time to live on sour mush, we were 
 finally able to get away from Lukoshi. Mrs. 
 Springer had four carriers for her hammock, 
 none of them of much account, and three of 
 whom objected to the fourth, saying that he 
 walked like a cow. We did not get away from 
 our station until two in the afternoon and so 
 had to camp six miles on, where we had a lively 
 evening service with some twenty children 
 who came out full of wonder to see us. 
 
 The next day we made only ten miles, as our 
 carriers were too weak to make time. One man 
 showed me his wrist as proof of his enfeebled 
 condition. It was as small as a child's. I 
 asked him why, when he and his family were 
 actually starving, he would not work and earn 
 food, but he shook his head and gave no an- 
 swer. Nor can I give one. Many of those 
 natives were starving and yet they would not 
 work in any way to earn food either for them- 
 selves or for their children. And it was simply 
 the neglect to dig gardens that had brought 
 them to starvation. 
 
 At the next village, one of the carriers began 
 to wail loudly, and his friends came to me and 
 
ON TO MWATA YAMVO 101 
 
 said that he had just heard of his father's death 
 and that he must return at once to mourn for 
 him. Since he had just come from his father 
 and had not been overtaken by anyone, we 
 could not have a great deal of faith in what he 
 said. But he wailed all night and all the next 
 day, Sunday, till I finally told him that if he 
 could get a substitute he could go. As to his 
 friends' petition to go with him, I absolutely 
 turned that down. They had agreed to go to 
 Kimpuki and to Kimpuki they must go. 
 
 Mrs. Springer's machilla team was prac- 
 tically a farce. They did not have the strength, 
 or thought they didn't, to carry her, so they 
 were loaded up with odds and ends to relieve 
 some of the others who had been loaded rather 
 heavily on our start, and she had to walk about 
 all the way. 
 
 We were now following the trail which 
 Jacob had taken in March. There were four 
 large towns between Lukoshi and Kimpuki 
 besides many small villages. Jacob had found 
 these people keen to hear about the object of 
 the mission and he had talked and preached to 
 the people until he was hoarse. And each 
 chief wanted that we should come and build 
 near him. 
 
 So we were obliged to go slowly, spending a 
 
102 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 day and night at each village. We were espe- 
 cially taken with the chief Mpereta and his 
 very large town. Mpereta was a very pleasant 
 man, quiet, dignified, and conservative. 
 
 It is the custom when a white man comes 
 to a village to first call for the chief. He then 
 waits quietly until the chief appears and 
 brings a present, usually of meal and fowls. 
 There are cases where a goat or even an ox 
 will be brought as a present, but in most parts 
 of central Africa the present consists of native 
 meal and native fowls, tiny half-grown ban- 
 tams, skinny and full of pin feathers. 
 
 Mpereta brought out several baskets of good 
 cassava meal and two fowls. He made the 
 usual speech that he was ashamed of his in- 
 significant present for the white man, but his 
 was a small village and they were all poor. I 
 accepted it with thanks and made a present of 
 cloth, which I regretted to be the best I could 
 do. Then I told the chief who I was and what 
 my business was. Some of the white men came 
 to his village to buy rubber : others to collect 
 taxes. Those two things were all right in 
 their way, but I had come for neither. 
 
 I always took a Bible with me and showing 
 it to the chiefs, would explain that this was 
 the revelation of the heavenly Father to men ; 
 
MPERETE'S WAS A TYPICAL VILLAGE 
 MPERETE BROUGHT OUT His PRESENT 
 
ON TO MWATA YAMVO 103 
 
 His letter to us, and so I had brought this let- 
 ter from Him to them, and it was my business 
 to teach them so that they could read His 
 letter themselves and know the message their 
 heavenly Father had sent to them. I would 
 then briefly outline the salient features of the 
 gospel and say, "But you will soon forget what 
 the white man says to you. The best thing you 
 can do is to send your boys to the school to 
 learn so that they can return and read God's 
 Book to you and keep His words ever before 
 you." 
 
 I would then teach them a verse of a simple 
 hymn, and by the time we left there would be 
 at least that one verse committed to heart and 
 they would have that as a reminder of the 
 message I had brought. 
 
 In this case, there were fully one hundred 
 and twenty-five as eager listeners as ever I 
 had in my life. God grant that the time may 
 not be far distant when there will be a mis- 
 sionary to go to this section of country and 
 reach the many villages which now are sitting 
 in darkness. 
 
 The next morning as we were leaving 
 Mpereta's village, two incidents made a lasting 
 impression on our minds. A mile from where 
 we were camped just on the edge of the town 
 
104 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 was a phallic emblem post decorated with the 
 bleached skulls of little children, showing how 
 the cannibals had terrorized the country in 
 1907, when we had so desired to pass through 
 this way and could not, as the government 
 positively refused to allow us to take that 
 route. 
 
 We might have been safe personally, though 
 one white man had been attacked but a short 
 time before we reached Ruwi, from which point 
 we had to turn southward out of our course. 
 But certain it is that our carriers would never 
 have gone that way. As a matter of fact, I 
 had to promise my carriers that I would avoid 
 this cannibal country before they would leave 
 Ruwi with me. Nor can they be much blamed. 
 No one would relish the prospect of being 
 served, cooked or uncooked, at a cannibal 
 feast. 
 
 This section was then under the government 
 of the Kassai Co., a Belgian rubber trading 
 company, which waged war on these cannibals 
 and finally conquered them and gave peace to 
 the Lunda and Chokwe villages. 
 
 Tribes of Central Africa differ; most of 
 them have been cannibals at one time or an- 
 other, particularly as regards eating their 
 enemies in times of war, with the belief that 
 
ON TO MWATA YAMVO 105 
 
 the courage and strength of the eaten enemies 
 will thereby enter into themselves. 
 
 In this way there has doubtless been culti- 
 vated in many of the tribes a taste for human 
 flesh, and to this day there are tribes to the 
 north of the Lunda field where slaves are fat- 
 tened for set, or occasional, feasts and where 
 no white men have been allowed to enter. 
 
 The other incident concerned Mrs. Springer. 
 As she marched out of the village nearly a 
 score of girls followed her for about three 
 miles, importuning her to come and live there 
 and teach them. They were such bright, lov- 
 able girls that it made her heart ache to hear 
 them and know that she could not accept their 
 invitation or respond to their appeal. I was 
 in advance and did not see nor hear them. 
 These girls were in earnest. They had un- 
 doubtedly heard from Jacob what it meant to 
 the native women of a tribe to have a mission 
 in their midst and so they ran along by my 
 wife's side for miles, begging in most pleading 
 tones that she would come and "sit" (which is 
 their word for living) among them. 
 
 I have never met a man who was more in- 
 sistent on having a missionary than Mpereta. 
 There was no suitable place for a mission near 
 his present village, but he told me that he 
 
106 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 intended to build on the Luebo River the next 
 year. That meant he would not be settled 
 for two years therefore we could not for the 
 present consider his case. By the time he was 
 settled we knew that we could build at but 
 one place, and that place must be at the capital 
 of Mwata Yamvo. We have not seen Mpereta 
 or his people since. 
 
 Six miles beyond Mpereta's farthest out- 
 village we came to Chipepela's village. He 
 was away from home, but had left word that 
 if I came he was to be called from his rubber- 
 gathering camp, as he greatly desired to meet 
 me. I told his representative that I could not 
 wait, but must move on early the next morning. 
 I met him, however, the next year and found 
 him to be a deep-dyed rascal, intriguing for 
 the deposing of Mwata Yamvo and aspiring 
 to fill that place. He claimed that he was the 
 rightful heir to this throne. 
 
 He was one of four pretenders to the throne 
 that we met. All of these claimed to be the 
 legitimate sons of former Mwata Yamvos, 
 which was quite possible. When a man has a 
 few hundred wives, there are likely to be 
 several sons all of whom consider themselves 
 his rightful heirs. 
 
 As the present incumbent of the throne of 
 
ON TO MWATA YAMVO 107 
 
 the Ltinda country must know of these in- 
 trigues and plots against his life and position, 
 we came to realize that even here in the wilds 
 of Central Africa, as in other parts of the 
 world, "uneasy lies the head that wears a 
 crown." 
 
 At Kimpuki we came to our first of the 
 many Kassai Co. "factories," as the Belgians 
 call them. Here we met a Mr. Tyson, whose 
 mother was an American woman and so he 
 spoke English perfectly, though his father was 
 a Belgian, and he had been born and raised in 
 Belgium. He was delighted to meet us. His 
 superior, M. Boccar, though he could not speak 
 English, and at that time neither of us could 
 speak French, was also very hearty in his wel- 
 come to us. 
 
 This trading station was like most of the 
 others, consisting of four main buildings, 
 two for residences, one for buying, and the 
 other for storing and drying rubber. These 
 stations have at least two white men on them 
 and more if needed. Their rule is that one 
 man shall always be on the station and one 
 man itinerating in the villages. Therefore 
 each white man is alternately on the station 
 two weeks in the month and two weeks out in 
 the villages. Both are on the station for two 
 
108 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 or three days at the end of the month when 
 making out their monthly reports. 
 
 Here we were able to buy salt and other 
 trading goods to send back with Jim and the 
 carriers who had stipulated that this was as 
 far as they would go. By the courtesy of Mr. 
 Boccar and Mr. Tyson we were also given 
 carriers for the next stage of our journey. We 
 learned here that we could not buy anything 
 in the shape of European food. The Kassai 
 Co. ration their white men, and absolutely 
 forbid them to sell any of their food supplies. 
 We have had them give us sugar, butter, or a 
 few tins of anything they could spare, but it 
 was worth a man's job to sell a single thing 
 that he received as rations. This was to pre- 
 vent the men selling their food for money and 
 then falling ill as a consequence of living on 
 native food and having insufficient nourish- 
 ment, a wise provision, indeed. 
 
 We were just a week on the next stage of the 
 journey, that is, from Kimpuki to Kafuchi. 
 We had all the carriers we needed and those 
 that were used to the trail. The country was 
 more broken. Some of the ridges were even 
 higher in altitude than Lukoshi. We had left 
 the flat, sandy divide country for a well- 
 drained, more sparsely wooded region. Much 
 
ON TO MWATA YAMVO 109 
 
 of this country will some day be cultivated by 
 the white man. We found it very taxing to 
 push through the unburned grass along some 
 of these sections, but were glad to see land 
 that could be made to produce abundantly if 
 worked. 
 
 One forenoon we crossed some recently 
 made wagon tracks. It is impossible to de- 
 scribe the excitement we felt at seeing such 
 an evidence of civilization in this remote place. 
 We learned later that the wagon belonged to 
 a Portuguese trader who had passed along 
 that way just two days ahead of us. 
 
 We also came to some Chokwe villages, 
 where the people were characterized by the 
 same air of sullen indifference or defiance that 
 we had noticed among the Bachokwe west of 
 the Kassai River five years before. 
 
 We were told that one of the aspirants for 
 the throne of Mwata Yamvo twenty-five years 
 before this had gone out and engaged the 
 Bachokwe to help him in his cause. These had 
 invaded the country and had made a diagonal 
 sweep from south to north, almost cutting the 
 Lunda empire in two. So that at the present 
 time there is a section of the Alunda who pay 
 no tribute to Mwata Yamvo, but who consider 
 Kayembe Mukuru as their paramount chief. 
 
110 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 Among the Bachokwe, every village stands by 
 itself and true to their early standards they 
 acknowledge no paramount chief. 
 
 I find recorded in our dairy, "We have been 
 in ideal farming country nearly all day. Eich 
 red clay, open veldt, fine streams draining the 
 land, and plenty of forest near at hand. We 
 passed near one Alunda village, Mulamba's, 
 but as our guide had disappeared, we did not 
 learn of this village until evening. It was a 
 little off our trail and had an abundance of 
 bananas and plantains. At Ndumba's, we 
 found the old sort of Bachokwe. The chief 
 refused to come out or even see us. The people 
 would not come either." 
 
 The next day, this is the record : "To-day we 
 have had plains for most of the journey. The 
 vleis have extended most of the way, making 
 very tiresome traveling. In the rains they 
 would be covered with water. After seven and 
 a half miles, we came to Nyuwamba's village, 
 a large Bachokwe town. Here, too, the people 
 would have nothing to do with us, and the 
 chief fairly threw his present at us and stalked 
 off without waiting for a present in return. 
 We were to have slept there last night, but it 
 is just as well that we did not reach it." 
 
 The next day there was another incident 
 
ON TO MWATA YAMVO 111 
 
 which needs a little more detail than is given 
 in the diary. There have not been many times 
 in our journey ings when we have had any 
 scares from wild beasts, though they have been 
 all around us. But on this memorable night 
 we certainly had a genuine fright. 
 
 We had had to go on beyond the usual camp- 
 ing place that night and found ourselves at 
 a very bad spot where it was evident no cara- 
 vans were in the habit of sleeping. Here was 
 a beautiful stream at the bottom of a deep 
 depression where massive trees, moss covered 
 with entwining vines, made a scene like fairy- 
 land. Beautiful as it was we could not sleep 
 down there on those moss-covered roots of 
 trees, and so we climbed the steep bank and 
 into the open. But even here there was no 
 good place to camp and, indeed, the only level 
 place was in a bunch of grass growing eight 
 feet high. 
 
 We had the boys clear a spot for our tent 
 and went to bed with the knowledge that we 
 were in a bad situation should the grass catch 
 fire from any flying sparks from the camp 
 fires. 
 
 We were awakened out of our first sound 
 sleep by stealthy footsteps rustling in the tall 
 grass. It was bright moonlight and with every 
 
112 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 sense alert, I saw the shadow of an animal's 
 head against the tent and soon that head 
 appeared at the opening of the tent door. 
 From all I could see and hear, I judged it to 
 be a leopard and I had no gun with me. In 
 fact the only implement I had in the tent was 
 a hoe and I reached out and threw this at the 
 animal, yelling at it. 
 
 The animal retired and I got up and re- 
 covered my hoe. I looked out of the tent with 
 the wash basin full of water in my hands, 
 ready to give the beast a disheartening souse 
 should it be near, but could see nothing. On 
 account of the grass we did not have our fire 
 that night. And on account of the bad loca- 
 tion our carriers were quite a distance away. 
 Of course I could have called them, but since 
 the animal was gone what was the use? 
 
 It took us a little time to get quieted down 
 again after the excitement, when we again 
 heard that stealthy foot-fall that was hair- 
 raising from the feeling that something was 
 creeping upon us unawares, some evil, one 
 knows not what. I shouted and heard the 
 animal bound off again. 
 
 We were very weary after the day's hard 
 trek, and so in a half hour or so we were both 
 asleep again and must have slept an hour or 
 
ON TO MWATA YAMVO 113 
 
 two when Mrs. Springer was suddenly wak- 
 ened by these same stealthy footsteps just on 
 the other side of the tent from her head. I 
 gave a tremendous yell and then got up and 
 went outside, banging the hoe about in a most 
 threatening way. The animal bounded off 
 again, and after looking at my watch and see- 
 ing that it was two o'clock, I went back to 
 bed and after a while we went to sleep and 
 were not disturbed again. 
 
 The next morning as we came out of our 
 tent we saw a poor, little half -starved native 
 dog with a fiber collar around his neck. He 
 had lost his master, or rather his master had 
 lost him, and he had been trying to find some 
 trace of him in our caravan or else to get a 
 belated supper. In the moonlight his shadow 
 had made him look like a huge beast, and in 
 the tall grass his timid advances had sounded 
 like the foot-falls of a leopard. We coaxed 
 him to follow us the nine miles to the next 
 village and then left him. 
 
 We have often found the tracks of leopards 
 and lions which have been near our camp in 
 the night, and we know of lions that have 
 passed right by our tent without waking us. 
 But it took this little, stray, half-dead cur to 
 give us the scare of our lives. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 KAFUCHI TO MUSUMBA 
 
 HAVING these men from the Kassai Co., we 
 were compelled to move on Sunday, as the men 
 would not rest with us on the road. 
 
 We held a service in the village in the morn- 
 ing and ate our lunch before starting, as we 
 had but a few miles to make. We had services 
 in three more villages on the way, and finally 
 came to the large Chokwe village under the 
 chief Kafuchi. 
 
 Here we were soon surrounded by scores 
 of natives, and the place fairly swarmed with 
 children. We have seldom ever seen so many 
 children in any one village. Our carriers put 
 down their loads and learning that Kafuchi 
 was not at home, and there being thus no 
 formalities to delay us, I began to sing and we 
 had a service at once. The effect reminded us 
 of Paul at Athens where "all the Athenians 
 and strangers which were there spent their 
 time in nothing else, but either to tell or to 
 hear some new thing." 
 
 So these people gathered around us with 
 
 114 
 
KAFUCHI TO MUSUMBA 115 
 
 somewhat the same words as those old Athe- 
 nians, "What will these babblers say?" Some, 
 "He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange 
 gods." Some, "May we know what this new 
 doctrine whereof thou speakest, is?" Two 
 young men clad in tennis flannels and smart 
 tan shoes, hatted and coated throughout in 
 Brussels garments, given to them doubtless by 
 some fond master on his departure for his 
 native land, announced haughtily as they 
 fingered their rosaries, "We are already Chris- 
 tians and have no need of your preaching." 
 
 What a motley crowd it was! The service 
 lasted about an hour, as I had several of my 
 boys testify to what God had done for them. 
 Then as we arose the crowd broke up and we 
 went on our way two miles to the Kassai Co. 
 factory. As we left, "some mocked, and others 
 said, We will hear thee again on this matter." 
 Pioneer preaching in heathen countries has 
 not changed so very much from Paul's day to 
 this. 
 
 At the factory we met the Chef du Secteur, 
 M. Lefevre, a worthy gentleman who spoke 
 English fluently and who was very glad to wel- 
 come us and give us all the assistance in his 
 power. 
 
 From him we learned the methods of admin- 
 
116 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 istration of the Kassai Co., which had then 
 about two hundred factories, mostly along the 
 Kassai and Lulua Eivers and their adjoining 
 districts. 
 
 These factories are grouped into districts 
 over which there is a superintendent whose 
 business it is to see that every man and every 
 factory under him comes up to the mark. He 
 travels almost continually, and arrives at a 
 station often unexpectedly, when he examines 
 the books and goes into every matter of detail 
 of that station. 
 
 As was said previously, there are at least 
 two men for every station, and each of these 
 men makes very minute reports at the end of 
 each month, each quarter, and each half year, 
 and then again an annual report. There is to 
 be no loafing on any of these stations. The men 
 are supposed to start work at six in the morn- 
 ing and keep busy until six o'clock at night, 
 unless sick in bed with fever. No white man 
 is supposed to report less than one ton of 
 rubber bought per month, while at some of the 
 better situated stores they can get five tons 
 a month. And if there is the least falling off 
 in the purchases, a man is called strictly to 
 account. 
 
 As the Chef du Secteur travels about he 
 
KAFUCHI TO MUSUMBA 117 
 
 stops at every village or native town and calls 
 for the chief. He makes the chief a good pres- 
 ent and then asks him if he has any complaints 
 to make either of the treatment of the native 
 capitas in the employ of the Kassai Co. or of 
 the white men at the nearest station. Any 
 such complaints are thoroughly investigated 
 and justice meted out to the villages for any 
 injuries sustained. 
 
 If any of the villages have fallen off in sup- 
 plying rubber, the Chef du Secteur gives addi- 
 tional presents to the chief to encourage him 
 to "make" or gather more rubber, also as com- 
 pensation for sending his young men to act as 
 carriers in the transport. 
 
 At that time there were, as we said, over two 
 hundred factories of the Kassai Co., extending 
 from Stanley Pool to the Congo-Zambesi 
 divide, a distance of about eight hundred 
 miles. They had an average of three white 
 men and five native buyers to each of these 
 factories. In some sections the rubber was 
 so plentiful and the population so thick that 
 the factories were only two miles apart, and 
 the men on these stations were kept busy buy- 
 ing rubber from morning till night. 
 
 Each factory served as a transport station 
 to the next factory and there its responsibility 
 
118 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 ceased. The receiving station then must see 
 that the loads were forwarded to the next one 
 beyond it and thus a perfect system of trans- 
 port had been worked out and one that could 
 be operated at a minimum of cost. 
 
 We were greatly impressed with the effi- 
 ciency and thoroughness of the organization 
 and conduct of the whole industry from a busi- 
 ness standpoint. There are certain regrettable 
 features about it from another point of view, 
 some of which may be mentioned later. 
 
 On this trip we visited eight of the Kassai 
 Co. stores or factories, and talked with the 
 natives in many of the villages between, and 
 although the natives complained bitterly about 
 certain other agencies, we can truthfully 
 record that we did not hear a single complaint 
 against the Kassai Co. as to any financial 
 dealings between them. 
 
 As to the missions in the area covered by the 
 Kassai Co., while there were a few Catholic 
 stations, there were only the three mission 
 stations of the Southern Presbyterian Church 
 near Luebo, as far as we could learn. The 
 company trades for rubber with several tribes, 
 some of which were cannibal, where no mis- 
 sionaries of any denomination had yet come. 
 
 In accordance with the custom of the com- 
 
KAFUCHI TO MUSUMBA 119 
 
 pany, the men who had brought us from Kim- 
 puki turned back from Kafuchi. As a rule, 
 no amount of persuasion or pay can induce the 
 men who are accustomed to travel over one 
 section to go on to another. 
 
 Mr. Lefevre at once sent word to the chief 
 Kafuchi that he wanted twelve men, and the 
 next morning they appeared and were assigned 
 to our loads to go with us to Mwata Yamvo. 
 For the Kassai Co. has not only a monopoly 
 on the trading of rubber in their territory, but 
 also on the transport and available labor 
 supply, owing to their generous gifts to the 
 native chiefs and their needs for such large 
 numbers of carriers. This does not apply to 
 Mwata Yamvo himself and his neighborhood. 
 
 As the Kassai Co. paid the carriers and gave 
 them salt with which to buy their food charg- 
 ing the amount in our bill we had no re- 
 sponsibility for feeding these carriers, which 
 was a great relief to me. 
 
 On arriving at a village, the business of food 
 was taken up at once, and the men ordered the 
 women to cook them a dish of food. When 
 they finally got their plates with the mush 
 neatly rounded into a large ball on each, and 
 accompanied by a little dish of beans, mush- 
 rooms, caterpillars, or some other relish, the 
 
120 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 men would protest that they were being robbed 
 outright, and the women would stoutly assure 
 them that it was practically a gift anyway 
 considering the little they had paid for it. The 
 conversations were frequently prolonged and 
 heated and compliments of a negative charac- 
 ter passed freely, but we learned that there 
 were really no hard feelings on either side. 
 These side remarks were but the spice of the 
 deal. 
 
 We had an interesting sidelight on human 
 nature about this time in connection with our 
 own boys, six of whom were with us. From 
 Kimpuki we had been able to get sufficient 
 carriers so as to relieve them of their loads 
 and keep them fresh to take up the work of 
 the camp when we halted. So they were hav- 
 ing a remarkably easy time. In addition to 
 that, as we found fowls very cheap in two or 
 three villages, we decided on Sunday and on 
 one or two other occasions, to give them a treat 
 of chickens instead of the relish they were 
 accustomed to have. 
 
 The results were disastrous. The high liv- 
 ing and easy time seemed to set them up and 
 they began to neglect their camp duties and 
 grumble and growl all the time. If I gave 
 them chickens one day, they made a big row 
 
KAFUCHI TO MUSUMBA 121 
 
 if they did not have them the next. I noticed 
 that if I gave them any especial favors or deli- 
 cacies, I was sure to have trouble within less 
 than twenty-four hours. So after one or two 
 such occasions, I took them aside one evening 
 and reviewed the whole matter and told them 
 that if I had another such fuss after I had 
 done something kind for them all such favors 
 would be strictly cut off. 
 
 The second day out we came to the trading 
 store at Pesha, a sub-station of Kapanga, most 
 unfortunately situated on low, unhealthy 
 ground, with few natives in the vicinity. Here 
 we met the agent in charge at Kapanga who 
 was out assisting M. Lefevre. 
 
 He had been fifteen years in the Congo and 
 was accompanied by his half-caste daughter, 
 who was about twelve years of age. She was 
 dressed neatly in European clothing, which he 
 had brought from Belgium for her the year 
 previously. 
 
 Here is one of the unfortunate and deplor- 
 able features of the Kassai Co. They prefer 
 to employ single men, but in no case will they 
 let any of their employees take their white 
 wives out to Africa. In building a post, or 
 factory, a small hut is nearly always erected 
 near the residence of the agent for his native 
 
122 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 mistress, and though there were some who did 
 not take a black woman, the majority of them 
 did. 
 
 Unfortunately this practice of having native 
 concubines is not confined solely to the agents 
 of the Kassai Co., but is all too general a cus- 
 tom all over Africa. The small birthrate 
 resulting from such cohabitation is due to the 
 means the native women take to prevent 
 progeny. 
 
 Mr. Vanderveld's little girl was well man- 
 nered withal and our hearts ached for her 
 future. There seemed to be a strong attach- 
 ment between the father and child, though he 
 referred to the mother several times as his 
 "nigger," an unattractive woman who we 
 learned has been passed on from one white 
 man to another. 
 
 He was then thinking of leaving the Congo 
 soon on account of his health and the child 
 would be left without a protector. We parted 
 from him not expecting to see him again, as 
 he had planned to make a month's tour in an- 
 other direction. But he was destined to change 
 all his plans and we did meet him once more. 
 
 The next morning we met quite a number of 
 native soldiers preceding their Chef du Poste 
 who was out gathering taxes. Several seemed 
 
KAFUCHI TO MUSUMBA 123 
 
 inclined to jostle insolently against Mrs. 
 Springer, and one or two of them tried to com- 
 pel us both to get out of their way and give 
 them the whole path. I stood my ground, 
 letting them understand that I would not take 
 their insolent orders. When the Chef came 
 up he was very pleasant and wrote a note to 
 his assistant to give me any help, or a house if 
 I wanted it, so long as I cared to remain. Na- 
 tive soldiers, whether Belgian or British, are 
 very apt to be bullies and very offensive both 
 to blacks and whites. 
 
 On this section we saw more evidences of 
 wild game than we had in any other part of 
 this journey. The country from Kafuchi to 
 Kapanga was very broken, reminding us of 
 parts of New England. The rivers were 
 parallel to each other, all flowing north, and 
 were from one to five miles apart. The rivers 
 marked the same altitude as Lukoshi, but the 
 ridges about three hundred feet higher. Luko- 
 shi was thirty-five hundred feet above sea-level. 
 
 These ridges consisted of the same rich red 
 clay soil that we have on our industrial mis- 
 sion farm at Old Umtali, and we were im- 
 pressed with the promise of this country here 
 for European occupation and farming. The 
 natives do not like the red clay for farming, 
 
124 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 as it is too hard to work with native hoes. But 
 it is the ideal thing for Europeans who can 
 cultivate the soil with cattle and machinery. 
 
 We were also now out of the tsetse fly belt 
 and found that many of the natives owned 
 oxen. Indeed, in some of the villages there 
 were a goodly number of cattle to be seen. 
 The natives have never worked nor milked 
 their cattle, but they can be trained to do both. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 MUSUMBA WA MWATA YAMVO, THE 
 CAPITAL OF MWATA YAMVO 
 
 A HALF mile from the capital, just as we 
 crossed the last stream, a young man clad in a 
 white helmet, checked vest, and dark blue loin 
 cloth, came out to welcome us to the Chiefs 
 town. How he could have known of our com- 
 ing is one of those mysteries which never cease 
 to perplex white men. Probably some messen- 
 ger had slipped away from the village where 
 we had eaten lunch six miles away and had 
 notified the chief that an unknown white man 
 and white woman were on the road. 
 
 But no European courtier could have wel- 
 comed us with more grace than this Lunda in 
 the three-piece costume. The helmet was worn 
 as an official badge after the mode Belgique. 
 We learned before we left the town that this 
 youth, Mbanzi, had the chief care of the king's 
 harem. 
 
 Just outside the outer wall of the town, 
 Mwata Yamvo himself advanced to meet us 
 and to lead us to his own court, where he was 
 
 125 
 
126 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 living in an excellent European tent which 
 had been imported for him by the Kassai Co. 
 In front of the tent were two or three folding 
 chairs and a folding camp table. One of the 
 chairs was draped with a fine leopard skin, 
 while a lion skin was stretched out on the 
 ground in front of it. Mwata Yamvo seated 
 himself in that after we had taken the other 
 two chairs. The leopard skin pertains to 
 royalty among the Alunda. 
 
 The Chief was dressed in two white duck 
 coats and a voluminous loin cloth. He wore 
 an elaborate beaded head-dress most beauti- 
 fully done, a genuine ornament worthy of a 
 paramount chief. His wrists and ankles were 
 loaded with bracelets, the use of which we were 
 to learn later. 
 
 The Chief spoke to an attendant, handing 
 him his bunch of keys, and very shortly he 
 brought a bottle of champagne and glasses. We 
 thanked the Chief most cordially, but declined 
 to let him open it for us. Thinking that we 
 did not like that particular drink, the Chief 
 ordered port wine and that was brought. This 
 we also refused, and in perplexity he offered 
 his own favorite drink, palm wine. At last 
 we succeeded in assuring him that we took 
 nothing stronger than water, which was 
 
MUSUMBA WA MWATA YAMVO 127 
 
 brought in a large white stoneware pitcher. 
 The Chief then offered me cigarettes which, of 
 course, I also declined with profuse thanks, 
 and then I had Jacob explain to the Chief that 
 this particular breed of a white man, the likes 
 of which he had never seen before, neither 
 drank alcoholic liquors nor smoked tobacco. 
 The Chief took Jacob aside a few days later 
 and said in explanation of his offers at this 
 time that he had had a visit from a Catholic 
 priest only the week before we came and that 
 he had accepted both wine and cigarettes. 
 
 As soon as we had had refreshments, the 
 Chief said most courteously that he was de- 
 lighted to have us as his guests and that he 
 would show us where w r e could pitch our tent 
 and make ourselves as comfortable as possible. 
 He said that he was very sorry not to have a 
 house to place at our disposal, but he had been 
 on his present site only two months and did 
 not even have his own house finished, but, as 
 we could see, had to live in a tent himself. He 
 said that he had a guest house building, and 
 that if we would remain until it was done he 
 would be very glad to put it at our service. 
 
 He led the way to show us where we were 
 to camp in the compound next to his own, and 
 as we advanced Mrs. Springer fell back some 
 
128 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 paces with the little black box which she car- 
 ried innocently under her arm. A half hour 
 later, as she snapped a group of the royal 
 harem, the click of the shutter called 'their 
 attention to it and immediately the \vord went 
 round that this was a camera and that the 
 white woman was taking photos. These girls 
 were used to camera work by the Belgians, for 
 whom they had posed many a time. 
 
 This was another one of our surprises. At 
 Kazembe's and all along the way we had seen 
 only the raw r est heathenism and the crudest 
 specimens of heathens. The whole atmosphere 
 had suddenly changed. Here was a chief show- 
 ing us as gracious hospitality as any monarch 
 in Europe could have done, for the grace of 
 hospitality does not consist in the amount one 
 has to offer, but in the manner in which it is 
 given. 
 
 We found here a true metropolitan air. The 
 natives in this town no longer marveled at the 
 wonderful things possessed by the white man, 
 for they were used to them. The town had 
 been for six years within a short distance of 
 both the government post at Kapanga and the 
 Kassai Co. factory, and these two places alone 
 had some six white men connected with them 
 more or less permanently, besides many tran- 
 
MUSUMBA WA MWATA YAMVO 129 
 
 sients, and then there had been the presence of 
 the Forminiere prospectors. So that the in- 
 mates of the capital were well sophisticated 
 along many occidental lines too much so. 
 
 The carriers whom I got from Mr. Lefevre 
 insisted that they must go right on that day 
 to the Kassai Co. store, and so, leaving Mrs. 
 Springer to supervise the erection of the tent 
 and get settled for the night, I had to go on 
 six miles with these men, or what was seven 
 and a half by the route I took via the govern- 
 ment Poste. 
 
 There were three centers here, Musumba, or 
 the capital of Mwata Yamvo; Kapanga, the 
 government Poste six miles to the southwest; 
 and Mwini Kapanga, the store .or factory of 
 the Kassai Co., a mile and a half north of the 
 government Poste, but only six miles from 
 Musumba by a direct route. 
 
 At the government Poste, I met M. Vermees, 
 a young lieutenant, a most amiable and viva- 
 cious young man on whom the responsibilities 
 of life and government would never weigh too 
 heavily. He lamented that his rations were 
 six months overdue and so he could not offer 
 me any wine, therefore he accompanied me to 
 the Kassai Co. store and did full justice to the 
 wine offered there. 
 
130 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 At the Kassai Co. store, where I met Mr. 
 Till, a Luxemburger, I saw a large amount 
 of wine in huge demijohns, which were to be 
 presents to Mwata Yamvo, a certain amount 
 being furnished him each month as an ac- 
 knowledgment of his services in supplying 
 them carriers and as an inducement to keep 
 on doing the same. 
 
 I did not get back to the tent until quite 
 dark, when I found that the Chief had sent 
 me a goat as a present, which I had killed and, 
 as is customary, sent him a hind quarter. The 
 next day I sent him a blanket that I had 
 brought, a gorgeous one with a bright purple 
 ground dotted with leopard spots. 
 
 That evening I took Jacob and went into 
 the Chief's compound to see him and to tell 
 him that I wanted twelve carriers to go on 
 with me in two days' time. He said that he 
 could not possibly consent to our making so 
 short a visit and that we must stay with him 
 at least six days. 
 
 This reminds we that I have not yet given 
 the plan of Mwata Yamvo's town, which was 
 different from anything we had ever seen. It 
 was rectangular, six hundred paces long by 
 four hundred wide. When I first found how 
 perfectly it was squared and how it w r as 
 
MUSUMBA WA MWATA YAMVO 131 
 
 divided into sixteen different courts or com- 
 pounds on the inside, I concluded that he had 
 had some European assistance in laying it out. 
 
 But both his own men and later Mr. Ver- 
 mees told me that he had laid it out without 
 any European help whatever. Some time after 
 I found in Livingstone's notes, written in 1854, 
 a description of the town of Mwata Yamvo, 
 given him by the natives as he crossed a corner 
 of the Lunda country, and I found that it 
 tallied very well with this. Evidently this is 
 the style of town which has been used for the 
 capital of Mwata Yamvo for about a hundred 
 years. These courts were all divided by fences 
 eight to ten feet high, and made opaque by 
 binding on grass or boughs of trees. 
 
 The nights were very cold at this season; 
 the mornings and evenings were also very 
 chilly, but the days were very hot owing to 
 our having no shade until afternoon. The tent 
 was suffocatingly hot until late in the after- 
 noon when the shadow of the fence fell upon 
 it. At noon we sought the shadow of the hut 
 of two or three of the Chief's favorite wives in 
 which to eat our noonday meal. At one o'clock 
 there was shade enough by our fence in front 
 of the tent. 
 
 Had we come two or three months later, we 
 
132 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 might have been very comfortable in the guest 
 house, but our ten days at this time without 
 shelter or any privacy whatever made our stay 
 in many respects very unpleasant in spite of 
 all the Chief's desire to make us comfortable. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. The Chief, as 
 was his custom, departed about ten o'clock 
 for an official visit to the government Poste 
 to which he carried a large present of native 
 meal, a goat, some fowls, etc. Of course he 
 received a present in return covering its full 
 value, often in francs, but he was required to 
 make this contribution weekly and he always 
 made the trip on Sunday unless ill or otherwise 
 detained. He was escorted out of the town 
 by the big drum which preceded him, and a 
 large body of retainers followed the machilla 
 in which he was carried. 
 
 We had a large crowd at the service held 
 early in the morning and at another that eve- 
 ning and we held several smaller services 
 during the day, the Chief being present at the 
 one held about sundown. On the part of the 
 Chief and of all his people there was a marked 
 appreciation of the fact that the services were 
 all in Luunda, their native tongue, the hymns, 
 the speech, and everything connected with the 
 service. The Catholic who had been there but 
 

 THE CHIEF GOING FOR His OFFICIAL VISIT TO THE POSTE 
 MWATA WAS PRESENT AT THE EVENING SERVICE 
 
MUSUMBA WA MWATA YAMVO 133 
 
 two weeks before our arrival was the only 
 other missionary that they had ever seen, and 
 neither he nor anyone with him could speak 
 the Luunda. This was one of the strongest 
 reasons why Mwata Yamvo and his people 
 favored our Mission from the very first. 
 
 While we were at breakfast and by the by, 
 it was a very slim one, as we had not been able 
 to take much from Lukoshi and could not buy 
 any European provisions on the way, so that 
 we had been reduced largely to native food a 
 messenger came with a letter. We had heard 
 at Kafuchi that there was an American pros- 
 pector named Young not far from Kapanga, 
 and on Saturday I had written him a note say- 
 ing that we were at Musumba and trusted that 
 he might find it convenient to come over and 
 meet us, as he w r as but twelve miles away. Mr. 
 Vermees told me that he was in the habit of 
 sending Mr. Young two bottles of milk a day 
 and that the same boy would take my note. 
 
 Mr. Vermees had now forwarded the reply 
 to me. Mr. Young expressed a strong wish to 
 meet both Mrs. Springer and myself, but as 
 he was collecting a caravan and had some of 
 the men there, he dared not leave them and 
 come over to us. Would we not, therefore, 
 come to see him? He was expecting to leave 
 
134 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 on Wednesday morning for good, so that if we 
 could, he wished us to come Monday. 
 
 So I sent Jacob to Mwata Yamvo asking if 
 he could give me eight men to go with us and 
 come back on the morrow. He had them there 
 inside of an hour and we were delighted with 
 the four assigned to Mrs. Springer's machilla. 
 These men had been trained for this very kind 
 of carrying in the Kassai Co. and two of them 
 could carry for miles without changing. 
 
 Passing the government station that morn- 
 ing, Mr. Vermees again regretted that he had 
 no refreshments to offer us unless here a 
 sudden thought struck him unless we would 
 accept a ripe pawpaw. Wouldn't we ! So two 
 large, luscious pawpaws were brought out and 
 we enjoyed them as only those who have been 
 deprived of fruit for years can do. The idea 
 that all parts of Africa abound in bananas and 
 other tropical fruits is one of the greatest and 
 most persistent fallacies. Throughout thou- 
 sands of square miles of Central Africa the 
 natives raise no fruit at all and where they do 
 it is in small quantities. 
 
 Just beyond the government Poste, we came 
 to the village of the chief Kapanga for which 
 the poste is named, a village second in impor- 
 tance to Musumba. Here we were surrounded 
 
MUSUMBA WA MWATA YAMVO 135 
 
 by admiring groups of women also. For while 
 white men were a common enough sight, Mrs. 
 Springer was the first white woman to visit 
 this region. We secured our ferryman and 
 proceeded to the Lulua River, where we were 
 ferried across in a large and commodious dug- 
 out. The river at this point was exactly three 
 thousand feet above sea-level and some three 
 hundred feet in width. In the rainy season 
 it covered the flat lands on either side until 
 it was a half mile to a mile in width. 
 
 There were plenty of fish to be caught in the 
 river, and also plenty of hippopotami. We 
 saw their spoor on the river banks. Both the 
 white men and the natives were able to shoot 
 some of these mammoth creatures from time 
 to time. Fortunately we saw none of them in 
 our several crossings of the Lulua at this time. 
 They are dangerous animals, accustomed to 
 charge on native canoes. 
 
 On the other side, our path followed up the 
 river for about three miles, and two miles be- 
 yond we came to the small station, or depot, 
 of the Forminiere Co., where we were most 
 heartily welcomed by a man who had not seen 
 a white woman for two years, an Englishman 
 who had been naturalized in the United States. 
 
 Mr. Young served the inevitable and most 
 
136 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 acceptable tea on our arrival and regretted 
 that the delay of his own "chop boxes," three 
 months overdue, prevented his giving us what 
 he called a good dinner. But after weeks of 
 subsisting almost entirely on sour mush and 
 native fowls, his roast pigeon, carrots, tinned 
 beans, and, last but not least, plum pudding, 
 was a feast fit for kings. Most of all, we en- 
 joyed eating bread once more. There is noth- 
 ing we miss more when obliged to do without 
 our accustomed food than bread. And when 
 we have bread we hardly mind any other lack. 
 
 We learned from Mr. Young that evening 
 that he represented a concession known as 
 the Forminiere, a term condensing the French 
 for Forests and Mines. This is an American- 
 Belgian Company in which the Ryan combina- 
 tion of capitalists is largely interested. The 
 company had been given three large conces- 
 sions by King Leopold. This one was bounded 
 by the Lulua River on the east and the Kassai 
 and Kwango Rivers on the west, giving the 
 company the exclusive right to prospect for 
 minerals for a certain number of years. As 
 the concession would expire in a year, the com- 
 pany was seeking to have this section thor- 
 oughly prospected this year. 
 
 Two other Americans were prospecting to 
 
MUSUMBA WA MWATA YAMVO 137 
 
 the south, and we had the pleasure of meeting 
 them later on. 
 
 Mr. Young had spent most of his time to 
 the north in quest of diamonds and we saw 
 two small bottles of diamonds which he had 
 found. We learned much from him of sections 
 of country hitherto untouched by white men, 
 some among the fierce cannibal tribes to the 
 north. We were impressed, in meeting him 
 and later his two companions, with the hard- 
 ships they had had to undergo in their work 
 of seeking out the mineral 'wealth of this dark 
 continent. 
 
 In the small house used as a store depot we 
 saw shovels, picks, drills, forges, tackle for 
 windlass, tents, and outfits that had been 
 brought here at great expense. In comparison, 
 our entire outfit for mission work was insig- 
 nificant, arid once again we had impressed 
 upon us the greater and readier resources of 
 all secular agencies in Africa. 
 
 In a great deal of this mining work the 
 funds were not supplied by men of wealth, but 
 by the common people. Too often these gener- 
 ous supplies represent the hard earned moneys 
 of comparatively poor people, who have had 
 their imaginations inflamed with the prospect 
 of getting rich quickly and have given their 
 
138 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 savings of years, never to see them again. It 
 is strange how generous and credulous people 
 become when they think there will be a per- 
 sonal profit in the end. Could we but have a 
 tithe of the money that has come from Meth- 
 odist pockets and has been wasted in mining 
 or so-called mining operations, our own Mis- 
 sion could flourish. 
 
 We had used up the very last of our flour 
 the morning that we went to see Mr. Young, 
 and had practically nothing else in the way of 
 European provisions. We were concerned 
 about the return trip, as Mrs. Springer was 
 nearly ill from eating sour mush, and there 
 was no hope of getting anything at the Kassai 
 Co. stores. 
 
 But Mr. Young, with a rare spirit of hos- 
 pitality and probably prompted by his own 
 experience of being short on the veldt when 
 transport facilities failed to connect him with 
 the liberal provision cases sent him by his com- 
 pany, made repeated and pointed inquiries as 
 to our supplies until he learned the situation. 
 He then insisted on our taking one twenty- 
 eight-pound case of flour, an assortment o 
 tinned meat, and pickles enough to take us 
 back to Lukoshi, a true God-send to us. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 AT MUSUMBA 
 
 (Continued) 
 
 ANOTHER evidence of the thoughtfulness of 
 Mr. Young was seen the next morning as our 
 tent was being taken down and our things 
 packed for leaving. He called me into the 
 house and asked me privately if I had enough 
 money to see me back to Lukoshi. 
 
 I replied that I was quite sure that I had 
 plenty of cash for the remainder of the trip 
 home. 
 
 "Well," said he, "I have quite a bit of loose 
 cash that I do not need, as I am going right out 
 onto the veldt where there will be no oppor- 
 tunity to spend money in any case, and you 
 are quite welcome to take it if you like." 
 
 Now I have found that it is never well to 
 refuse money when it is offered and I have 
 always had cause to regret it sooner or later 
 if I did so. The thought came to my mind that 
 this might be a provision for some unknown 
 need that might soon arise. 
 
 "But," I replied, "how could I get the money 
 
 139 
 
140 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 back to you? There is no direct connection 
 between Lukoshi and Kapanga and, as you 
 know, there is not even a mail route." For at 
 that time the government had no mail route 
 from Kapanga in any direction. The Kassai 
 Co. received and forwarded mail to the north 
 and out by the mouth of the Congo. 
 
 "That is all right," said Mr. Young. "You 
 can send a check to my banking account in 
 England." 
 
 "In that case," I answered, "I will be very 
 glad to take what you wish to spare. How 
 much will that be?" 
 
 "I can easily let you have five hundred 
 francs," he replied. That is about one hun- 
 dred dollars. 
 
 So I took the cash, all in specie, weighing 
 several pounds. And though it is a very un- 
 usual thing for me, I entirely forgot to give 
 him a receipt for it, and I am certain that the 
 thought of a receipt never entered his mind 
 either. It was one of the most remarkable 
 incidents that have occurred to me in Africa. 
 
 After breakfast we bade farewell to this 
 man whom we had seen for the first time but 
 the day before and whom we might never see 
 again, and yet toward whom we had already 
 felt a genuine affection as of one belonging to 
 
AT MUSUMBA 141 
 
 our own kith and kin, and moved on back 
 down the river toward Musumba. 
 
 On our way we met the lad from the Poste 
 with his bottles of milk which he was taking to 
 Mr. Young. We found on reaching the Lulua 
 that this youth had crossed the river in the 
 ferry canoe and had hidden the paddles some- 
 where in the grass so cleverly that no amount 
 of searching on our part revealed them. 
 
 We shouted across the river and after a long 
 time induced the ferryman to come over in an 
 old canoe that had its sides all plastered up 
 with clay. He hunted for the paddles, but 
 finally left the old canoe and took us over in 
 the good one. It was thus past noon when we 
 reached the Poste and Mr. Vermees would not 
 hear of our going on without something to eat. 
 He said that he had nothing fit to set before 
 us, but what he had would at least keep us 
 from going away hungry. 
 
 The government Poste was nearly a mile 
 from Kapanga's town and was beautifully 
 situated on the highest rise of land in that 
 vicinity. One came up a broad path with large 
 gardens of the tall, graceful cassava on either 
 side. The soil was of the rich, red clay before 
 mentioned, and the cassava gardens were well 
 set off by their terra cotta background. 
 
142 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 The Poste itself had at that time three large 
 burnt-brick residences for its officers, and 
 numerous other buildings. Flower beds, paw- 
 paw, and lemon trees and bananas were 
 arranged to give a parklike appearance. From 
 the main residences one could look over the 
 valley to where the Lulua River, a mile away, 
 gleamed like a wide silver ribbon in the sun. 
 
 They had a herd of about fifty cattle, and so 
 had all the milk they needed for their own use 
 besides supplying Mr. Young and the Kassai 
 Co. as well. They made their own butter, no 
 small item when tinned butter cost fully two 
 dollars a pound. 
 
 Our lunch that day consisted of fried sweet 
 potatoes, fried plantains, fried eggs, and 
 coffee with fresh milk in it. Mr. Vermees had 
 no bread, as his flour was all exhausted, though 
 he said that he was expecting his "chop boxes," 
 meaning provisions, every day and had been 
 for months. 
 
 He had a large amount of coffee, which had 
 been brought by him from Matadi. This coffee, 
 which has a very excellent flavor, grows wild 
 on the lower Congo, below Boma. He insisted 
 on giving us several pounds, which we roasted 
 and used on reaching home, and we greatly 
 regretted when we had used the last of it that 
 
AT MUSUMBA 143 
 
 we could not get more of the same flavor and 
 quality. For the journey home we were glad 
 for the tin of roasted, ground coffee (also for 
 a pound of tea) given us by Mr. Young. 
 
 It was nearly sunset when we reached 
 Mwata Yamvo's, and as we entered the town 
 a crowd of people numbering at least four 
 hundred gathered around us and welcomed us 
 back. We held a service at once while we had 
 them all together, and the picture of that 
 heathen crowd gathered around us just as the 
 last rays of the setting sun touched up the 
 court and finally died away was one we shall 
 never forget. 
 
 Our two days of absence had worked out 
 well. I had left Jacob behind with instruc- 
 tions to gather all the information possible. 
 On our return I found that the Chief had used 
 this opportunity to get all the information he 
 could out of Jacob. He had sent for Jacob 
 two or three times and asked him all sorts of 
 questions concerning us, what we did with our 
 boys, whether we abused them or oppressed 
 them, and what we taught them. He could 
 converse with Jacob in the Luunda and this 
 mightily pleased him. 
 
 He was particularly interested in the story 
 of the atonement and asked Jacob many in- 
 
144 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO , 
 
 telligent questions about it. Then the next day 
 he had called for Jacob and requested him to 
 tell the story over again. He seemed to realize 
 what would be involved if he accepted Christ 
 but so far has not taken the step. But he was 
 sure of one thing at the end of those two days 
 that he wanted a missionary to come and 
 live among and teach his people. And when 
 I went to see him the next day, he said that 
 he wanted especially a medical missionary. 
 
 This Mwata Yamvo had now been ruling for 
 about five years, which coincided approxi- 
 mately with the time in which the Government 
 had taken over the administration from the 
 Kassai Co. At the time of his accession they 
 found tribal matters were in a rather chaotic 
 state owing to the advance of the Bachokwe 
 and the intrigues of the aspirants for the 
 Lunda throne. 
 
 After careful inquiry, the Government 
 learned that the present ruler was the one 
 really acknowledged to be the next in succes- 
 sion, though he was held practically as a 
 prisoner by one of the larger Chokwe chiefs 
 near the Congo-Zambesi border, not more than 
 one hundred miles west of Lukoshi. 
 
 They had procured his freedom and he had 
 chosen the site for his capital a mile north 
 
AT MUSUMBA 145 
 
 of the present one. This was before the Gov- 
 ernment established a Poste at Kapanga. 
 When they did so they required the Chief to 
 move to within a mile of them and he had lived 
 there for five years. 
 
 But he had had no end of trouble with the 
 native soldiers employed by the Government, 
 and had asked repeatedly to be allowed to 
 move further away, until at last the request 
 had been granted, and two months previously, 
 at the close of the rainy season, he had come 
 to his present site. 
 
 The policy of this Government, as with the 
 British Government in Rhodesia, is to admin- 
 ister the country as far as possible through 
 the paramount chiefs when there are such. 
 Thus Mwata Yamvo was not merely a figure- 
 head, but a man of no little responsibility. He 
 had native soldiers of his own, and one of the 
 first buildings to be completed in his town, 
 even before his own residence, was a jail. He 
 was judge of the supreme court, dealing with 
 a large number of native cases. 
 
 He had a considerable income, too. He had 
 five per cent commission on all the rubber that 
 was brought to the Kapanga store of the 
 Kassai Co., and sixty centimes, or twelve cents 
 of our money, for each carrier supplied to any 
 
146 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 and all parties. Mr. Vanderveld told us that 
 Mwata Yamvo had supplied the company with 
 no less than two thousand carriers during the 
 previous January and February. 
 
 He had the entire control of the carriers in 
 his kingdom, particularly in the region near 
 his capital. No one else could get carriers in 
 a native village. They must be obtained 
 through the Chief. 
 
 At present there were four parties of us 
 asking for carriers: the Government wanted 
 one hundred to go to Dilolo ; the Store wanted 
 several hundred, but had a rush order for two 
 hundred; (the Chief du Secteur had fifty men 
 engaged for six months) ; Mr. Young was urg- 
 ing the delivery of the rest of the fifty he 
 required; and last and least, we wanted the 
 modest number of twelve to take us to Dilolo, 
 or at least to Katola, which was nearly half 
 way. 
 
 Mwata Yamvo's method of getting men was 
 this : he would send his messengers out to sub- 
 chiefs telling each how many men he required. 
 Sometimes they came and sometimes not. 
 When a call became urgent, he would send 
 one of his bracelets or anklets by the messen- 
 ger. This meant business. 
 
 On one occasion during our stay in his town, 
 
AT MUSUMBA 147 
 
 a messenger returned and reported that a cer- 
 tain chief said that he could not supply the 
 men at present. Mwata Yamvo with an im- 
 patient gesture pulled off one of his bracelets, 
 handed it to the man, and told him to go and 
 bring with him the men required. And they 
 came, for they knew that if they did not, the 
 king's soldiers would come and trouble would 
 be brewing. 
 
 We found Mwata Yamvo to be a very busy, 
 hard-working monarch. He not only had the 
 task of sending out for carriers, receiving them 
 and assigning them to their respective duties, 
 but he had to sit almost daily on native cases 
 that were brought to him as the supreme judge. 
 Also he had about one hundred and fifty 
 natives at work building the town, and though 
 he had capable overseers all around, yet he had 
 to look after the work in general himself. 
 
 Pood was very scarce in the town, and it was 
 no easy matter to get enough of it for all of 
 his workmen, many of whom, by the way, came 
 from the Portuguese side of the Kassai. That 
 part of Angola was not administered by the 
 Portuguese and was another no-man's-land so 
 far as European occupation was concerned. 
 But being Lunda people they acknowledged 
 Mwata Yamvo as their king and supplied the 
 
148 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 workmen required for the building of his capi- 
 tal. 
 
 Now, as was said, it was difficult to get food 
 enough for this army, so Mwata Yamvo found 
 that he had to do as nearly all the white men 
 of the country have to do, and that is to give 
 out the rations himself to prevent waste. 
 About six o'clock the drum would sound and 
 we would see the men going by scores into the 
 next compound to ours and there they would 
 receive their rations for the following day. 
 
 There was a daily market held just outside 
 the north gate where native meal, dried fish, 
 meat, eggs, fowls, beans, potatoes, and sundry 
 other things were brought for sale, but there 
 was not an abundance and the prices were 
 high. Our boys complained continually of the 
 high prices even when I had greatly increased 
 their ration-funds, consisting of beads, salt, 
 needles, etc. 
 
 Mwata Yamvo had quite a herd of cattle, 
 also pigs, sheep, and goats. He did not milk 
 his cattle, much to our regret. Most of his 
 wives kept fowls, and he was keen on breeding 
 dogs, for which he could get a good price. He 
 had paid the sum of sixty dollars for one 
 beautiful shepherd dog brought from Belgium. 
 Her name was Antoinette, and the natives 
 
AT MUSUMBA 149 
 
 called her Toneta. It is a decided novelty 
 among the natives to find a dog with a name. 
 There was another large male dog in the town, 
 which the Chief had bought from one of the 
 agents of the Kassai Co., but we did not learn 
 how much he had paid for him. 
 
 As has been said, Mwata Yamvo had a very 
 considerable revenue from the Kassai Co. and 
 from other sources, and as there were no other 
 stores in the country, the Kassai Co. saw to 
 it that Mwata Yamvo's wants were supplied. 
 They had sold him his tent and furniture, 
 his dishes, etc. Anything else that he saw and 
 fancied could be obtained through the Com- 
 pany. It was through them that he bought 
 all his champagne, wines, and other foreign 
 liquors. The presents he received from the 
 Forminier Company consisted of native cloth, 
 other trade goods, and cash. 
 
 The British have made a wise law which is 
 stringently carried out prohibiting the sale of 
 intoxicants to the natives. Colonel Harveld 
 tried to get the same law enacted for the 
 Katanga, but the Belgians claim that logically 
 if we are to recognize and establish full rights 
 for the native he should have equal privileges 
 with the white man, and if the white man 
 is allowed to buy liquor the native should not 
 
150 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 be denied. There has been a sort of com- 
 promise relating to the large white town, pro- 
 hibiting the sale of distilled liquors, or any 
 containing over fifteen per cent of alcohol to 
 the natives, but as nearly every Kaffir store 
 is allowed to sell the milder liquors, the law 
 is practically nullified thereby. The "black 
 peril" of Africa is in almost every instance 
 traced to drunkenness from imbibing Euro- 
 pean liquors. It is the same thing that causes 
 the "white peril" in England or America. 
 
 On Thursday noon we were much surprised 
 to see a white man enter the compound and to 
 find that it was Mr. Vanderveld. He said 
 that he had been too ill to go on and complete 
 the journey he had planned and so was return- 
 ing to his station. He had a very yellow color, 
 refused to eat, and smoked cigarettes inces- 
 santly. He said that he proposed to settle up 
 his affairs and return to Belgium. 
 
 In the course of the conversation he said 
 that Mwata Yamvo had wished to buy his 
 pousse-pousse, or mono-cycle, and that he or 
 anyone else could have it for three hundred 
 francs, or sixty dollars, just what it had cost 
 him in Brussels. He had had it only a year 
 and had not used it much at that. 
 
 Now it happened that Mrs. Springer and I 
 
AT MUSUMBA 151 
 
 had discussed the buying of such a mono-cycle 
 for her use for some weeks before leaving 
 Lukoshi. We had received a price list which 
 showed us that we could get one in England 
 or America for fifty dollars. We had talked 
 much about it and then had decided that by 
 the time it was shipped out it would cost us 
 fully three times that amount, and we could 
 not think of it. 
 
 When we had left Lukoshi for this trip, we 
 had left Jim behind to wait for the mail. He 
 had joined us after four days and among other 
 letters was one telling us that Mrs. Fox's 
 Sunday school class at Wessington Springs, 
 S. D. (the church from which our personal 
 support came, principally from three of its 
 members), had sent us a Christmas present of 
 fifty dollars and had sent it early, in order that 
 it might be in time. As this was the middle 
 of May, we decided that it was in time all 
 right. 
 
 Again the subject of the mono-cycle came 
 up, but we could see no light. When we had 
 seen Mr. Vanderveld's at Pesha our hopes had 
 been roused for a moment. I had asked him 
 casually how much they cost and if he had any 
 idea of selling, and he had replied promptly 
 that he had not. He told me then that they 
 
152 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 cost sixty dollars in France where they were 
 made. 
 
 Now he had said that he would sell it to 
 anyone who would buy. After he went over 
 to his tent we talked it over and it seemed to 
 us as we recalled the Christmas gift and the 
 cash almost thrust upon me by Mr. Young 
 and then this direct offer of the very sort of 
 conveyance we desired as if it all were a direct 
 providence from the Lord and no mistake. 
 
 But I wanted to be sure that I would not be 
 forestalling the Chief, and I so remarked to 
 Mr. Vanderveld. He replied that I need not 
 trouble myself on that score, as Mr. Till also 
 had a mono-cycle that he would sell to the 
 Chief if he wanted it. That question being 
 settled, I paid down the three hundred francs 
 cash, and let Mr. Vanderveld use the mono- 
 cycle to his station, six miles away. As we 
 had to pass right through his station we could 
 pick it up there. 
 
 For several days we had been taking walks 
 in all directions to see if there were good sites 
 for a mission station. The veldt had been 
 newly burned and we deeply regretted that 
 our only chance for a bath on our return from 
 these explorations was in a small hand basin. 
 
 At last we decided on a certain site which 
 
AT MUSUMBA 153 
 
 seemed to us the very best in that vicinity. We 
 conferred with the Chief and his head men 
 and they agreed that the site was a very good 
 one and perfectly satisfactory to them. 
 
 So the last day of our stay there I took Jacob 
 and some of the other boys out to the spot 
 we had chosen and I cut a cross on the only 
 large tree in that vicinity. I knew that very 
 likely I would not be able to come up there 
 when the station was built and I wanted Jacob 
 and some of the others to know the site decided 
 on with the Chief for the Mission. We got 
 back just in time to witness one of the most 
 interesting ceremonies we have ever seen in 
 Africa. 
 
 Hearing the call of the big drum and the 
 sound of many voices, we hurried into the 
 large court adjoining the one in which we were 
 staying and found the King beginning the 
 ceremony of installing a sub-chief. 
 
 The King, who is rather a fussy individual, 
 small of stature, and of nervous temperament, 
 was master of ceremonies. He was seated in 
 front of the large, double, national altar, pro- 
 totype of the altars found in practically every 
 village. These are made of many-pronged dead 
 trees with live posts in front. Red and white 
 clays are used in making fantastic decorations. 
 
154 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 A table, or shelf, of poles receives votive offer- 
 ings. This altar is used chiefly for the pro- 
 pitiation of evil spirits. 
 
 The throne consisted of a large European 
 arm-chair over which was thrown a purple 
 blanket with black leopard spots, my gift to 
 Mwata Yamvo. In olden days all the lion and 
 leopard skins of the country belonged to the 
 King, and only he and his immediate family 
 could use them. Under his feet the King had 
 a large lion skin, and, as a robe of state, he 
 wore a beautiful blue and white blanket 
 draped about him like a Koman toga. In 
 addition to his every-day, elaborate head-dress 
 of bead work, he now had on an immense pom- 
 pom of scarlet feathers. Other members of 
 the royal family were seated on leopard skins, 
 each with a group of followers about. Fully 
 twenty fine leopard skins were in evidence. 
 
 At one side, between the King and the altar, 
 was the court musician with a large, fine-toned 
 native piano, and by his side another musician 
 with a big wooden drum. Each of these instru- 
 ments was played with two sticks on the ends 
 of which were balls of native rubber. The 
 players were men of skill, always interpreting 
 the everchanging mood of the crowd of five 
 hundred or more, from the low, rhythmic hand- 
 
AT MUSUMBA 155 
 
 clapping to violent outbursts of native emo- 
 tion and impulse. There was constant and 
 informal coming and going throughout. No 
 hard and fast program hampered the free play 
 of impulse and the inspiration of the moment. 
 
 The exercises had begun with the entrance 
 of the King, followed by the orchestra, the deep 
 bass of the drum beating a slow and dignified 
 march. The entire assembly arose, picked up 
 dust and rubbed on their stomachs, and then 
 clapping their hands, chanted softly the 
 praises of the King, who proceeded to his 
 throne, all the others remaining standing until 
 he was seated. None of his subjects or family 
 occupied a chair, for among the Alunda no 
 commoner is allowed to sit on a chair in the 
 presence of an important chief. 
 
 The first business was to determine, if possi- 
 ble, who was responsible for the death of the 
 sub-chief whose place was about to be filled. 
 Since the Alunda are firm believers in witch- 
 craft, the reason for showing a clean slate, as 
 it were, is obvious. The King called on first 
 one chief and then another, and then on many 
 commoners, and each one repeated at length 
 about the same thing, namely, that So-and-so 
 was dead and that so far as they knew no one 
 there was responsible for his death. As each 
 
156 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 chief finished, half chanting, dramatically, his 
 version of the case, he brought it to a climax 
 by rubbing white clay on one of his shoulders. 
 These recitals were interspersed by tableaux 
 acted by a grizzly chief clothed with several 
 wild cat and hyena skins, who, on entering, 
 had advanced from the gateway with big 
 jumps and yells, beating the ground in front 
 of him in stately fashion with an immense 
 club. The big stick, as a ceremony of state, 
 did not, therefore, originate in the United 
 States. We judged that this actor was driv- 
 ing all the devils out of the path of the man 
 who was advancing for his inauguration. 
 
 Having at last pronounced the verdict that 
 all present were guiltless of the chief's death, 
 every person present daubed the white clay 
 about the eyes, nose, and mouth and all over 
 their bodies until the assembly resembled a 
 mob of ghouls. White clay is the native symbol 
 for "not guilty." 
 
 Then the King asked for nominations, de- 
 spite the fact that he alone could nominate the 
 man, and as no one responded, he named the 
 man of his choice. From the moment the 
 white clay had been given out, shouts from 
 hundreds of voices, a rapid succession of gun 
 firing and the beating of drums on the outside 
 
 
AT MUSUMBA 157 
 
 of the wall could be heard, so that everyone 
 knew that the triumphal procession was draw- 
 ing near. And now the crowd near the 
 entrance parted and a stately file of armed 
 men marched in with quick, warlike tread, 
 passed in front of the King, whom they 
 saluted, marched once around the big altar, 
 and then stood at arms to one side. Following 
 these was the candidate whom the King had 
 named and who was now ushered before the 
 King by the Man-with-the-Big-Stick with 
 enough flourishing of his badge of office, ges- 
 ticulations, and yells to have satisfied the most 
 enthusiastic American. 
 
 The candidate approached to within a few 
 paces of the King, where he dropped on his 
 knees, clapped his hands in obeisance, picked 
 up dust and rubbed it over his bared stomach, 
 and then, having received from the King the 
 command to approach, he half arose, then pros- 
 trated himself full length on the ground, touch- 
 ing his temples to the earth. He prostrated 
 himself first on one side of his body and then 
 on the other several times until, with this 
 abject homage, he reached the royal person. 
 Here, still kneeling, he received the badge of 
 office, a large, two-edged sword, some twenty 
 inches long, inclosed in a carved wooden scab- 
 
158 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 bard with a belt of beaver fur. Slinging this 
 over his shoulder, he saluted the King by 
 touching his hand. He then heard the long 
 admonition delivered by Mwata Yamvo, 
 chanted his assent, and retired to a place near 
 his men in front of the King. The orchestra 
 roared, the vast audience howled, the women 
 shrieked in high pitched trills: the noise was 
 almost deafening. 
 
 The King gave one of his men an order and 
 he and the new chief disappeared inside the 
 hut at the rear of the altar. A few seconds 
 later, they reappeared, the new chief being 
 draped in an immense loin cloth sixteen yards 
 long and fifty inches wide. 
 
 The King then made a long speech and in 
 closing, spoke more truly, perhaps, than he 
 knew when he said, "We have been told by 
 the Missionary that we should live like men in 
 peace, not like animals, fighting and killing 
 each other. That is true. This is a new and 
 good day for us. God has sent his man [point- 
 ing to the writer] to teach us his words which 
 we will do well to hear and to heed." 
 
 Then began, evidently, the most enjoyable 
 part on the program. First the new sub-chief 
 and then many others stepped into the open 
 space before the King, took the unsheathed 
 
AT MUSUMBA 159 
 
 sword and performed a fancy sword dance, 
 graceful but wild and barbaric. Each per- 
 formance received great applause, but when 
 Mwata Yamvo's twelve-year-old son, the heir 
 apparent, took his turn, the wildest enthu- 
 siasm prevailed. 
 
 It was now deep twilight and the King sud- 
 denly arose out of his place and strode off 
 toward his own house. The crowd also arose 
 like one man, hundreds of them closing around 
 the new chief, who was seized by his own men 
 and carried off triumphantly on their shoul- 
 ders to their village where the inaugural ball 
 was kept up all night. 
 
 It all occurred too late in the day to take 
 photographs, but we can see it still, that im- 
 mense company with their fantastic garbings 
 and groupings, the King on his throne with 
 his mother sitting on one side of him on a 
 leopard skin, and his sister on the other side 
 also on a leopard skin, and the wives, of whom 
 they said there were at least two hundred, and 
 his head-chiefs scattered about, all of them 
 before the great altar erected to the unknown 
 gods for whom they had only dread and fear 
 then the sudden darkening of a tropical night 
 falling like a curtain over all. It was a repre- 
 sentative picture of heathenism as it really is. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 
 
 THE importance of this capital town, from a 
 missionary point of view, had so grown upon 
 us in these ten days that we greatly regretted 
 leaving Mwata Yamvo. Had there been any 
 possible way for us to stay we certainly would 
 have done so. No other missionary situation 
 had ever so appealed to us, and in comparison 
 Kazembe's district on the Lukoshi was not to 
 be considered for a moment for strategic im- 
 portance. Mrs. Springer longed to stay and 
 work among the bright, and many of them 
 beautiful, young women who were there as 
 Mwata Yamvo's wives. No one knew exactly 
 how many wives he did have, but it was 
 rumored that there were at least two hundred. 
 
 These were divided roughly into different 
 classes and quartered accordingly in different 
 courts. The favorites were in the court in 
 which we were camped. They were mostly 
 the young and the best favored. Then those 
 whose first bloom had faded were in the next 
 court. Then in the outer court were the hope- 
 
 160 
 
LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 161 
 
 less-faced women, the discarded wives. We 
 were not there long enough to learn all the 
 particulars of harem life, but we learned 
 enough to know that the conditions were 
 horrible beyond description. 
 
 I repeat, leaving that town was one of the 
 hardest things we ever did. We lay awake 
 nights trying to study up some way by which 
 we might stay. We would gladly have sent 
 our boys back to Mr. Heinkel telling him that 
 he must come on up there with the things, as 
 we were not coming back. But it was utterly 
 impossible. At that time Kapanga was prac- 
 tically marooned except for the Kassai Co., 
 and they were unable to get loads just then on 
 account of an outbreak of war with the Bateke 
 on the north. We found, as we said, the Gov- 
 ernment officials living largely on native food 
 and dependent on the graces of the Forminiere 
 for a small amount of trading goods, and this 
 too would be cut off with the early removal 
 of the depot. 
 
 So study the situation from any point of 
 the compass, we could not stay. And it was 
 evident that if our Mission were to occupy that 
 center in the future, we must have some trans- 
 port route opened from the Cape-to-Cairo Bail- 
 road. 
 
162 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 True to his promise of Saturday, the Chief 
 brought us twelve carriers on Monday morn- 
 ing. They were the worst looking crowd that 
 we had ever seen, weak and underfed prob- 
 ably a lot just received from some remote, 
 famine-stricken district. But we had to take 
 them, hoping for the best. 
 
 Mwata Yamvo bade us a cordial farewell, 
 urging us to come again and calling after 
 Jacob that he must be sure and bring his mis- 
 sionary back. Mbanzi went a mile with us and 
 turned back just beyond the second spruit. A 
 genuine friendship had sprung up between him 
 and Jacob. He was an able youth and we 
 could not but think that Jesus would have felt 
 toward him as he did toward the rich young 
 ruler. His position of trust to Mwata Yamvo 
 was one full of pitfalls and snares into which 
 he fell a year later. 
 
 I had pushed on with my bicycle to the store 
 and took over the mono-cycle. As it came out 
 Peter's eyes opened wide. 
 
 "Is that for the Missis?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes," I replied, "I have bought it for the 
 Missis." 
 
 "I know how to run it," he said proudly. It 
 was my turn to be astonished. 
 
 "Where did you learn?" I asked. 
 
LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 163 
 
 "O, I used to run Mr. Kipp's for Mm in 
 Angola. But Mr. Kipp's was a pickinin and 
 this is big. I go to get the Missis." 
 
 And off he started and met her a mile away 
 walking rather wearily. She had six carriers 
 on her machilla and the whole six had not been 
 able to carry her two miles. They had actually 
 laid her down in the path, refusing to lift the 
 machilla pole until she got out. When one 
 considers that two good machilla carriers 
 could have brought her every step of the six 
 miles, it is easy to see what worthless carriers 
 we had. 
 
 At the Kassai Company store I rationed 
 these men with salt for Katola, five days away. 
 They would buy their food in the villages with 
 the salt. This was the custom in dealing with 
 carriers. 
 
 Mr. Vanderveld said that he was no better 
 and that he was still unable to eat, but he was 
 up and at his work. Two weeks later he was 
 buried there at his station. When we heard 
 of it, we wrote to Mr. Lefevre and tried to get 
 the child, but found that she had already been 
 sent to some mission to the north, possibly the 
 Catholic. 
 
 While talking with Mr. Vanderveld, a man 
 came with bananas to sell. This was a rare 
 
164 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 treat to us, and as he did not care to buy I 
 invested in the bunch of about two dozen. 
 They would be most acceptable on the trail. 
 
 We camped that night about fifteen miles 
 from Musumba and three miles beyond the 
 Forminiere camp from which Mr. Young had 
 already departed, leaving in charge a well-edu- 
 cated half-caste from French Guinea; a Mr. 
 Topp, who spoke both English and French 
 fluently. 
 
 The last four miles of the trail were very 
 bad and I had to walk nearly all the way, so 
 I was dismayed when we came into camp and 
 two men failed to report, one of them being 
 the man with the bananas. I could not wheel 
 back after them on account of the poor trail 
 and the lateness of the hour. 
 
 The next morning I found that all but two 
 of the others had slipped out in the night and 
 had gone, taking their salt with them. 
 
 The situation was serious. This little village 
 where we had stopped had been utterly 
 stripped of men to furnish carriers, and there 
 was nothing to do but to return to Mwata 
 Yamvo and get other men. 
 
 Leaving Mrs. Springer and our boys in the 
 village, I cycled back alone and reached 
 Mwata Yamvo about eleven o'clock. He and 
 
LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 165 
 
 his head men were sitting on a case and when 
 I reported the desertion of his men they spat 
 on the ground with disgust. But it was evi- 
 dent that they were not wholly surprised. 
 
 The Chief assured me that I could return 
 and when his workmen reported at noon, he 
 would have twelve of them follow me. I pre- 
 ferred the "bird in the hand" and so told him 
 that I was tired, and would wait and take the 
 men with me. 
 
 He called Mbanzi and told him to get me 
 something to eat. Mbanzi ordered one of the 
 Chiefs wives to cook me some food and in due 
 time I was served a good meal of roast chicken, 
 baked sweet potatoes, and tea with tinned milk 
 and sugar. I tipped her with some beads and 
 a half a franc, much to her satisfaction. She 
 was one of the wives that had most attracted 
 Mrs. Springer. 
 
 At 4 P. M. Mwata Yamvo brought the twelve 
 men and told them that they were to go to 
 Katola with us and that they were to see to it 
 that Katola gave us an equal number of men 
 to go on. But if he did not have them, they 
 must go to Dilolo with us themselves. He 
 gave each man an anklet so that each man 
 was individually responsible and individually 
 empowered to find a substitute for himself, a 
 
166 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 clever ruse. I slept at Kapanga's village that 
 night and reached Mrs. Springer early the 
 next morning. 
 
 She told me that the previous forenoon, she 
 had heard a great outcry and found that one 
 of the two men who had not deserted in the 
 night had tried to run away, but had been 
 caught by the women of the village and 
 brought back. The women were furious with 
 him and two of them seized sticks and beat 
 the fellow until he begged most abjectly for 
 mercy. 
 
 "We will teach you a lesson," they cried 
 savagely, as they belabored him. "We will 
 teach you better than to desert in a village full 
 of women only. Do you w r ant us to have to 
 carry your load on for you?" There were no 
 names too bad to apply to him as they danced 
 around him in perfect fury. One woman 
 kicked him and another pounded him with her 
 fists. They certainly beat him into subjection 
 and probably would have seriously injured 
 him had not Mrs. Springer interfered. He did 
 not dare attempt to escape again from that 
 village, though he did desert three days far- 
 ther on. 
 
 We paralleled the river and the next day 
 crossed eighteen streams in nineteen miles, a 
 
LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 167 
 
 record breaker. All along we were charmed 
 with the promise of the country for European 
 style of farming. We picked out the home- 
 stead sites in our mind's eye as we went along. 
 Here were beautiful, red clay ridges about 
 four hundred feet above the Lulua and high 
 above these cross streams. Some day, and 
 before many years, we feel that this stretch 
 of country will be dotted with brick farm 
 houses overlooking wide stretches along the 
 Lulua valley. 
 
 At one of these streams, the Mwinakadi, we 
 had a terrible time. A fire had swept through 
 the low land on the north side of the stream 
 where the* rushes had grown twelve or fifteen 
 feet high. The fire had not consumed the 
 reeds, but had matted them down so that in 
 one place we had to creep on our hands and 
 knees for some yards to get through. A large 
 grove of bananas had been planted here, but 
 being unprotected had now been killed out by 
 the grass fire. 
 
 Just north of Katola, we met Lieutenant 
 Hedo and his bicycle corps of native soldiers. 
 He was the first government official to go from 
 Elisabethville to Kapanga, which with the 
 surrounding district had but recently been 
 transferred to the Katanga province of the 
 
168 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 Congo. This was the beginning of the admin- 
 istration of this, now the Lulua District, from 
 Elisabethville. Lieutenant Hedo's was one of 
 three separate parties of bicycle corps at that 
 time exploring the whole Katanga. 
 
 There were twenty-five of these native 
 soldiers with Lieutenant Hedo, each having a 
 bicycle heavily loaded with kit, gun, and am- 
 munition, and nearly every one decorated with 
 one or more fowls gathered from the native 
 villages. In the rear we met three or four of 
 the soldiers carrying their smashed wheels on 
 their heads. A bicycle is fine so long as it 
 cycles, but when it does not it is a different 
 story. 
 
 On Saturday we reached Chibamba's village, 
 a mile from the Kassai Co.'s Katola store. 
 Our carriers showed their bracelets to Chi- 
 bamba and demanded carriers to take their 
 places. 
 
 "I want fourteen men to-morrow to carry 
 my loads to Dilolo," said I. 
 
 "My men are all gone now," said the chief. 
 "Fifty are with Lefevre, three have gone to 
 this place, five to another, eight to that place, 
 and they are all scattered." 
 
 It was true, as we learned later, that most 
 of his men were gone. But here was one more 
 
LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 169 
 
 white man, and this one had his wife, and in 
 some way he must take care of their loads and 
 get them along to the next stage. 
 
 That evening as we sat around the campfire 
 in the village, I stirred the chief up to a remi- 
 niscent mood purposely in order to get some 
 additional light on Lunda history. I had been 
 told that he was a son of a former king. Had 
 he known other Mwata Yamvos in the past? 
 The fire lit up his eyes beneath his grisly eye- 
 brows. Had he? And he named them over, 
 the ones that he had personally known, eight 
 in all, and in addition gave me the names of 
 eight more before his time, his father, he said, 
 having been the fifth in the line. Some of 
 them had reigned but a short time, others for 
 a number of years, but in nearly every case 
 the end had been a tragic one. He seemed to 
 think that as long as these assassinations were 
 confined to their own tribe they were insignifi- 
 cant. 
 
 "Were there more Alunda or fewer when 
 you were a young man than now?" 
 
 "Ah," said he with a wistful look and ardent 
 tone, "those were the good old days, indeed. 
 Then there were villages everywhere, gardens 
 were plenty, we had much food of all kinds, 
 herds of sheep, goats, and cattle, and plenty 
 
170 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 of slaves and wives. Ah! Those were the 
 times in which to live! But now " and he 
 spat on the ground in disgust. 
 
 "What has become of all the people?" I 
 asked. One of his ten wives spoke up quickly 
 and said tersely, "The Bachokwe." 
 
 .Then followed an account of raid aTter raid 
 by this tribe, who obtained firearms from the 
 Portuguese near the coast and thus had the 
 advantage over their more primitively armed 
 neighbors. 
 
 "But did not the Bachokwe originally be- 
 long to the Alunda?" 
 
 "Yes, they were of our own kin, but one of 
 the chiefs having a falling out with Mwata 
 Yamvo, stirred up a rebellion and fled to the 
 other side of the Kassai Kiver with his follow- 
 ing. There they gathered others to their band 
 and grew strong and years later came back 
 and raided us, seized our sons and daughters 
 and sold them for slaves." 
 
 "To-day you sell much rubber to the white 
 man ; did you gather and sell rubber when you 
 were a boy?" 
 
 "No. We sold goats, sheep, fowls and cattle 
 to the Portuguese trader and particularly 
 slaves. One slave for a yard of calico, five 
 slaves for a gun, although there have been 
 
LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 171 
 
 times when we have paid as high as forty 
 slaves for one gun." 
 
 "And where did you get all your slaves?" 
 
 "Why, to the east, the further interior. Of 
 course when there was a law case against a 
 man, or there was found any stranger unat- 
 tended or friendless, when there was a witch 
 trial or any such things we had a chance to 
 get slaves here in our own land. Mwaninga 
 (yes) those were good old days! But now" 
 with a helpless gesture "we can do nothing." 
 
 And so we had in epitome the history of tribe 
 after tribe. The Lunda people became power- 
 ful through the first Mwata Yamvo. He was 
 a Luba, a strong man who revolted against 
 his own chief and went among the few and 
 feeble Alunda and these he gathered around 
 him and by means of wars made them into a 
 powerful nation and made for himself an em- 
 pire. His warriors extended his borders while 
 the women made gardens and reared the chil- 
 dren. Slaves were the medium of exchange. 
 His name meant "the lord of death," signify- 
 ing his method of ruling. 
 
 An extended empire resulted and his sons 
 were set over the provinces to gather the 
 tribute and send it in to him year by year. 
 The chiefs gave themselves more and more to 
 
172 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 luxury, drink, and women as the temporal 
 power increased, and the inevitable came to 
 pass at last when a fool had the chieftain- 
 ship; the enemies crossed the frontiers with 
 impunity, and the seceded Bachokwe dealt 
 deadly blows as they returned and swept right 
 through the empire from north to south, cut- 
 ting it in two. Thus the Bachokwe dealt 
 and the Alunda decreased in powder until the 
 arrival of the Belgians under the Kassai Co., 
 when a strong check was put on the Bachokwe 
 and help given to the Alunda. 
 
 It is needless to say that the Bachokwe have 
 little love for any white man, and bitterly 
 resent the imposition of taxes laid upon them. 
 
 But to return to the subject in hand, the 
 necessity of our having carriers. 
 
 Chibamba said that while he acknowledged 
 his obligation to furnish carriers if he had 
 them, he had already given Mr. Lefevre fifty 
 carriers and that there were no more men 
 left in his town. The carriers did not accept 
 his word as final, and they swore that they 
 would not go another step, and that if he did 
 not obey the Chief's command his blood would 
 be upon his own head. The discussion waxed 
 warm between them. 
 
 On Sunday Jacob reported that the carriers 
 
LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 173 
 
 had taken advantage of my short absence from 
 the village and had left for Mwata Yamvo's. 
 I jumped on my wheel and caught up with 
 them after two or three miles and made them 
 come back. I told them they knew Mwata 
 Yarnvo's instructions, and that I did not pro- 
 pose to be left a second time without carriers. 
 They agreed to go on with me. 
 
 At daybreak the next morning I was awak- 
 ened by Jacob, who excitedly informed me that 
 all my carriers had gone. I bolted down the 
 path, but although I rode at breakneck speed 
 for about four miles, there was no trace of 
 them and I had to return. They evidently 
 knew that the chief, Chibamba, could furnish 
 the carriers and determined to force him to 
 do it. 
 
 ,The chief still protested that he had no men, 
 but the agent of the Kassai Co., who knew 
 the local situation well, came down and con- 
 vinced the chief that he not only could but 
 must give us carriers. He really exerted him- 
 self now to get us men for the next day, but 
 when the morning came I had to go around 
 the village with one of his young men and 
 actually haul them out, some from under the 
 beds and other places of hiding. They came 
 laughing at having been caught, and so at last 
 
174 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 we were able to move on, CMbamba going with 
 us until noon. From here to Lukoshi carriers 
 were a daily and hourly problem, and truly it 
 was a case of working our passage. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 "The Lunda people seem to have had some community 
 of origin with the Lua or Luba, whose range extends 
 between Lake Tanganyika and the Kassai, south of the 
 sixth parallel, S. Lat. This Luba-Lunda group of Bantu 
 peoples must have reached their first home on the south- 
 west coast of Tanganyika (Lukuga-Marungu) from the 
 north by traveling along the western side of the lake. 
 Then they extended in time across the Congo basin south 
 of the dense forest region. 
 
 "Their rise into prominence may have been contem- 
 poraneous with the English Renaissance say between 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a period during 
 which there were notable Bantu migrations and found- 
 ings of states in (Central and) South Africa. First the 
 Bakuba, and later the Alunda arose as conquering and 
 ruling castes through skill in weapon-making, hunting, 
 and warfare. An individual here and there probably of 
 Hima (Gala) descent, would emerge from the crowd and, 
 by dint of courage, resource, inventiveness, or the obtain- 
 ing of better weapons, become a mighty hunter and thus 
 supply his people with food and adornments. Round 
 him a community would group itself, attracting other 
 communities till a kingdom or empire was founded. It 
 was thus the kingdoms of Uganda and Unyoro, of Kongo 
 and the Luba, Lunda and Kioko and other Bantu coun- 
 tries came into existence. No doubt this commencement 
 of Bantu state-building was a far-off echo of the Arab 
 invasions of North Central Africa and even of the 
 
LEAVING MWATA YAMVO 175 
 
 European Renaissance. These movements, with their in- 
 troduction of a higher civilization and superior weapons, 
 affected the Hamites and Nilotic negroes, who, in turn, 
 reacted on the Bantu of the lake regions. According 
 to the researches of Torday, Carvalho and others, a Luba 
 prince seems to have infused the divine fire into the 
 Lunda or Bungo people (the word, Lunda, it may be 
 remarked, means "brother, friend, comrade" in the 
 southern Luba dialects). A Lunda adventurer settled 
 about three hundred years ago on the Kangombe plateau 
 in S. E. Angola, and from out of the Makosa tribe formed 
 the celebrated raiding tribe, Kioko or Chibokwe. 
 
 "The Mwata Yamvo, who, until the foundation of the 
 Congo Free State and the division of spheres of in- 
 fluence between it and Portugal was practically suzerain 
 over all the Lunda and many of the Luba peoples, is the 
 fourteenth in descent from the traditional founder of 
 this dynasty in the seventeenth century. At one time 
 the influence of this monarchy stretched as far to the 
 southeast as the lands of the Kazembe, east of Lake 
 Mweru, and as far west as the Kwango River and the 
 boundaries of Angola. 
 
 "About a hundred years ago a Lunda adventurer, at 
 the head of a hunting or raiding caravan, established 
 himself among the Bayaka on the Kwango River. Pre- 
 vious to this even a great trading race, the Imbangala, 
 had been formed in the valley of the middle Kwango by 
 a mixture of Lunda with less civilized people probably 
 the cannibal and savage 'Jaggers' of Portuguese terri- 
 tory." Sir Harry H. Johnston in "George Grenfell." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 THROUGH DILOLO 
 
 ON the second we left the main trail to reach 
 the Forminiere Camp so as to meet the other 
 two Americans, Messrs. Johnson and McVey. 
 The trail was exceedingly rough and we passed 
 through seven deserted villages where there 
 had been a large native population. The na- 
 tives told us that some government officials 
 had been stealing cattle and that the people 
 had risen in rebellion and many had fled 
 across the Kassai into the hinterland of 
 Angola, where they would be undisturbed by 
 Europeans. They had left their villages and 
 gardens in the hope, evidently, of returning 
 after this Chokwe rebellion had subsided and 
 a change for the better had taken place. 
 
 The weariness caused by successive days of 
 watching the carriers brought on fever, and 
 we looked forward to reaching a white man's 
 camp where we could have a day of rest and 
 cheer. In this we were destined to be disap- 
 pointed, for on reaching Luernbe we were told 
 by the capita in charge that the two white men 
 
 170 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 177 
 
 had been away from camp three weeks, but 
 were expected home at any time. I gave him 
 a note, and told him to send it at once, telling 
 his masters that we would go on to a certain 
 village the next night and of our route on to 
 Dilolo so that if possible we could meet some- 
 where on the way. 
 
 But we left the next morning without much 
 hope of seeing them. The next night as we 
 encamped a messenger arrived saying that his 
 masters were not far away, and hearing that 
 we were in the vicinity had sent him to find 
 us. I got on my wheel and went with the boy 
 and found them encamped three miles away. 
 They had made twenty-seven miles that day 
 in a desperate effort to reach us and could not 
 move their men any further that night, but 
 said they would be over to breakfast the next 
 morning. 
 
 Indeed, they were there before we were quite 
 dressed at the very break of dawn. They, like 
 ourselves, were a hard looking sight. Travel- 
 ing through the long grass, which cuts like a 
 knife, over burnt veld, and through dew-laden 
 vleis, soon reduces the best outfitted travelers 
 to the appearance of hobos. 
 
 But we cared not a whit for the looks of our 
 clothes. No one can express the mutual joy 
 
178 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 of meeting our own countrymen in this seem- 
 ingly out-of-the-world place. These two men 
 had not seen a white woman for nearly two 
 years. As soon as they had received my note 
 they had hastily packed and, following their 
 compasses, for there was no direct trail, had 
 pushed their men toward the point where they 
 had hoped to intercept us. They said they 
 would have gone three times that distance out 
 of their way to see an English-speaking person 
 and especially a white woman. 
 
 We decided to celebrate the Fourth of July 
 together, although it was only the 29th of 
 June. We were nearly out of European food, 
 except for the flour Mr. Young had given and 
 one of the 57 varieties of pickles. And, by the 
 way, we will never forget the warm glow that 
 once came over us while traveling in one of 
 the most forsaken parts of the continent many, 
 many miles from white men or native villages, 
 when once we met about one hundred almost 
 nude carriers going to a far distant station, 
 and caught the sight of a familiar box whose 
 cheerful red letters proclaimed it to be "Heinz 
 Tomato Catsup." And along with it the "57 
 varieties" which brought up visions of street 
 car signs and bustling streets of a noisy 
 metropolis in which our minds traveled for 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 179 
 
 the next few hours while our feet mechanically 
 slogged, slogged over the wildest wilds of 
 Africa. 
 
 Messrs. Johnson and McVey were prospect- 
 ing for gold, and the result of their work thus 
 far led them to be very sanguine about the 
 future of this section of country from a min- 
 ing point of view. 
 
 They were much concerned about our pro- 
 ject of going on south to Dilolo, since they had 
 been down there not long before when the 
 Chokwe rebellion broke forth, and had had to 
 leave in a hurry. 
 
 Coming one night about sundown to a 
 Chokwe village they had made their camp and 
 exchanged presents with the chief as usual. 
 All was most amicable when a messenger 
 arrived. The chief immediately came over and 
 told them that about two hundred and fifty 
 armed warriors would reach his town that 
 night, and that he could not possibly answer 
 for the lives of the white men if they were 
 caught there. These men were roused to the 
 highest pitch of insurrection by certain things 
 that had occurred and they would shoot the 
 first white men they saw regardless of who 
 they were. So the chief urged them to leave. 
 
 But before he had finished speaking the 
 
180 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 carriers had tied up their loads and were off, 
 and there was nothing for Messrs. Johnson 
 and McVey to do but to follow. As a usual 
 thing the white man leads his caravan and it 
 is hard to get the carriers to keep up, but this 
 time it was reversed. These carriers, being 
 Alunda and not Chokwe, knew that the safety 
 of their own skins lay in getting as far away 
 as possible from that advancing Chokwe army, 
 so they took the lead, and all night long the 
 two white men had to race for all their legs 
 were worth, following the dim black objects 
 ahead. 
 
 The affair was not without its humorous 
 phase, though they were all too alarmed to see 
 any humor in it at the time. Shortly after 
 Johnson and McVey had reached this village, 
 a Kassai Co. man arrived also. This particu- 
 lar man had the reputation of being a dandy 
 of the first class. He always rode in his mono- 
 cycle or was carried in a machilla ; in fact, he 
 was practically never known to walk. It was 
 Mr. Lefevre who said of him, "He always 
 comes into camp absolutely immaculate. I do 
 not know how he manages it, but he always 
 looks as if he had just come from his bath, 
 attired in spotless linen, shaved, and not a 
 hair displaced. The rest of us can never get 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 181 
 
 the secret of being so spotless at all times, no 
 matter what the path is." 
 
 But when the summons came on this par- 
 ticular night, the Monsieur knew his fate if 
 he lagged behind, and so there was nothing 
 for it but to leg it also for a weary thirty miles 
 through the dark on the veld and certainly for 
 once in his life, at least, did not arrive at his 
 destination in an immaculate condition. He 
 told us later that he was stiff and footsore for 
 a week or more after that unusual bit of exer- 
 cise. 
 
 In view of their personal experiences, our 
 compatriots strongly advised us to turn due 
 east and abandon any attempt to go to Dilolo. 
 
 "You cannot go through the Chokwe coun- 
 try," they assured us, "even if you could get 
 carriers from Dilolo, which you surely will 
 not be able to do." 
 
 But while they had reason on their side, I 
 had engaged these carriers to go to Dilolo, and 
 I did not feel that I ought to turn aside in 
 another direction for any light reason. 
 
 Mrs. Springer was as strongly convinced as 
 myself that we should go on as we had started. 
 In the first place, to turn to the east over the 
 pathless veld would very likely mean that all 
 our carriers would desert us and that we 
 
182 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 should be left in a very bad situation. From 
 that viewpoint alone, it seemed the better 
 policy to press on to Dilolo. But also, it was 
 important that we explore that section now 
 while we had the chance, so that we might 
 see the conditions there and know its mission- 
 ary possibilities for the future. 
 
 So bidding farewell to our friends, who, just 
 as they were packing up, found a plum pud- 
 ding all they had left in their "chop boxes" 
 and gave it to us in parting, we gained the 
 main path by noon and had covered twenty- 
 seven miles before we camped that night. My 
 wheel had been in a tery sullen mood for sev- 
 eral days now, and on this day I had been 
 thrown from it three times. Have you ever 
 noticed how a bicycle seems to take on a living 
 personality at times? How it loses its sem- 
 blance to a mere machine and acts as if im- 
 pelled by a thinking, acting brain? At such 
 times we are wont to speak of it as being 
 "possessed," and certainly mine had acted for 
 days as if possessed of an evil spirit. It played 
 up on me like a bucking bronco. 
 
 In the three days from here to Dilolo we 
 were on the Lulua-Kassai divide, which is 
 nearly four thousand feet above sea level, but 
 very swampy in places. 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 183 
 
 We passed through several large Lunda vil- 
 lages. Just before reaching Dilolo, we went 
 through a very large settlement of ex-slaves 
 that the Belgians had freed from Angola na- 
 tives who had been raiding in the Congo. 
 These were settled under the protection of the 
 government Poste at Dilolo. Probably twenty 
 tribes were represented among them. 
 
 On the other side of the Poste, the simi- 
 lar settlements were predominantly Lunda. 
 Swarms of children busy at nothing but 
 heathen games were to be seen. What a 
 magnificent opportunity is lying neglected 
 here! The Benguella Kail way from Lobito 
 Bay to Chilongo will probably pass right by 
 Dilolo. What a great gain if we could reach 
 these towns before the advent of the railway 
 and its accompanying evil influences ! 
 
 Mr. Classon, the agent of the Kassai Co., 
 greeted us most cordially. He regretted that 
 his store was so nearly empty that he could 
 let us have only a small amount of trading 
 goods. The carriers from Kapanga would not 
 come to Dilolo on account of the rebellion, but 
 for that matter, Kapanga could not get loads 
 from the north, so that there were no loads to 
 forward. The situation was a very critical 
 one. The transport system has been steadily 
 
184 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 getting worse there ever since, and the only 
 hope is the advance of the Benguella Railway, 
 which unfortunately has been held back by 
 this European war. 
 
 Mr. Lefevre was here also, having come 
 directly from Kimpuki, across country. He 
 was ill with fever. It seemed to us that much 
 of the cause of so much fever among the Bel- 
 gians was due to the plan of their houses and 
 the lack of provision for a fire during the cool 
 evenings. Their dining-room is usually in the 
 center of the house with no outer wall between 
 it and the veranda. It is like a cave of the 
 winds on most evenings. Their other rooms 
 are large, and we have never seen a fireplace 
 in any of their houses. We ourselves have a 
 fire morning and evening nearly eight months 
 in the year in Africa, especially evenings, even 
 when we are in tents on the trail. So do many 
 Britishers, and we are confident that this pre- 
 vents a great deal of sickness. Take it all in 
 all, in spite of over five thousand miles of 
 travel in all sorts of country and over native 
 trails, we have had a remarkably small amount 
 of fever. This is due, we believe, to our care 
 against getting chilled, our temperate lives, 
 the use of mosquito nets at night, if possible, 
 and the taking of no undue or foolhardy risks. 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 185 
 
 We also follow the practice of taking five 
 grains of quinine a day when on the trail. 
 
 Mr. Classon referred me to the headman of 
 one of the near villages, who, he said, would 
 give me men if anyone would. 
 
 I immediately got into touch with this man, 
 and he came to our camp bringing a present. 
 We arranged with him to supply us with eight 
 carriers to go to Chilemo. This was the path 
 that we had expected to take and we followed 
 our rule of continuing in the course decided 
 upon until absolutely hindered or turned 
 aside. Our Gideon's test here was that if we 
 could get men to go on the Chilemo path we 
 would go that way. But if, after exhausting 
 every means to go that way, we failed, we 
 would see by what other route we could get 
 back to Lukoshi, which was about one hundred 
 and fifty miles due east of Dilolo. 
 
 I went over to the Dilolo Poste, or fort, with 
 its ramparts and moat, accessible by means of 
 a drawbridge. Everything there seemed quiet, 
 though the military forces were much in evi- 
 dence. I met Monsieur Martin, Chef du Sec- 
 teur, and with him was Lieutenant Clique, 
 who had accompanied Lieutenant Hedo from 
 Elisabethville. He was under instructions to 
 wait here for a party which was following 
 
186 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 from Elisabethville to take over the adminis- 
 tration of this section incidental to its transfer 
 to the Katanga province. 
 
 Dilolo is in the remotest southwest corner 
 of the Belgian Congo, and this Lulua District 
 had up to this time been administered from 
 Boma. It was so remote that the higher offi- 
 cials seldom, if ever, penetrated there. And 
 when King Leopold's reign was over and Bel- 
 gium as a nation, with the humane and pro- 
 gressive King Albert at the head, took over 
 the administration, orders were given at once 
 to cease all oppression of the natives and 
 administer the country with regard to the 
 rights and welfare of the natives. 
 
 But it was no light task to reverse and revo- 
 lutionize the administration of a territory 
 more than seventy times the size of Belgium, 
 and where travel was very slow and transpor- 
 tation most difficult. 
 
 Another great problem was the personnel 
 of the officials. While many of them had dis- 
 approved of the old order and had rejoiced 
 at the new policy, falling in line with it at 
 once, yet a considerable percentage of the offi- 
 cials had thoroughly imbibed Leopold's ava- 
 ricious spirit and his viewpoint that he held 
 the country for what he could get out of it. 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 187 
 
 As these men had profited largely from per- 
 centages on rubber, ivory, and other commodi- 
 ties of the royal stores, as well as by private 
 looting of the natives, they naturally favored 
 the old regime. And while the authorities 
 desired to weed out officials of this class, it 
 was manifestly impossible to do so in a day 
 or even in a year. 
 
 The Dilolo Poste being so remote, had been 
 therefore one of the last to be brought under 
 the new order. 
 
 It must be remembered that men will deteri- 
 orate rapidly when submerged in heathenism 
 and will very often adopt a point of view that 
 would have been utterly repugnant to them on 
 entering such service as this; and where not 
 checked by higher officials and a thoroughly 
 sane policy, they will naturally go to extremes. 
 
 I found at the Poste, much to my surprise, 
 that Leopold's portraits occupied several 
 prominent places, whereas no portrait of King 
 Albert could be seen. "Ah !" I said to myself, 
 "this accounts for the actions of some of these 
 officials." In reality they have not learned of 
 the death of Leopold and the consequent pass- 
 ing of his methods of administration and of 
 the coming of the new King and a new regime. 
 
 Mr. Martin, a natty young fellow of mixed 
 
188 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 Belgian and Portuguese origin, asked about 
 our route and strongly advised me not to take 
 the Chilemo path. In fact he all but posi- 
 tively forbade my going that way, as it was on 
 that path near Nkuku's that his soldiers had 
 been attacked under his assistant and two 
 native soldiers had been killed. He repeated 
 his warning two or three times and advised us 
 to go on the path to the north of east. 
 
 But while I knew that it would likely be 
 fatal for him to take that path, I had little to 
 fear for my own party, as the natives had 
 nothing against us. 
 
 The trouble had arisen over unjust deals in 
 cattle with the natives and by the treatment 
 of the native women. The natives suffered 
 long and might have endured the cattle deals, 
 but when it came to their own wives it was 
 too much for them. They had all justice on 
 their side. 
 
 From the Poste, I went a mile away to a 
 store owned by a Portuguese named Courrier, 
 and there I met a veterinary, Dr. Hubert. I 
 saw quite a herd of cattle at that place, one of 
 which was being slaughtered for beef at the 
 time. 
 
 Much to the surprise of all the Europeans 
 at Dilolo, our carriers were on hand the next 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 189 
 
 forenoon, and we started for Chilemo. Both 
 M. Martin and Lieutenant Clique shook their 
 heads when they learned that we expected to 
 spend that night at Nkuku's. 
 
 Our party kept close together on the trail. 
 As we neared Nkuku's old town, we saw a 
 sentry dash away to give warning of our ap- 
 proach. Our carriers showed signs of nervous- 
 ness. As we came into the old town and saw 
 that it was utterly deserted and burned, w T e 
 began to look for a path to the new town, and 
 at last my boys picked up indications of a new 
 path. 
 
 Mrs. Springer suggested that while I kept 
 at the front, she would drop behind to prevent 
 any of our men bolting. Some distance away 
 we saw some women at a water hole, but as we 
 approached they disappeared as if the earth 
 had opened and swallowed them. Prom time 
 to time we discerned the figure of a native who 
 also disappeared. We knew that there were 
 sentries all along and each was running to the 
 chief with a new message about us. 
 
 Our path lay along the edge of a vlei on one 
 side and a rubber forest on the other. The sun 
 was just going down and the uncanny still- 
 ness, broken only by the murmur of some mem- 
 ber of the caravan as he saw another sentry 
 
190 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 run, began to get on our nerves. But for my 
 guarding one end of the caravan and my wife 
 the other, all of the Dilolo men would have 
 bolted, of that I am certain. 
 
 Now the path suddenly came into one of the 
 mafunda jungles, and though we could plainly 
 hear the voices of men, women, and children 
 we could see no one. It seemed to us that the 
 walls of Troy were simple beside the entrance 
 to this Chokwe town. So intricate were the 
 paths that Mrs. Springer and I became sepa- 
 rated, and while she could hear my voice on 
 the other side of a mafunda thicket, she could 
 not see me nor learn how to reach me until one 
 of the natives acted as guide. I had no guns 
 with me, and the presence of my wife was 
 ample evidence to them that whoever I might 
 be I was on a peaceable errand. There can be 
 no doubt but that the sentries had brought 
 word that I was unarmed and had my wife 
 with me, else it is possible that I would have 
 been held up long before I had ever reached 
 the encampment. 
 
 As soon as I saw any of the people, I asked 
 for Nkuku and was told that he was not there. 
 I said that I wished to camp there for the 
 night, and was directed to one of the open 
 places so common to this kind of jungle. Our 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 191 
 
 Dilolo men and our own boys were questioned 
 as to who we were and what we were doing 
 there, and when the people were fully satisfied 
 regarding us Nkuku himself came out and 
 greeted us, bringing a present of meal and a 
 fowl. 
 
 We camped in that open circle surrounded 
 by Bachokwe on every side. After supper 
 Nkuku came to our evening fire and sat and 
 chatted with us for an hour or more. He gave 
 us an account of the oppression that had led 
 up to the rebellion, the taking of the cattle 
 with practically no payment, and then the 
 seizure of the women. Then he said, "We 
 would not have been men if we had not risen 
 to the defense of our wives and children." 
 
 I was glad to be able to reassure him as to 
 the future. I told him that the officials they had 
 had in the past did not truly represent the new 
 king. In response to my queries they said 
 that, yes, they had always had honest dealings 
 with the Kassai Co. men, and yes, they were 
 "Bula Matadi" also. I assured them that the 
 new king was a man with a good heart toward 
 his people. 
 
 I asked the chief if he had never had bad 
 messengers go forth and pervert his words 
 and misrepresent him. He admitted that he 
 
192 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 had. Even so, I told him, these officials mis- 
 represent their king. Other officials were even 
 now on the path coming to Dilolo to set mat- 
 ters right for the native people. 
 
 He said that he was glad. Neither he nor 
 his people wanted war. They were for peace 
 all the time but, he repeated, "we would not 
 be men if we allowed our women and children 
 to be mistreated and killed and did not rise 
 to defend them." 
 
 This talk with him prepared the way and 
 probably did much toward his meeting the 
 Commandant a month later and coming to a 
 friendly understanding. 
 
 We had been overwhelmed with meal from 
 Nkuku's people, who had plenty of meal but 
 no salt, so they wished to make the exchange. 
 While we were at breakfast three of our Dilolo 
 men cleared out. Not one of Nkuku's young 
 bucks would consider carrying a load for us 
 and, in fact, none of them would guide us, so 
 that the chief himself had to lead us out of his 
 labyrinth of jungle onto the main path nearly 
 three miles away. We had to put two loads 
 into the mono-cycle and Mrs. Springer had 
 to walk several miles. 
 
 Getting carriers from day to day, and in 
 some cases from village to village, we passed 
 
THROUGH DILOLO 193 
 
 through the danger zone and came to Chilemo 
 on the fourth day. Here were three white men 
 of the Kassai Co. who made our stay as pleas- 
 ant as possible, and when the surly Chokwe 
 chief failed to give us any carriers, they called 
 their own personal boys and sent them with us 
 one day's trek. 
 
 Along here the villages were a great mixture 
 of Chokwe, Luena, Lunda, and Andembwe. 
 The difficulties with carriers only increased, 
 and it was a weary caravan that came to 
 Mpumba's old village one evening after sun- 
 down only to find desolation and solitude. 
 
 In the center was the hut where Mpumba 
 was buried. This was the very town where ten 
 months previously we had seen the swarms of 
 lively children who had raced so merrily with 
 my bicycle, the first they had ever seen. It 
 was here that we had felt such a warmth of 
 hospitality and interest and where we had 
 been surrounded with youths eager to tell us 
 Luunda words. 
 
 Now most of the huts were burned and there 
 was litter all over the place. Mpumba had 
 been shot in consequence of a quarrel with a 
 neighboring chief, and was the fourth head- 
 man to be thus murdered in two years. 
 
 The next morning we faced a sullen, almost 
 
194 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 icy cold river, so different from the merry, 
 sparkling little river in whose warm waters 
 we had so gladly waded before. We found it 
 impossible to wade across at that spot, but 
 finally got across farther up where the water 
 reached nearly to our thighs and the current 
 was very swift and strong. Mrs. Springer had 
 to wade too, it being impossible to carry her 
 over in safety. 
 
 About seven miles on we came to Sami- 
 lunga's village and, getting new carriers, 
 pushed on to Lukoshi, a day's march of 
 twenty-two miles. 
 
 Thus ended a journey of six hundred miles, 
 covering eight weeks of time, and one of the 
 most trying we had ever experienced. 
 
 Besides our own boys, of whom there were 
 six, we had needed an additional twelve each 
 day. We ought to have had that many to go 
 with us from Kazembe's villages making the 
 round trip. But instead of that we had a total 
 of over one hundred and fifty different 
 carriers, and fifty of these ran away before 
 doing the amount of the journey which they 
 had agreed upon. 
 
 Truly it was a land needy of the Gospel. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 A DELUGE OF BELGIANS 
 
 How beautiful our house looked as we 
 climbed the western bank at Lukoshi and it 
 came into view! Not even Windsor Castle 
 could compare in our eyes with this crude mud 
 and pole structure with its leaky grass- 
 thatched roof, for it was our HOME. And 
 after two months of living in a small, hot tent, 
 it was a treat to be in a bedroom once more 
 and to sleep on a real bed, even though that 
 bed were made of poles and the mattress of 
 lumpy grass. 
 
 And then the luxury of having fresh goat's 
 milk and vegetables, though Billy had eaten 
 more beans than was good for him and thus 
 reduced the number that came to the table. 
 But there was plenty of fresh, crispy lettuce 
 and cucumbers, and we fairly reveled in the 
 pleasure of occupying our simple home again. 
 
 We now settled down in our minds to nine 
 months of solid routine work, the only solid 
 foundation on which to build. It is the quiet, 
 steady, uneventful plugging along that estab- 
 
 195 
 
196 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 lishes confidence among the people, trains a 
 native ministry, and forms the very bulwark 
 of a Mission. 
 
 One of the first things to be done now was 
 to build a new bridge at the west crossing, so 
 that another rainy season would not find us 
 cut off from the outside world, and we would 
 have to use our bath for a boat in which to 
 bring over the mail. 
 
 On the fifth day after our return, just as the 
 boys were dismantling the bridge, Jim came 
 up to the house saying that there was a white 
 man crossing the bridge. As we had had but 
 one visit from a white man during the year 
 that we had been there, we were greatly sur- 
 prised. 
 
 I went to meet him and learned that it was 
 M. Garnier, who brought a letter from Com- 
 mandant Gosme, the new Commissaire of the 
 Lulua District of the Katanga, stating that 
 he had heard of the revolt near Dilolo and had 
 sent M. Garnier ahead to afford us protection. 
 Appreciative of his thoughtfulness, we could 
 not but smile as we recalled our trip right 
 through the seat of the revolt and our search 
 of and visit to Nkuku. 
 
 We found M. Garnier to be a perfect gentle- 
 man, and although he did not speak a word 
 
A DELUGE OF BELGIANS 197 
 
 of English and we scarcely any French, yet 
 we managed to make ourselves mutually 
 understood and enjoyed his company very 
 much in the intervening five days before the 
 rest of the party arrived. He was then under 
 appointment to Dilolo, but in a few months 
 was sent to Kapanga, where Mr. Heinkel 
 found him in charge the next June. His 
 advice and assistance to Mr. Heinkel at that 
 time were very valuable. 
 
 M. Gamier had some fifty native soldiers 
 with him. He camped a mile from us on the 
 other side of the river, and built a caravansary 
 of three roofs on the new cleared path that 
 Lieutenant Hedo had instructed the chiefs 
 along the way to clear from Kambove to Dilolo 
 via Kayoyo. 
 
 Five days later Commandant Gosme, accom- 
 panied by Lieutenant Brausse, arrived with 
 some fifty more soldiers, and the party rested 
 in the caravansary for a week. This gave the 
 opportunity to call in the chiefs and explain 
 the new administration to them. Kazembe 
 had to hustle his people for miles around to 
 bring in food required for the native police, 
 their families, and the carriers. All this was 
 paid for in Belgian currency, an attempt 
 to get the natives used to cash; but, as they 
 
198 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 said to me later with a wry face : "What is the 
 use of cash when there are no stores in which 
 to spend it? We cannot eat francs, and francs 
 will not keep us warm at night." 
 
 The Belgians paid the natives a good price 
 for all that they got, but it nearly cleaned out 
 this shiftless and improvident communitiy so 
 that real suffering followed from the shortage 
 of food before the year was out. 
 
 Commandant Gosme was a burly, brusk, 
 capable administrator, with sixteen years' ex- 
 perience in the Congo, just the type of man 
 needed for the task in this District. We were 
 able to give him a sketch of the route to Dilolo 
 with names of all the villages en route and 
 much information as to the country, particu- 
 larly that pertaining to the revolt. We told 
 him how Nkuku had professed his entire 
 allegiance to the Belgian administration while 
 revolting against certain of its administrators. 
 
 The Commandant greatly appreciated our 
 viewpoint of the revolt, as it coincided with 
 his own conclusions. In passing, I am glad 
 to say that he sent word to Nkuku of his peace- 
 ful approach and had a most satisfactory in- 
 terview with him, bringing about an early ter- 
 mination of the revolt in that section at least. 
 
 During the stay of the officials, we had many 
 
 
A DELUGE OF BELGIANS 199 
 
 times of breaking bread together and were 
 interested to hear the new plans concerning 
 mail and other routes. So far, all our mail 
 had come through Kaleni Hill in Ehodesia, 
 eighty miles away. Now the Government was 
 to establish a weekly mail route past our very 
 door. What a joy to get our mail in this 
 manner and so much quicker! 
 
 These three white men left on the 24th of 
 July, and the next day Captain Legeois 
 arrived with about fifty soldiers and one hun- 
 dred and fifty carriers. The natives were abso- 
 lutely dismayed at the thought of having to 
 feed another such an army. Kazembe came to 
 me privately and especially requested that I 
 write a letter telling the Belgians to leave the 
 country. He did not care for their protection, 
 he did not want their help, and, above all, he 
 did not want to pay taxes. The Africans share 
 with others the wish to enjoy the benefits of 
 government without payment of taxes. For 
 in spite of his vaunted independence not many 
 months later Kazembe came to me in great 
 fright and wanted me to write another letter 
 begging the "Bula Matadi" to protect him 
 from an old enemy. 
 
 Eight on the heels of Captain Legeois came 
 Messrs. Anglebert and Truyens from the 
 
200 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 southeast, and the following day Captain 
 Legeois and M. Angelbert left for Dilolo and 
 after another day's visit with us M. Truyens 
 turned back to his isolated station on the 
 border where he was customs officer where 
 no customs were to be received. 
 
 So, while for nine months of the previous 
 year we had not seen another white person 
 besides our three selves, we now had had in 
 the past three weeks Belgians and more Bel- 
 gians and still more Belgians. To be sure 
 though numbering only six in all, they seemed 
 more like sixty, and entirely disturbed our 
 hitherto quiet living. 
 
 When we opened our third year of school on 
 July 31, there was a definite interrogation in 
 our minds as to where we would be when we 
 opened the fourth year of the Fox Bible Train- 
 ing School a year hence. Would this influx 
 of Belgian officials create a new center west 
 of us near Dilolo and thus increase the im- 
 portance of this location? Or would the 
 development of the country to the north enable 
 us to push on and occupy at Mwata Yamvo's? 
 We could only work on quietly and await 
 further indications. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 SECOND SEASON AT LUKOSHI 
 
 ON our return to LukosM from the trip to 
 Mwata Yamvo's, we found two new applicants 
 for the school, Mubita and Yambi, who had 
 come several hundred miles from their home 
 in Barotseland, near the Victoria Falls. They 
 were in search of a school where they could 
 learn English. Mubita had attended a ver- 
 nacular school for six months in his own coun- 
 try, and in that time had mastered all the 
 books available and the subjects taught there. 
 This had whetted his appetite. He wanted 
 more and broader schooling, and above all he 
 wanted English, the language of power in 
 South and Central Africa. 
 
 Now English as a subject was out of the 
 scope of that mission. Some missions depre- 
 cate the natives learning English. But it is 
 not in the power of any mission nor of all 
 missions put together to determine whether 
 the natives shall or shall not learn English. 
 English they hear and English they will learn, 
 
 SOI 
 
202 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 not only to speak, but to read and write, even 
 though they have to cross the continent or even 
 the ocean itself in order to get it. Scores and 
 hundreds of natives have gone to England or 
 America in quest of a higher education than 
 they can find in Africa, rarely with the best 
 results for themselves. 
 
 The only question that Missions can settle 
 ultimately is where such aspiring youths can 
 secure their hearts' desire, and whether it shall 
 be under conditions which develop the best 
 that is in them and meet their real needs as 
 well as satisfying their ambitions. Many a 
 bright, promising youth has been lost to the 
 particular mission field in which he was found, 
 and in too many cases to the Kingdom itself, 
 by the refusal of those missions to meet the 
 needs and satisfy the normal and proper aspir- 
 ations awakened within them. 
 
 Mubita and Yambi had passed several mis- 
 sion schools in their journey to us and had 
 considered their merits. But either these 
 schools, like those they had left, were limited 
 to the vernacular consisting ofttimes of not 
 more than six to ten textbooks at the very 
 outside, or else they offered very little English 
 and the school was conducted solely by women. 
 Not satisfied with such prospects, they pressed 
 
SECOND SEASON AT LUKOSHI 203 
 
 on until at last they heard of a school far away 
 in the great forest and searched us out and 
 were accepted. 
 
 There is a small group of missions, largely 
 undenominational or interdenominational, who 
 contend for what they choose to term "an 
 evangelistic" policy in opposition to the 
 methods pursued by nearly all the large or- 
 ganizations under the regular church boards 
 which these same parties characterize as "the 
 educational policy." 
 
 The evangelistic policy, followed notably by 
 the societies representing communions who 
 look for a speedy end of this dispensation and 
 of the second coming of our Lord for the mil- 
 lennium, calls for the major part of the mis- 
 sionary effort to be given to the evangelization 
 of the present generation. In many of these 
 missions their main efforts are largely in 
 preaching the Gospel to the adults. 
 
 What schools they do have are solely in the 
 vernacular, and a bright lad will go through 
 all the books printed in that vernacular within 
 a year of entering school and starting on the 
 alphabet. Then he wants more, and if he can- 
 not get it here will seek new pastures. Occa- 
 sionally some of the individual missionaries 
 will take him on as a private pupil, but 
 
204 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 this means irregular and much interrupted 
 progress. 
 
 We have known missions following this 
 policy who have not had a single trained 
 native to help in school and evangelistic work 
 after working twenty-five years in the country, 
 and consequently not an out-station. And 
 where there have been found such evangelists, 
 their knowledge was so shallow that they 
 could not continue long in one place with 
 acceptance. To do good evangelistic work, the 
 natives must have the Bible and there are very 
 few African languages to-day into which the 
 whole of the Bible has been translated. 
 
 Moreover, the use of women teachers exclu- 
 sively in boys' schools is not the best arrange- 
 ment, however excellent the teaching may be. 
 For centuries women have occupied a subordi- 
 nate position in the heathen world, so where 
 the school work is left entirely to women, It 
 naturally does not bulk largely in the native 
 mind as "a man's job." The native under- 
 stands and accepts the fact that the mission- 
 ary's wife or other lady members of the mis- 
 sion must do a large part of the teaching so 
 long as the man does all that he possibly can. 
 It is very important that the male missionary 
 takes the head and lead of the school as princi- 
 
SECOND SEASON AT LUKOSHI 205 
 
 pal, teaching as many classes as lie can, espe- 
 cially one or more Bible classes every day. 
 
 In contradistinction to the merely "evan- 
 gelistic" policy, is a broader one followed 
 notably by most of the leading American, Eng- 
 lish, Scotch, and Continental Societies. These, 
 while not neglecting in any w^ay the preaching 
 of the Gospel in all the villages far and near, 
 place education as the primary and most im- 
 portant charge and activity of the mission, 
 setting their hope on the rising generation. 
 
 This is on the well-recognized truth that the 
 world cannot be evangelized solely by foreign 
 missionaries. Even if that were possible, it 
 would not be desirable. Africa cannot possibly 
 be evangelized by the white man, the American 
 Negro, or any other foreigner, therefore our 
 supreme obligation and opportunity is to raise 
 up a native ministry, thus multiplying our lives 
 many fold in these new agents of the Gospel. 
 
 Of the one hundred boys or more that we 
 and others had in our school and under our 
 training in eastern Ehodesia from 1901 to 
 1906, fully thirty are to-day engaged in teach- 
 ing and preaching, most of them in charge of 
 stations out in the villages. 
 
 Of the fifty different young men connected 
 with this entirely new work during the past 
 
206 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 five years in Central Africa, fully a dozen are 
 already capable of holding services and teach- 
 ing schools and are so employed. 
 
 We make the school an evangelistic center 
 and a supreme evangelistic opportunity. The 
 daily Bible classes give an unexcelled oppor- 
 tunity to instill the divine truth and to ground 
 the religious character. Once or twice a year 
 we are wont to set apart a week for special 
 meetings for prayer and definite commitment, 
 and on most of these occasions, time and time 
 again, before the close of that week's meetings, 
 every boy in the school has intelligently and 
 definitely taken a stand as committing himself 
 to God. 
 
 Normal school methods for the training of 
 native teachers are employed in our schools, 
 and the older boys are set to teaching the 
 younger ones. Moreover, the senior students 
 are sent to teach day schools in the near vil- 
 lages, mine compounds, or wherever an oppor- 
 tunity is found. As we hold the station school 
 only in the forenoon, this enables no little 
 evangelistic and teaching work to be done 
 afternoons. 
 
 There is convincing proof of its value wher- 
 ever the broader policy of fitting the natives 
 for evangelistic work and Christian leadership 
 
SECOND SEASON AT LUKOSHI 207 
 
 among their own people has been carried on. 
 It is the natural method. They know their 
 people, they speak their language, they under- 
 stand their trend of thought, they are ac- 
 quainted with their customs, they are used to 
 their mode of life. In the truest and ultimate 
 sense, this is the evangelistic method. 
 
 In our work at Lukoshi we sent our boys out 
 far and near teaching and preaching in the 
 w r hole region round about, and this we could 
 not have prepared them to do had the teaching 
 been confined to the vernacular in which at 
 that time we did not have one printed book. 
 But even in those older missions, where, after 
 fifty to seventy-five years there is a translation 
 of the whole Bible into the vernuacular, there 
 is still such a limited native literature that 
 leaders cannot be trained to do efficient work 
 by it alone. 
 
 We do, however, confine our teaching in 
 English to the boarding schools. We sent out 
 our boys daily to all the villages round about, 
 taking homemade charts whereby they taught 
 the elementary lessons of the vernacular, 
 teaching hymns which we had duplicated on 
 the typewriter, and also having the children 
 memorize what few portions of Scripture we 
 had translated. 
 
208 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 We had only eleven boys in the Training 
 School when we opened it in July. These were 
 from seven different tribes, and at times it 
 was hard to keep the peace between them. On 
 one occasion, as the boys were sitting around 
 their fire in the evening, they got to telling of 
 different tribal characteristics, and in a teas- 
 ing way Peter quietly remarked that the An- 
 dembwe ate chicken hawks. Now Mutombo's 
 mother was a Mundembwe and he immedi- 
 ately resented this statement; heated words 
 passed between the two until Mutombo sud- 
 denly jumped to his feet, ran to his room, 
 rolled up his blanket and started off on the 
 run. He would not remain on the same station 
 with a boy who would say that his people ate 
 chicken hawks. 
 
 Peter was terribly upset over the matter, 
 and the next day started out and was gone two 
 days searching for the runaway, who was 
 quietly sitting at Kazembe's village at the 
 time and who returned of his own accord the 
 next day. After that Peter curbed his spirit 
 of teasing considerably. 
 
 Not long after this poor Mutombo was act- 
 ing as our table boy and fell into the tempta- 
 tion of stealing sugar. As we had no doors 
 to lock, it was impossible for us to keep things 
 
SECOND SEASON AT LUKOSHI 209 
 
 under lock and key. Moreover, years before 
 we had decided that such was not the best way 
 to instill the principles of honesty. So when 
 we discovered what was going on, I took the 
 houseboys and told them that I had trusted 
 them and should continue to do so in the 
 future. That they must be trained to be men 
 and overcome a desire to steal things placed in 
 their care. We have found it to be very 
 unusual for our house boys to steal from us. 
 We keep a pretty good watch on our things, 
 but do not lock them up. This stopped the 
 stealing at that time. 
 
 About this time we had sent two of our 
 own boys to Kaleni for the mail, as only our 
 first-class matter was coming by the Belgian 
 route. We still had to get our parcel post the 
 other way. These two boys were on their way 
 back when they were scared by a lion and had 
 to spend the whole night in a tree. It was a 
 long time before we could get any others to 
 make the trip. 
 
 One of our pleasantest recollections of the 
 next few weeks was the holding of our prayer 
 meetings out in the yard by the glowing fire, 
 especially when there was a moon. We had 
 by this time cleared a considerable space in 
 the yard and there was no scarcity of firewood. 
 
210 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 So we would have a big fire and all gather 
 around it. 
 
 We will never forget some of these prayer 
 meetings on the moonlight nights. From the 
 villages came the sounds of dancing and the 
 sensual merry-making of heathenism. The 
 moon takes a great hold on people. Here 
 around our glowing campfire, with Christian 
 hymns, repeating of Scriptures from memory, 
 prayers of thanksgiving to the great Father, 
 every one of our boys took some part, and most 
 of them testified to their gratitude that they 
 had been led to know God as their Father and 
 Jesus Christ as their Saviour. 
 
 At this time as problems arose, of daily con- 
 trol of the school, of teaching in simplest terms 
 the essential Gospel message, of planning for 
 the future, and, more than all, of growing in 
 one's own religious experience, there was the 
 frequent necessity for going into the seques- 
 tered places of the great forest to be alone with 
 God. We shall ever look back with gratitude 
 for the privilege of those years when the voice 
 of the outside world was little heard and where 
 in humble silence the message of the Father 
 penetrated to the very depth of our souls. 
 
 We were impressed over and over again with 
 the sentiment suggested by George Matheson 
 
SECOND SEASON AT LUKOSHI 211 
 
 on Exodus 13:17, 18 that "the children of 
 Israel needed the wilderness and the wilder- 
 ness needed them." Truly we needed the 
 wilderness as much as the wilderness needed 
 us. 
 
 On the first of September we received a fly- 
 ing visit from Mr. P. B. Last, of the Plymouth 
 Brethren, whose station was at Bunkeya's, 
 fifty-two miles northeast of Kambove. He had 
 been on a visit to Kaleni Hill (from which at 
 this time of writing we have just learned that 
 he has just carried off Miss Hoyt as his wife), 
 and was now on his way back. 
 
 From him we learned that no Protestant 
 Mission had been established at Elisabethville, 
 and that no Mission work whatever had been 
 established at Kambove, toward which point 
 the Cape-to-Cairo Railway was now approach- 
 ing. 
 
 As a Mission the Plymouth Brethren had 
 been approached to open a work at Elisabeth- 
 ville, and they had carefully considered the 
 matter, with the conclusion that there were two 
 distinct fields of work: that in the villages 
 where they, the members of the Garenganze 
 Mission established by Mr. Frederick Arnot, 
 had labored for twenty-five years, and where 
 they were known by the natives. This field 
 
212 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 they could not abandon and it now demanded 
 more than their full force of workers. In fact, 
 if they had ten times their present force, it 
 could be fully utilized in the eastern part of 
 the Katanga in the Luba-Sanga field. 
 
 On the other hand, mining and town work 
 was opening up, constituting a separate field. 
 To enter and care for it would demand all of 
 their present force and more. So they had 
 definitely decided to remain by the village 
 work, for which they were directly responsible 
 and in which they were well established, leav- 
 ing to others the occupation of the towns and 
 industrial centers. 
 
 This message came to us as from above, and 
 in that unmistakable way in which the Spirit 
 can make clear to the individual soul that a 
 certain message of the sacred page or of a 
 living voice is for him and comes as an indi- 
 vidual revelation. 
 
 All uncertainty concerning our future 
 speedily vanished, and ere another month had 
 passed we knew that the two new stations to 
 be built the next year would be at Mwata 
 Yamvo's and at Kambove. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 THE EXODUS FROM LUKOSHI 
 
 THE remaining 1 months of 1912 sped by 
 filled to overflowing with busy labor on school 
 and language. There were several of the little 
 boys from the adjoining villages who came to 
 us, and for a number of weeks Mrs. Springer 
 had held a school for the girls in the after- 
 noons. 
 
 The girls in this section were the most hope- 
 less that we have ever seen, but we felt that 
 at least some effort must be made to reach 
 them. When we announced the invitation to 
 come to school, the mothers appeared and said 
 that if the girls came to the school they must 
 be paid in salt. Mrs. Springer replied that she 
 would not pay them in salt. She would furnish 
 the beads for the beadwork and calico for the 
 sewing classes, but they would get no pay. The 
 girls came and the school grew until it num- 
 bered more than twenty. 
 
 I had begun the translation of Mark, and 
 though it was slow work I pushed on, hoping 
 to get the first draft completed before April or 
 
 213 
 
214 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 May when the rains would be over; for there 
 was no thought in our minds that we would 
 leave before May. 
 
 But the rains came on at the beginning of 
 September, and all through that month were 
 quite heavy. Then came a month of practically 
 no rain, and the native gardens dried up and 
 hunger stalked abroad through that section. 
 In November there again were heavy rains, but 
 December was dry. The maize crops in 
 Khodesia were a total failure, and all the peo- 
 ple around Kazembe's were practically on the 
 verge of starvation. Whole villages packed up 
 and moved to the north where there was better 
 soil, and where they could buy food to keep 
 them alive until they could get their gardens 
 going. We often had to close our school on 
 Thursdays and send most of the boys to dis- 
 tant villages to get food for our station. 
 
 Commandant Gosme had now established 
 headquarters at Kafakumba, four days due 
 north of us, and he and the Chef du Poste at 
 Kayoyo were sending messengers to Kazembe 
 telling him that he must have his people pay 
 their taxes. Kazembe was in a rage and sent 
 word to me two or three times and finally 
 came in person to say what practically 
 amounted to this, that if I were any good at 
 
THE EXODUS FROM LUKOSHI 215 
 
 all I would write a letter and drive all the 
 Belgians out of the country. 
 
 A month later he got word that Chipepela 
 was advancing to make war on him, and he 
 hustled over to me again begging me to write 
 to the Commandant and have him stop Chi- 
 pepela. I wrote this letter for him, and 
 Kazembe was so grateful that he brought me 
 a goat and some fowls as a payment, but I 
 refused to accept them under the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The reader may ask why the Government 
 should demand taxes when there was a famine. 
 Because both the Government and ourselves 
 were wanting laborers and carriers, and were 
 willing to pay for them. The men could have 
 had plenty to eat while working, earning 
 enough to feed their families and pay their 
 taxes, but they would rather sit in their vil- 
 lages or move to remote places than do any- 
 thing of the kind. They would rather starve 
 in idleness than work and have plenty. This 
 is very unlike the average African, who is 
 willing to work if he is paid and gets plenty 
 to eat. 
 
 On December 23 two messengers arrived with 
 a basket of fowls as a present from Mwata 
 Yamvo, w r ho they said was at Kafakumba. He 
 
216 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 had hoped to get as far as our station, but was 
 not able to do so. He sent imperative word 
 for Kazembe to come there and bring his 
 tribute. I told Kazembe that I was going up 
 in four days and he had better go with me. He 
 held up his hands saying that he could never 
 get ready in that time. 
 
 "Yes, you can," emphatically broke in his 
 head wife in disgust. So he said he would. 
 He needed protection through some of that 
 country, and I was ready to give it to him. 
 But at the last minute he found some excuse 
 for not going, and again stayed at home and 
 devoured the tribute prepared for Mwata 
 Yamvo. 
 
 Mrs. Springer and I pushed on as hard as 
 we could, but on reaching Kafakumba New 
 Year's Day, found to our regret that Mwata 
 Yamvo had left a few days previously. Had 
 we but known it, he had stopped there about 
 six weeks, during which time most of the chiefs 
 had been sent for, and the Government had 
 made it very clear to them that Mwata Yamvo 
 was still their great Chief, and that his word 
 to them was law; moreover, that all domestic 
 slavery must cease. 
 
 With the opening of 1913, after our trip to 
 Kafakumba, events began to shape themselves 
 
THE EXODUS FROM LUKOSHI 217 
 
 for our departure to build the two permanent 
 stations on which we had decided. 
 
 It was agreed that Mr. Heinkel should go 
 up to Mw r ata Yamvo and build a house there, 
 and then in October come down to Kambove. 
 We were fully expecting that the new mission- 
 ary for that station would be leaving America 
 in March, and be at Kambove in April or May. 
 So we wanted that he should have a house in 
 which to live as soon as possible. But in any 
 case it would be a great help to a new man to 
 have some one who understood the methods 
 of building in Africa on the spot to look after 
 the job. Accordingly an application was sent 
 to Commandant Gosme asking for permission 
 to settle and build at Mwata Yamvo's town, 
 and the permission was granted. 
 
 On January 28, Kayeka Mutembo arrived 
 from Angola with his party of fifteen, includ- 
 ing the children. It was now two years since 
 we had seen Kayeka at Kalulua as related in 
 the opening chapter. 
 
 His party had had a rough time of it indeed. 
 They found the Bachokwe country devastated 
 by war and its ensuing famine. A slave could 
 easily be bought in many of the villages for 
 a dish of meal. This brave little party strug- 
 gling through to their own country had to pay 
 
218 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 as high as eight yards of calico for a plate of 
 meal. This they made into thin gruel, and the 
 whole family of six of them had to make that 
 do for one day's rations. No wonder they got 
 sick! The wonder is that they ever lived to 
 wade through those flooded swamps and after 
 months of fasting and fever to reach our 
 station. 
 
 As children in the wayside villages were 
 being sold for a mere handful of food, two of 
 Kayeka's carriers, themselves ex-slaves return- 
 ing to their native land in the Luba country, 
 bought a small lad to help them carry their 
 loads. His name was Nganiba, and when he 
 arrived at Lukoshi he was a mere skeleton, and 
 such had been his sufferings that for a year 
 or two we feared that he had been embittered 
 for life. As soon as I learned that he was a 
 slave I told him that he was now free, and 
 stood by him in the row that his owners made 
 over his freedom. Ngamba has now been 
 nearly three years in the Fox Bible Training 
 School and is an earnest Christian. He is 
 gradually outgrowing the effects of those 
 months of untold suffering and gives much 
 promise for the future. 
 
 All the way along the trail, Kayeka had held 
 services and preached in nearly every village. 
 
RACHEL SALA 
 
 NASALA MOSES KAYEKA ESTHER 
 
 Fox BIBLE TRAINING SCHOOL, LUKOSHI, 1913 
 
THE EXODUS FROM LUKOSHI 219 
 
 His arrival at LukosM created quite a stir. 
 The present Kazembe was an uncle or some 
 such near relative. The native African does 
 not reckon all his relationships as we do, and 
 so it is often difficult for the occidental to com- 
 prehend them. 
 
 Kayeka found an own sister living ten miles 
 away. To whomsoever he spoke and wherever 
 he went, he bore a mighty testimony for 
 Christ. He had to live in a simple, hastily 
 constructed shack for those two months at 
 Lukoshi, but what a contrast there was be- 
 tween his own sweet, happy family life and the 
 lives of the heathen round about! 
 
 ,We missionaries had testified continually to 
 the power of God in our own lives, testified by 
 life as well as word, and so had the boys of 
 our school. But we belonged to another race 
 and the boys to other tribes. Here was a man 
 of their own tribe, born in that very Lukoshi 
 valley, who exemplified in a conspicuous man- 
 ner in his own gracious personality and in his 
 beautiful family life, the great blessings of the 
 Gospel. Thus for the two months that we 
 remained at Lukoshi he was constantly en- 
 gaged in study, teaching, and evangelizing. 
 
 Soon after his arrival, Kayeka came to me 
 with the same request that he had made at the 
 
220 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 time of his first visit two years previously, 
 namely, that Ms three girls should be enabled 
 to get a good education. He was very keen 
 to have them placed in a girls' boarding school 
 where they would be under the constant care 
 of some devoted Christian woman and be away 
 from the contamination of the heathen village 
 life. 
 
 He was so dead in earnest over the matter, 
 which I knew was one of vital importance, that 
 I had not the heart to tell him that I feared 
 that it might be years before such a school 
 would be a reality in the Lunda country. We 
 realized so well that it was n,ot Kayeka's girls 
 alone who needed such a school, but all the 
 other girls of these Christian parents, not to 
 mention the hundreds of girls now in heathen 
 towns. God grant that the day may not be 
 far distant when there shall be such a refuge 
 for the little Lunda girls. 
 
 As Kayeka had brought in some carriers 
 who wanted work, we decided to use them. 
 We packed one steamer trunk and sent it east 
 to Chimbunji, and then began to make up and 
 send loads to Kimpuki. From there we were 
 certain that we could get other carriers. This 
 section was the worst with which to deal. 
 
 We were still planning to leave in May, but 
 
THE EXODUS FROM LUKOSHI 221 
 
 as the rains were so light and the river had 
 hardly risen at all, we began to think we might 
 leave in April. We were having considerable 
 trouble w T ith Kazembe over slaves. One of 
 them named Chosa came to us and said that 
 he wanted to remain. Kazembe vowed that 
 his wife gave birth to the lad, and she swore 
 to the same thing. At last they admitted that 
 Chosa told a true story when he said that he 
 had been paid to her for her son who had been 
 killed in an expedition undertaken by Chosa's 
 people in which the son had joined. 
 
 So we told Kazembe plainly that he could 
 not longer hold the boy as a slave. Chosa had 
 come to us and asked us to help him get his 
 freedom, and the "Bula Matadi" had sent 
 word to all the chiefs that slavery must be 
 abolished. So he would have to let the lad go. 
 
 He was in a great rage at us. The fact is 
 that most of the people in his village were 
 slaves, and he was afraid that they would all 
 leave him. Many of them came to us asking 
 our help to free them. We were willing to 
 take them to the Government, but they held 
 back in fear. They knew the Government 
 would proclaim them free, but who was to save 
 them from the deadly bullet on their return? 
 We had to guard Chosa until he was well 
 
222 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 out of that section of country on his way to 
 Mwata Yamvo's with Mr. Heinkel. 
 
 The girls suddenly ceased attending school, 
 and we learned that Kazembe had given orders 
 that no more girls were to attend school. Our 
 boys said that the most of the girls were slaves, 
 and it was feared that they, too, would want 
 their freedom. When Kazembe had finished 
 sitting on the case of Chiwahe's father, he had 
 required one of the little girls in payment. 
 She was about twelve years old, and in another 
 two years would become a part of Kazembe's 
 harem. 
 
 By the middle of March we had sent nearly 
 fifty loads on to Kiinpuki, for our plan was 
 to send everything on to Mwata Yamvo's that 
 was not strictly personal. 
 
 We had been trying in vain to get carriers 
 from Kazembe and then sent to the Govern- 
 ment, but they could not even get the carriers 
 they needed for themselves. One day, about 
 the middle of March, I sent James to a group 
 of villages a few days' journey to the north- 
 west. I had never visited them personally, 
 but had sent the boys there on evangelistic 
 tours. While these were in Kazembe's juris- 
 diction, they had little to do with him. I told 
 James to tell the village chiefs that I wanted 
 
THE EXODUS FROM LUKOSHI 223 
 
 thirty men in two weeks' time to go with us 
 to Kambove. 
 
 He was to return by Monday noon without 
 fail and report; but he did not appear. Day 
 after day passed until Thursday, and no sight 
 of Jim. Thursday noon as we sat down to 
 lunch we heard a great shout from the boys, 
 and looking out saw James swinging into the 
 yard with satisfaction written all over him 
 and expressed in every step, followed by 
 twenty-nine carriers. He had started with 
 thirty, but one had turned back that morning. 
 
 "You see," he explained in answer to my 
 question as to why he brought the men now, 
 "they were willing to come and so I bring them 
 before they change their minds." 
 
 "Give them something to eat," I said, and 
 then took a long breath. Mrs. Springer and 
 I exchanged a long look and then she ex- 
 claimed, "This is nothing short of a miracle !" 
 and I echoed, "It certainly is a miracle !" Had 
 these men dropped from the sky itself it would 
 not have seemed more of a miracle. 
 
 Then we started packing, working as in a 
 dream, but working hard withal until late that 
 night, and at ten o'clock the next morning 
 crossed the east bridge of the Lukoshi for the 
 last time. It was the 26th of March and just 
 
224 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 a year previously the river was seven feet 
 higher at that crossing than to-day. The river 
 now was not much over its low water mark. 
 If it had been our leaving now would have 
 been impossible. We felt that this also was 
 a part of the Divine plan. 
 
 A few days later Mr. Heinkel started the 
 ex-slaves off with Kayeka at their head, and 
 then he followed, overtaking them at Kafa- 
 kumba, where they had to be registered and 
 given passes by the Government. 
 
 He was greatly indebted to the Kassai Co. 
 at Kimpuki for carriers, and he was enabled 
 to take the short route via Katola, reaching 
 Mwata Yamvo's the latter part of May. Here 
 he found Monsieur Gamier, who gave him 
 much valuable assistance. Unfortunately his 
 last few days on the trail were marked by un- 
 seasonable and heavy rains whereby he was 
 drenched and caught a severe cold, bringing 
 on a relapse of a pulmonary affection which 
 he had had in the United States. Fortunately 
 a government physician, Dr. Trolley, passed 
 through at that time and gave him medicine, 
 which greatly relieved him. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 KAMBOVE 
 
 DIVINE PROVIDENCE does not altogether 
 eliminate the operations of human weakness. 
 These carriers of ours had never been over 
 this route before, and it is doubtful if they 
 had even been two hundred miles from home 
 in any direction. Kambove, two hundred and 
 fifty miles distant, seemed to them as far away 
 as Africa does to the average American, 
 namely, quite out of the world. So it was not 
 surprising that they became alarmed when 
 they saw that the villages along the path were 
 all deserted. Where we had found flourishing 
 gardens eighteen months before, there was 
 now only the deepest jungle of grass and 
 weeds, a jungle so dense that at times the 
 carriers could keep from getting lost from one 
 another only by constant coo-hooing back and 
 forth. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the third day nine 
 of them decided that this journey was too 
 much for them and, dropping their loads, they 
 
 225 
 
226 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 bolted. James, whose duty it was to come up 
 at the rear to see that all the carriers reached 
 camp safely each night, happened to learn that 
 they were bolting and were running around 
 him through the forest. Without waiting to 
 see me, he started in pursuit. He went back 
 to their villages and secured other carriers to 
 take their places. The morning after their 
 desertion I was obliged to leave six loads by 
 the path on hastily constructed racks, and he 
 picked these up as he came back a week later 
 with the men. The rain and white ants had 
 not improved the contents of the boxes, but 
 nothing of value was really destroyed. 
 
 Eighteen of these carriers went right 
 through with us to Kambove, but to prevent 
 their bolting also involved a constant watch- 
 ing of them night and day. We hired other 
 carriers at different places along the way, but 
 these deserted. So, what with heavy rains 
 through which we sometimes had to walk all 
 day, Mrs. Springer and myself, both drenched 
 to the skin, with insufficient food, bad trails 
 through the jungle, and the anxiety about our 
 men, we were thankful enough to reach Kam- 
 bove after twenty-one days on the trail. 
 
 It is gratifying to be able to add that these 
 eighteen men, who had to be at times almost 
 
KAMBOVE 227 
 
 forced to complete the journey, came and 
 thanked me heartily for compelling them to 
 fulfill their contract and thus have the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing all the wonders (to them) of 
 Kambove, though the rails had not reached 
 there as yet, although the formation was com- 
 plete. I went to the trouble of taking the men 
 to the rail head ten miles away and they saw 
 the trucks on the rails and heard the engine 
 as it puffed off just a few minutes before we 
 arrived. 
 
 On the day of our arrival at Kambove, as 
 we climbed the long steep hill to the mining 
 camp (for there was no town at that time nor 
 was the site for the new town yet chosen), the 
 first house we came to was empty, so Mrs. 
 Springer and the carriers sat down while I 
 spent an hour hunting up the manager of the 
 mine, M. Bertrand, who very kindly put this 
 same house at our disposal for as long a time 
 as we needed it. 
 
 At once I set out to discover a suitable loca- 
 tion for the Mission. I consulted maps of the 
 mining reserves, interviewed officials, and ex- 
 plored in many directions, but after three 
 weeks we seemed as far away from a site as 
 ever. 
 
 I had had in my mind's eye a mental pic- 
 
228 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 ture of what the site was to be. One afternoon 
 as I climbed one of the many hills about Kam- 
 bove, I saw another hill some distance away 
 and was instantly impressed that it was the 
 hill for our Mission. Late that afternoon I 
 took two boys and we reached it after much 
 difficulty, owing to the steep ravines which 
 we had to cross from the side from which we 
 approached it. The next day I took Mrs. 
 Springer there, approaching from another 
 side, which again meant the crossing of two 
 other very steep ravines. She, too, was satis- 
 fied that it was the spot for us. When depart- 
 ing after our inspection of the site we saw a 
 faint path made by natives who had been there 
 cutting trees, and following this path we found 
 that it led us along a level ridge right to the 
 railroad formation at the point later selected 
 as the site for the depot, so that our Mission 
 buildings are now slightly over a half mile 
 from the railroad depot. From our buildings 
 to the depot is an excellent bicycle path on 
 our own grounds right to the railroad. The 
 point I would emphasize is that we were led 
 to choose this site before we knew of its future 
 nearness and access to the railroad station, 
 and before the town site was fixed upon. The 
 town itself was later laid out beginning from 
 
KAMBOVE , 229 
 
 the station on the other side of the tracks from 
 us and extending in the opposite direction to 
 the northwest. 
 
 On May 16 I made my initial formal appli- 
 cation for the concession of land we required 
 a tract of about two hundred acres. The 
 Commissaire thought that it would probably 
 be some months before we could get permission 
 even to build, as the town site had not yet been 
 fixed. He communicated with the head offices 
 at Elisabethville, and receiving a prompt reply 
 told me that we could enter upon the conces- 
 sion at once and put up inexpensive buildings 
 pending further negotiations. So I began a 
 simple pole structure thatched with grass at 
 first, and also walled with grass. We moved 
 over on May 21, before the roof was finished, 
 and with our loads around us in the primitive 
 forest began the building of Kambove Station, 
 mostly from the materials at hand. 
 
 A few days later as I came out on the rail- 
 road formation at the foot of our path, I 
 encountered a party of officials hastily making 
 their way down to the rail head, and among 
 them I recognized Vice-Governor General 
 Wangermee. He remembered me from our 
 visit to Elisabethville two years previously. I 
 spoke of our desire to receive definite word in 
 
230 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 reply to our application for this site as soon 
 as possible, and lie told me that he was quite 
 sure that they would be able to grant the 
 application, though it would have to go 
 through the usual formalities. In commenting 
 on other correspondence between us, he ex- 
 pressed great gratification on the part of the 
 Government at the return of the ex-slaves from 
 Angola, natives of the Belgian Congo, which 
 was being effected by our presence in the 
 Lunda country, and which, as a result of 
 Kayeka's return to his own country, was being 
 greatly encouraged and increased. 
 
 Kambove was now undergoing a rapid trans- 
 formation. On our arrival the old mining 
 camp consisted of a number of mud and pole 
 houses, one general trading store, two Kaffir 
 truck stores, one canteen the "National 
 Cafe" a butcher shop, and a bicycle shop. 
 These merchants had a very small stock of 
 goods, as the cost of transportation from rail 
 head was exorbitant, and it was now a matter 
 of but a few weeks when the rails should reach 
 Kambove. The prices fairly staggered us, the 
 cost being about as high on provisions, etc., 
 as they had been at Lukoshi, but new stores 
 were opening up every day, mostly for trade 
 with the natives. At a place called The Tri- 
 

 KAMBOVE , 231 
 
 angle, the junction of the stub line with the 
 main line, there were about a dozen canteens, 
 or bars, carrying on their nefarious business 
 among the two hundred white men who were 
 employed in various ways along railroad con- 
 struction. 
 
 In building the Mission Station, one of the 
 greatest difficulties at first was in securing 
 tools with which to work, the stores having 
 practically none in stock. However, I obtained 
 the few necessary tools from various sources. 
 A few were given to me by Mr. Grey, who was 
 head carpenter on the railroad construction, 
 and gradually our equipment began to corre- 
 spond with our needs. 
 
 The very first week of our stay in Kam- 
 bove the news spread among the natives that 
 a missionary had arrived, and a number of 
 boys hailed me on the path and asked if I had 
 any books for sale. One boy ordered a Sankey 
 hymn book on the next day after our arrival. 
 We had a few of our Natural English Primers, 
 worked out at Kansanshi, Kalalua, and Luko- 
 shi, and printed on our Methodist Mission 
 Press at Old Umtali. These went like hot 
 cakes. Orders were given me for books in 
 several native languages as well as in English, 
 and no small part of my correspondence for 
 
232 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 months to come was concerning the native 
 literature wanted from a half dozen sections 
 of Africa where months were required to get 
 an answer in return. Thus was inaugurated 
 the Katanga Book Store the Methodist Book 
 Concern of Central Africa. Camps of con- 
 tractors working on the mine and the railroad, 
 in the town, and as forwarding agents to dis- 
 tant points, were to be found everywhere. 
 Several thousand recruited natives from all 
 parts of Central Africa were in the ever-shift- 
 ing population. I began holding regular serv- 
 ices in as many of the camps as I could reach, 
 and before long there were a number of camps 
 where we could hold afternoon schools as well. 
 Generally, I had at least eleven services each 
 Sunday, and many tribes were represented in 
 our audiences. On one Sunday I listed thirty- 
 five tribes as represented in the eleven services 
 held that day. Fortunately I had boys from 
 several tribes in the school, so could use them 
 as interpreters and as teachers for the camp 
 schools, and through them reach most of the 
 four or five thousand natives gathered about 
 Kambove at that time. 
 
 On June 6 the rails were laid into Kambove. 
 Owing to the very hilly nature of the country 
 for miles about Kambove, various engineers 
 
ON JUNE 6, 1913, THE RAILS WERE LAID INTO KAMBOVE 
 KAMBOVE STATION, JUST AFTER DEPARTURE OF TRAIN 
 

KAMBOVE 233 
 
 had declared that it would be impracticable 
 to bring the main line of the railroad near 
 to the mine. They proposed that the main 
 line pass at a distance of about ten miles to 
 the east, and that a branch be run to the mine 
 as is done in Elisabeth ville in the case of the 
 Star of the Congo Mine. But some higher 
 powers insisted that the road actually come 
 into or very near to Kambove and proceed 
 from there north, and at last a way was found 
 to do this. The stub from the main line is 
 three miles long, the Kambove station being 
 on the stub, one half mile from the junction. 
 Memorable to us will ever be the first sound 
 of the locomotive as it came puffing along at 
 the rail head just a few miles distant over 
 the ridge. It was sweetest music to us after 
 three years in the wilderness, and up to the 
 time of our departure it never ceased to be a 
 'great pleasure to us to go down to the station 
 and see the trains come and go. 
 
 On one of my first trips to Kamatanda, ten 
 miles from Kambove, I passed hundreds of 
 empty iron cement casks. I began to consider 
 how they might be used, and asked permission 
 to gather them up. As they had been thrown 
 away, there was no objection, and I set a gang 
 of my boys to work flattening them out and 
 
234 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 bringing them in. I secured enough, eventu- 
 ally, to roof three buildings, put ceilings in 
 four buildings, and do several odd jobs with 
 them besides. Lumber was very expensive, so 
 I asked the boys about the trees on our place. 
 They pointed out some hardwood, ant-proof 
 trees of at least four varieties, and I had a 
 saw-pit dug. I had never seen lumber sawed 
 in a pit, and had only a general idea as to 
 how it was done. The very day that we fin- 
 ished the saw-pit, a boy came asking for work. 
 I said that I did not want any more boys 
 (didn't feel that I could afford to hire more). 
 He sat on the ground a while and then pulled 
 out a paper and handed it to me. It was a 
 recommendation of him as a saw-boy from a 
 missionary about three hundred miles away. 
 I employed him on the spot, and the next day 
 he and another boy were at work on our first 
 log. 
 
 In this way I obtained the very best and 
 most durable timber for all our door and 
 window frames, joists, etc., at a very small 
 cost. Then I was able to secure twenty boys 
 for about the cost of their food for ten days, 
 and I put them to carrying water to make 
 adobe bricks for our own house and one other. 
 Here Saul, who also had been of Kayeka's 
 
KAMBOVE 235 
 
 party, was invaluable to me, as he knew all 
 about brick making. 
 
 I fully expected to do all the masonry and 
 brick laying for our house personally. Just 
 about this, time, one afternoon the boys raised 
 a shout of "Kaluwashi." As narrated in the 
 opening chapter he came to Lukoshi with 
 Kayeka. He told us the story of his visit to 
 his home as we sat about the fire that evening. 
 Kaluwashi had left us in February and it was 
 now August. He said he wanted to remain 
 with me for a couple of months and earn some 
 money so as to take back some presents to his 
 wife, who was a member of a local tribe in 
 Angola. She had said that at his home in the 
 interior there was nothing but the veldt and 
 savages, and he wished to take something to 
 her to prove the contrary. He had brought 
 an own brother and two other lads with him 
 to accompany him to Angola and to help him 
 in bringing in his family. I was grateful for 
 the services of the other three and Mbunda, 
 but hardly knew what to give Kaluwashi to 
 do, as I did not want to give him the same 
 rough work as the others. He simply said 
 that he was willing to do anything. I had 
 just begun to lay a retaining wall for a 
 veranda on the small residence we had built 
 
236 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 for Mrs. Springer's mother, so I thought I 
 would have Kaluwashi help me. I at once 
 saw that he seemed to know just how to do 
 the work, so I left him alone with the task. 
 AVhen I came back I saw that he was working 
 all right and following the lines and on in- 
 quiry I learned that he was a mason by trade. 
 What a godsend he was ! 
 
 He told me he wanted to lay the walls 
 of our main house, after which he would go 
 to Bihe to bring his wife and family. I laid 
 out the lines for the foundations of our main 
 house and Mr. Peter Grey very kindly came 
 to see if it had been done correctly. Much 
 to my satisfaction, it had. These skilled me- 
 chanics working along the railroad construc- 
 tion and in the mine were most ready to give 
 me any information that I needed or any help 
 in their power to give. This was my first 
 serious building operation, and that meant for 
 me a few problems in masonry, carpentry, and 
 tinning, and they helped me solve them. I 
 particularly remember a demonstration which 
 the tinsmith gave me in his camp on soldering 
 the guttering for the house by showing me 
 how he soldered three joints together and an 
 elbow. I was then able successfully to put 
 the guttering on the entire house. 
 
KAMBOVB 237 
 
 I had all I could do and more to look after 
 all the work. I had to keep on the go from 
 one part of the station to the other. At times 
 I would have as many as five different build- 
 ings under construction at different stages. 
 First the boys would send me word that they 
 had finished one log and would I come down 
 and mark another. Then there would be need 
 of a door or window frame before the brick- 
 laying could proceed. Next I would need 
 to make the principals and put the roof onto 
 a house, then hasten off to see that the picka- 
 ninnies had brought in their stent of grass and 
 the older boys of poles. Food had to be 
 rationed out twice a day, and after quitting 
 time at 5.30, there was the daily clinic when 
 all the sore toes had to be tied up, wounds 
 carefully washed and bound up to prevent big 
 ulcers, medicine given for headache, stomach 
 ache, backache and fever, and all the other 
 ailments that beset a large crowd of natives. 
 
 Therefore, I had very little time left to do 
 any office work on accounts or correspondence, 
 and Mrs. Springer had to help me more than 
 usual in such work. 
 
 I longed unutterably to be able to give all 
 my time and that of my older boys to making 
 the most of the evangelistic opportunities 
 
238 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 among the blacks and whites while they were 
 concentrated around Kambove, but that was 
 impossible. No little attention was given to 
 this work, but the building was the command- 
 ing consideration at this time. However, it was 
 not an unimportant lesson to the natives that 
 I was not afraid to work, and work hard, with 
 my hands and to do all sorts and kinds of 
 work. Among the natives a sort of caste exists 
 and they resent being put to several kinds 
 of work in one day. On several occasions, as 
 these little objections arose, I pointed out to 
 them that in a single day I was preacher, 
 teacher, doctor, nurse, mason, carpenter, 
 tinner, overseer, bookkeeper, judge, and peace- 
 maker, and what not. Such objections soon 
 ceased. 
 
 From the time the first letters began to 
 arrive from Mr. Heinkel, after he reached 
 Mwata Yamvo's, we were greatly concerned 
 about his health. We were greatly disap- 
 pointed in the delay of the missionaries for 
 that station. When Mr. Heinkel had a resi- 
 dence, cook house, etc., built of adobe brick 
 ready for the doctor to occupy, he wrote me 
 that he should leave there in October and sent 
 in his resignation from the Mission. So he 
 left Kayeka in sole charge and arrived at 
 
KAMBOVE 2CD 
 
 Kambove on November 11. He had been very 
 ill on the way down, but was much better on 
 his arrival. He remained and helped me with 
 the building until February, when he left for 
 the United States. He had been with us for 
 three and a half years, and had been a great 
 help to us during that pioneering stage. We 
 regretted that his condition did not warrant 
 his staying out his five years, but we realized 
 the wisdom of his return at that time. The 
 adverse pioneer conditions of his work had 
 brought on a trouble that had affected him in 
 America. His service through these years had 
 contributed largely and essentially to the 
 establishing of the Congo Mission. 
 
 By the end of that year, 1913, our buildings 
 were well advanced and we had had a month 
 of school. 
 
 On Christmas we had a great celebration, 
 and nearly one hundred native young men, 
 many of them former pupils of a dozen mis- 
 sions near and far, mostly in the territory to 
 the east of us, sat down to the dinner served 
 in the chapel and schoolroom. What joy and 
 rejoicing there was among them, that at last 
 along the railroad construction a Mission had 
 been established to be a sort of home for them 
 during their stay while working in this sec- 
 
240 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 tion. Hymns in several languages as well as 
 in English were heartily sung, and we rejoiced 
 greatly at the privilege of making a Christian 
 celebration of Christmas possible in contrast 
 to the drunken orgies about the canteens and 
 bars, and in many of the camps which had 
 characterized the railroad and its construction 
 in its twenty-five hundred miles from Cape 
 Town. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 A NEW EPOCH 
 
 As in these months we undertook the work 
 of building permanent stations, we grasped as 
 never before the significance of Livingstone's 
 words: "The end of the geographical feat is 
 the beginning of the enterprise." The value 
 to the Kingdom of Livingstone's heroic and 
 persistent explorations lies in the fact that 
 he broke the paths for, and inspired the estab- 
 lishing of six (if not more nearly a dozen) 
 missions in various parts of Central Africa. 
 These are not merely single stations, but enter- 
 prises each backed by large constituencies at 
 home, and that in their occupation cover large 
 areas, each with many separate stations. 
 
 Our exploration so far held in itself no 
 ultimate significance; the real enterprise lay 
 before us; our three years, together with the 
 earlier trip through this section, had served 
 to reveal to us the strategic centers for occu- 
 pation in this field. In building at Mwata 
 Yamvo's and at Kambove we were entering 
 
 241 
 
242 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 upon the second and truly significant epoch 
 that of the great missionary enterprise itself, 
 namely, the bringing in, the permanent estab- 
 lishing, and the loosening of those manifold 
 agencies of the Gospel in evangelization, edu- 
 cation, social ministry, and service, and such 
 an inclusive provision for the total needs of 
 this backward race as should lead the Church 
 to the full accomplishment of her mission. 
 
 Fundamentally necessary in this program 
 are the lives of capable, devoted men and 
 women, and the "New Epoch" was notably 
 marked in the early part of 1914 by the acces- 
 sion of such workers. 
 
 First to arrive was Mrs. J. E. Miller, Mrs. 
 Springer's mother, who traveled out to Africa 
 entirely at her own expense, and on March 7 
 reached Kambove to spend the year with us. 
 She entered at once heartily into the work, 
 teaching in night and forenoon schools, and 
 occasionally having afternoon classes for girls 
 and women. She attended practically all the 
 meetings on the station, contributing no small 
 part to their value and success, and was in 
 many respects a volunteer missionary. We 
 had arranged for her to come in the company 
 of Dr. and Mrs. Piper, but after one week in 
 England she decided she had had enough of 
 
A NEW EPOCH 243 
 
 London rain and, with characteristic inde- 
 pendence, had come on alone rather than wait 
 another week. She had a delightful trip, and 
 although the eight days' journey by rail from 
 Cape Town was rather taxing, arrived in good 
 health and in splendid spirits. 
 
 Just a week later came Dr. and Mrs. A. L. 
 Piper, both of New York State, who were to 
 be supported by the Detroit Epworth Leagues. 
 The doctor had received his appointment early 
 in the year preceding, and we had fully ex- 
 pected him in May, but he very wisely con- 
 cluded that he would be much better off mar- 
 ried than single, and, seeing a ray of hope, 
 followed it up, and finally succeeded in bring- 
 ing with him the woman of his choice, namely, 
 Miss Maud Garrett, who for six years had 
 been a deaconess in New York City, and, 
 although the waiting had been trying, yet 
 when we saw Mrs. Piper, we knew that it had 
 been well worth while. 
 
 We had been very much concerned about 
 having to leave the new station at Mwata 
 Yamvo's so long without a white missionary, 
 but faithful Kayeka had taken such good care 
 of the work, carrying on both day schools and 
 evangelistic services, that it had not suffered, 
 but rather had gone ahead, so that the Pipers 
 
244 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 had more than their hands full from the very 
 day they reached their station. It was neces- 
 sary for them to remain at Kambove seven 
 weeks to receive and repack their goods, and, 
 as Mrs. Springer was striving hard to complete 
 the revision of the translation of Mark, Mrs. 
 Piper took her school work off her hands. It 
 was a great help to me also to be relieved of 
 my daily clinic, which had been rather heavy. 
 During the rainy season I had as many as 
 fourteen boys at a time needing medical treat- 
 ment of one kind or another. 
 
 To return to the translation of the Gospel of 
 Mark, on leaving Lukoshi I had told Jacob 
 (who had been helping me on the translation) 
 that I wanted him to go to Mwata Yamvo's 
 with Mr. Heinkel, and besides helping in the 
 building, to spend a half of each day translat- 
 ing Mark into the Luunda. He did so and when 
 he came to Kambove brought the first draft of 
 the translation with him. The work was very 
 crude, naturally, and when Mrs. Springer 
 began to type it, she found it would have to 
 be revised. Fortunately, one of the carriers 
 wjio came down with Mr. Heinkel had been 
 too ill to return with the others, so that after 
 his recovery he was on hand for consultation 
 regarding words and phrases. Also, we had 
 
A UBW EPOCH 245 
 
 brought six Lunda boys with us from Lukoshi. 
 Then there was Chosa, who came with Mr. 
 Heinkel. All of these, as well as Bimbi, the 
 sick carrier, wished to go with the Pipers back 
 to the Lunda country, so it was necessary for 
 Mrs. Springer to complete the work on the 
 translation before all of the Alunda left. 
 Jacob had already gone to his own country, 
 near Bulawayo, to find a Christian wife. When 
 Mrs. Springer had completed one revision, she 
 felt that another was required in order to 
 make this initial translation into the Luunda 
 as perfect as possible. 
 
 On April 28 I started with the Pipers to 
 take them to Eailhead, and a little farther on 
 their way to their far distant station more 
 than four hundred miles into the wilderness. 
 The Construction Company was most obliging 
 in giving us free transportation over their 
 rails as far as they were laid so that night 
 we all packed into one tiny compartment: 
 Doctor, Mrs. Piper, myself, Melissa James's 
 wife Lutenda, the pickaninny, and the dog, 
 "Kambove," besides some twelve of the most 
 important loads. Mrs. Piper wondered at the 
 time, and the Doctor and I with her, what her 
 many friends in comfortable, elegant New 
 York would say to see her dumped in there in 
 
246 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 that 6x6 compartment with two men, the na- 
 tive woman and lad, the dog and all; but she 
 was game to the core. Not a suggestion of 
 regret came to her mind I am sure. On the 
 other hand, she seemed to enjoy it as our train 
 rolled, creaked, bounced, and rolled along the 
 unsettled roadbed. We sang the grand old 
 hymns of faith, repeated Scripture verses and 
 poetry, and talked until weariness quieted us 
 down. The carriers and all the other loads 
 were piled on top of the already heavily loaded 
 trucks of rails, ties, and other construction 
 material. There was no chance for sleep or 
 for much rest for them, as they needed to be 
 awake and alert to avoid falling off. There 
 was not room for us in the guard's van to 
 make up beds and lie down, so we stowed our- 
 selves away among the loads and the dog as 
 comfortably as we could and dozed fitfully 
 until daybreak, when we got out and waded 
 through the tall wet grass five miles to a cara- 
 vansary, where we had breakfast. We then 
 went on twelve miles further and I spent the 
 night with them in order to show them how 
 to organize a caravan, to pitch and break 
 camp, and to get their loads into shape; and 
 then the next morning, right after prayers, I 
 turned back to Kambove, and they set their 
 
MRS. MILLER, MR. AND MRS. SPRINGER, DR. AND MRS. PIPER, 
 MALISE, JAMES, AND LUNDA BOYS 
 
 MISSION HOUSE AT MUSUMBA OR MWATA YAMVO'S 
 MWATA YAMVO AND A FEW OF His FAVORITE WIVES 
 
A N)Ew EPOCH 247 
 
 faces toward the great unknown, feeling so 
 they wrote us like orphaned children. 
 
 They had to go by the longest route via 
 Bukama, as the direct route was officially 
 closed on account of sleeping sickness. They 
 were delayed on one or two occasions for car- 
 riers and so did not reach Mwata Yamvo until 
 June 22. Word of their approach had pre- 
 ceded them and Kayeka led out a reception 
 committee of three hundred people from the 
 capital to welcome them. One can imagine 
 this crowd of people as they advanced singing 
 over and over the few Christian hymns which 
 they had learned, and lining the path on both 
 sides so as to let Dr. and Mrs. Piper pass be- 
 tween them. Near the house had been raised 
 a triumphal arch draped with white calico; 
 here they halted and Kayeka made a prayer 
 and an address of welcome. Then Mwata 
 Yamvo came out in his mono-cycle and wel- 
 comed them formally to his capital. I have 
 never heard of another instance where mis- 
 sionaries, coming for the first time to reside 
 in a country, have had so unique and so royal 
 a welcome. 
 
 At once the Doctor set the workmen to 
 building a schoolhouse, and in the second 
 month after their arrival Mrs. Piper began a 
 
248 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 class for women and girls out under the trees. 
 The evangelistic and school work was rapidly 
 enlarged and these new missionaries had their 
 hands full from the very start. 
 
 Mrs. Piper wrote in one of her letters: 
 "Since our arrival here many kinds of labor 
 have been hurried along, the Doctor superin- 
 tending brick making and building, taking 
 care of the sick, and last but most important 
 trying to teach the blind eyes to see the King 
 in his beauty. Thus far much of my time has 
 been spent in the care and arrangement of my 
 home. Five weeks ago I opened a school for 
 women and girls. Some of these are elderly 
 women and their eagerness to learn is really 
 pathetic. Their poor hands are so stiffened 
 with hard work that it seems almost impos- 
 sible for them to hold a pencil and form 
 letters." Six months after their arrival Dr. 
 Piper wrote to Bishop Hartzell: "When we 
 left Kambove Mr. Springer nearly emptied 
 his Mission of boys to give us those who would 
 help us on our own trip up here and in the 
 work after our arrival. Some of these spoke 
 English quite well and were of no small help 
 to us. Later a number of people, ex-slaves, 
 arrived from the neighborhood of the mission 
 of the Plymouth Brethren at Kaleni Hill, 
 
A NEW EPOCH 249 
 
 Rhodesia. Last of all, another group of forty 
 or so arrived from the mission of the American 
 Board in Angola. A large percentage of 
 these read quite well, not only in their native 
 tongue, but in English as well. Several have 
 for years been teachers and evangelists. These 
 immigrants are mostly ex-slaves like Kayeka, 
 who are returning to their native land. They 
 are a great help to me in evangelistic work. 
 At present we hold several services on Sunday 
 in different parts of Mwata Yamvo's town. 
 We send several native preachers out to some 
 of the many smaller villages round about that 
 can be reached in a day. The school enroll- 
 ment on the station is about seventy-five. The 
 medical work is limited only by the restricted 
 amount of time that I am able to give to it. 
 We are gradually getting the building done. 
 
 "I feel that this work in Central Africa is 
 deserving of rapid development, and I am very 
 anxious that our present plans should not be 
 detracted from. Already we are receiving re- 
 quests from outlying villages that native 
 teachers be stationed in them. There are 
 several other men in our mission village be- 
 sides those whom we are now employing, who 
 could be used to good advantage as teachers 
 and evangelistic workers, and every depart- 
 
250 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 ment of the work is ready for rapid extension 
 and development if only there were more mis- 
 sionaries here and more funds for the work; 
 and yet, until more missionaries come, I do 
 not feel that we will be able to properly super- 
 vise a larger work." We particularly com- 
 mend to the reader his concluding sentence: 
 "Won't you remember in prayer our vast 
 opportunities, our pressing needs, and the 
 unique position of this station? While w r e 
 have been here but a few months, this field has 
 all the characteristics of an old established 
 work." 
 
 .This report comes from the very town 
 where, while Mr. Heinkel was building the 
 house only a year previously, two little slave 
 children were buried alive with the corpse of 
 the mother of Mwata Yamvo in order that she 
 might have slaves to wait on her in the next 
 world. The purpose to do this was kept very 
 quiet, but our boys learned of it, but not soon 
 enough to prevent the horrible deed being 
 done. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of the Pipers, we 
 must add that their latest arrival is a baby 
 girl Ruth Piper, who arrived on May 4, 1915. 
 She will be a blessing to the work at this sta- 
 tion from her early days, as the natives are 
 
A NEW EPOCH 251 
 
 very fond of children. Deputations are coming 
 from far and near to see the wonderful white 
 baby. This presents to the parents many a 
 golden opportunity to give the gospel message 
 to hundreds who would not otherwise be 
 accessible to it for some time, or so open to 
 receive it. When Miss Ruth was taken to see 
 Mwata Yamvo, the king was very pleased and 
 in honor of the first white baby to be born in 
 his kingdom, he presented her with a bull calf. 
 What a fine thing it would be if, in deciding 
 on her life work, she should choose to be a mis- 
 sionary to the people among whom she was 
 born. 
 
 The week after the Pipers' departure from 
 Kambove, we opened the night school in the 
 little Truex Chapel near the railroad, and 
 until the outbreak of the war had a crowd in 
 attendance. Urgent requests for such a school 
 had been made for some time, but this was the 
 earliest that we could possibly take on this 
 additional work. Over two hundred enrolled 
 within the first month, and the average attend- 
 ance was over thirty. Mother Miller rarely 
 missed a night, and taught with all the eager- 
 ness of sixteen instead of more than sixty. 
 The fragrance and blessing of her influence 
 will long abide in the memory of the pupils of 
 
252 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 those days, and the story of how "Mamma 
 Miller," whose head was crowned with silver, 
 came so long a journey, and just for the love 
 she had for the Master and for these needy 
 ones, gave her best, and manifested a deep 
 motherly interest in them, will be handed 
 down from one generation of boys to another. 
 
 On June 22 we had another addition to our 
 force in the persons of Rev. and Mrs. Roger S. 
 Guptill, from the New Hampshire Conference. 
 These energetic and well-trained young people 
 were able to take the entire charge of the night 
 school and of the Fox Bible Training School 
 from the first, though the rest of us continued 
 to teach a few classes. For myself I had 
 months of back office work, besides the daily 
 meed of duties, to fully engage most of my 
 time. The work was going along so nicely 
 and encouragingly, when like a thunder clap 
 from a clear sky the war cloud burst upon 
 us, as well as upon the rest of the world. Mrs. 
 Springer and I had just returned from a three 
 weeks' tour along the Railroad Construction 
 to the North, and never had the work seemed 
 more promising. We had sold no less than five 
 hundred francs worth of books to the natives 
 on that trip, besides holding services and talk- 
 ing with boys who were thinking of coming to 
 
A NEW EPOCH 253 
 
 the school. The financial upheaval and chaos 
 produced by the war meant that the Railroad 
 Construction must be discontinued, and busi- 
 ness throughout the whole country suffered 
 greatly. Native troops were hurried through 
 to Lake Tanganyika, and all unemployed na- 
 tives about town were impressed into service 
 as carriers and hundreds of others engaged 
 for this service. Belgians, Britishers, and 
 Russians who were residents of the country 
 enlisted in local defense corps, and were drill- 
 ing both at Kambove and at Elisabethville to 
 be prepared for any emergencies, and contin- 
 gents went forward to Lake Tanganyika, and 
 scores went south, some to join other forces in 
 South Africa, others to proceed to Europe to 
 rejoin their regiments or to enlist in favorite 
 corps. 
 
 And just here let me say that the news of 
 the outbreak of the European war reached 
 Kambove at about the same time that it did 
 the United States. The news was received by 
 wireless, there being a surveyor with a porta- 
 ble equipment near Kambove at the time, and 
 from that day on all the notable news of the 
 war was received daily by cable and by wire- 
 less, and the news typed and tacked up at the 
 Railroad Station and elsewhere, so that in 
 
254 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 spite of our long distance from the seat of war, 
 and our residence in the heart of Africa, we 
 were nevertheless promptly supplied with the 
 news. At Elisabethville the two local papers 
 published daily bulletins. . 
 
 As for our Mission activities, the evangelis- 
 tic work was restricted for a time on account 
 of the departure of thousands of natives with 
 the expeditions and others going to their 
 homes, but the work of the Fox Bible Training 
 School was benefited. Many of the boys who 
 had been planning to enter the school came 
 at this time. Some of them had money and 
 some had not, but these were willing to work 
 out the fee. When the war broke out a number 
 of unscrupulous contractors sought to cheat 
 hundreds of their natives out of several 
 months' pay. They frightened the boys by 
 intimating or telling them that the "Bula 
 Matadi," the Belgians, would impress them 
 for service as soldiers or carriers, whereupon 
 the boys bolted for home at night, leaving their 
 pay behind. The Construction Company at 
 once began to take action against the contrac- 
 tors in behalf of the natives, but it was im- 
 possible to right many of the wrongs, and 
 although native messengers were sent out in 
 all directions to call back any boys who were 
 
A NEW EPOCH 255 
 
 not paid, hundreds had gone beyond recall. 
 As soon as the Company learned of the pur- 
 pose of these contractors, they sent out in- 
 structions for all the natives yet unpaid to 
 report at the headquarters near Kambove to 
 receive their wages, thus insuring their being 
 paid. 
 
 I have referred to the matter of fees. The 
 very day that we reached Kambove we an- 
 nounced that any adult natives who wished to 
 enter the school must pay the sum of one hun- 
 dred francs, twenty dollars, as an entrance 
 fee. They were getting good wages every- 
 where, and we considered that it was only 
 right that they should contribute what they 
 could for the support of the school. More- 
 over, we required this as a guarantee of good 
 faith on the part of the prospective pupil, that 
 he would observe the regulations of the school, 
 and also that he would remain for the five 
 years required. We have found at home, as 
 well as abroad, that humanity is most inter- 
 ested in the thing that has cost the most, and 
 we knew that the pupils would appreciate the 
 school more, and be more diligent in their 
 studies if they had to pay for entrance into 
 the school. That which costs little or nothing 
 is lightly esteemed. This is true even in regard 
 
256 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 to the fellowship with God. A fellowship in 
 service with the Divine that costs dearly in 
 what by standards of earth we call comforts 
 and luxuries, grows rich and sweet and pre- 
 cious. For those called abroad to serve the 
 Kingdom there are rich compensations. The 
 missionary usually gets the best out of the 
 missionary enterprise. By having lopped off 
 the incidental and extraneous accessories of 
 life he comes to a realization of the true and 
 eternal values. Not uniquely so, of course, 
 because these lessons can be learned, and are 
 learned by some in every land and in every 
 walk of life, but the average missionary stands 
 a better chance to learn them than the average 
 man in any other walk or circumstances of 
 life. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gup till early proved that they 
 were the right people for the right place. Mr. 
 Guptill had had rather an amusing experience 
 in choosing his life work. First of all, he 
 wanted to be a carpenter like his father ; then 
 there came the conviction that this was not 
 to be his life work, and he decided that he 
 would be a teacher. Later on came the call 
 to preach, and he reluctantly gave up his be- 
 loved idea of teaching. Then came the call 
 to missionary work while he was enjoying a 
 
A NEW EPOCH 257 
 
 successful pastorate, and was looking forward 
 with keen interest to a life devoted to the 
 country church problem, but he gave that up 
 and turned to Africa, where, on arrival he 
 found that he could and must be carpenter, 
 teacher, preacher, missionary, and everything 
 else that one could think of combined, includ- 
 ing the running of a printing press. 
 
 I would emphasize the fact that the main 
 task in the Fox Bible Training School, which 
 now had found its permanent home in Kam- 
 bove, is the training of native evangelists and 
 teachers. Kambove has commended itself as 
 an excellent home for the School, since it 
 offers large opportunities for clinical practice 
 for pupils in teaching, evangelizing, and per- 
 sonal work and service in connection with 
 the thousands of recruited laborers employed 
 annually on the mine near at hand, and to be 
 employed on other mines within a radius of 
 a few miles. Such clinics for our pupils we 
 regard as being as essential and valuable as 
 hospital clinics for medical students. 
 
 It is impossible to accomplish the Christian 
 program by use of foreign missionaries alone. 
 In the first place, they are too few and too 
 costly, and in the second place they can never 
 be perfectly adapted agencies for the ultimate 
 
S58 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 work involved. The brighter young men of 
 the various mission fields can receive a train- 
 ing at the hands of the foreigner, but the result 
 of that training never really is, and never 
 should be, a Europeanized or Americanized 
 Negro, Indian, or Chinaman. If such do 
 result there is essential failure. What is de- 
 sired is a renewed individual of the particular 
 race, transformed in his life by the regenerat- 
 ing power of God, developing a healthy type 
 according to the characteristics with which 
 God, in his wisdom, has endowed that particu- 
 lar race, and then working and living true 
 to that racial type. In other words, our work 
 is not to make Americans of the Negroes of 
 Africa, nor are Englishmen to make Britishers 
 of the Chinese, but we are to take the seed of 
 the Word and plant it in the soil of these vari- 
 ous races, then tend, prune, and train accord- 
 ing to the best wisdom that has been given us 
 under the definite leadership of the Spirit of 
 God, until our work is done and we shall be 
 called from our task in some distant future, 
 when, perchance, we shall discover that our 
 own life as a race, or as a distinct branch of 
 the inclusive human race, has been enriched 
 and broadened in a large compensation. At 
 the very least, the individual lives of all who 
 
A NEW EPOCH 259 
 
 have labored at the task at home or abroad 
 will be lifted up and crowned by entering into 
 the true inwardness of sonship to God, Who 
 created, Who loved, Who gave, and Who lives 
 and works. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 
 
 THE latter half of 1914 sped by rapidly, 
 crowded to the full with work for every one, 
 and marked by many interesting events which 
 must, of necessity, be passed over without 
 mention. The opening of the work at Elisa- 
 bethville, however, must not be omitted. 
 Elisabethville is the capital of the Katanga 
 Province, and is the largest town of Euro- 
 peans in all of the Belgian Congo, having had 
 as high as fifteen hundred such foreigners at 
 one time. The number of recruited natives 
 about this center has been as many as ten 
 thousand. About half of the European popu- 
 lation is Roman Catholic, and for them there 
 had been built a church, in charge of the Bene- 
 dictines, but no Protestant minister or mis- 
 sionary has so far resided there. Occasionally 
 the Anglican Railroad missioner from Rho- 
 desia has visited Elisabethville. 
 
 Just before the Pipers were to leave Kam- 
 bove, I received a telegram asking me to come 
 
 260 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 261 
 
 to Elisabethville and christen the infant of a 
 Belgian physician, a Protestant. This was 
 my first visit to Elisabethville since 1911. I 
 had been alone with the work, and with the 
 pressure of building, I had not been able to 
 go down there previously. On that Sabbath 
 I was asked to baptize another baby also ; the 
 child of a Swiss Protestant mother. 
 
 I took Simon with me, well supplied with 
 books from the Book Store, and left him to 
 visit the various camps, which I did not have 
 time to look up on this visit. A month later I 
 sent him back again with another lot of books, 
 among them some that had been definitely 
 ordered on his previous visit. On his return 
 this time he brought to me a petition signed 
 by twenty-four Christian young men from 
 Nyasaland, asking me to come to Elisabeth- 
 ville and organize them into a church, as they 
 had no place in which to meet on the Sabbath 
 and for prayer services, except out of doors in 
 front of their small huts. This petition was 
 headed by Moses and Joseph, who have been 
 previously mentioned. There were about 
 Elisabethville at this time more than one hun- 
 dred such young men, many of whom had 
 letters of church membership with them, and 
 who had been disappointed that there was no 
 
262 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 Protestant church with which they could 
 affiliate. I was told that at one time, two 
 or three years previously, there were as many 
 as five hundred of these young men from 
 Nyasaland, where there is but little industry 
 and only low wages, and so they had swarmed 
 over here for work and high pay. They were 
 the overflow from a very successful work that 
 had grown up in Nyasaland, where the school 
 system and chapels extend to nearly every 
 village. This is under the Scotch Presby- 
 terians, notably the Free Church, whose great 
 educational institution is at Livingstonia, 
 under the leadership of that most eminent mis- 
 sionary of Central Africa, Dr. Robert Laws. 
 These trained young men are taking a large 
 share in the development of the Katanga as 
 skilled workers, overseers, assistant masons, 
 carpenters, and cabinet makers, clerks, inter- 
 preters, compositors, store assistants, man- 
 agers of branch stores, cooks, personal serv- 
 ants, and as ordinary workmen. Owing to 
 the lack of a church center for them, there 
 has been a great wastage for the Kingdom. 
 The example of the more evil element among 
 the white men, and of some claiming a goodly 
 degree of respectability, had led many of these 
 native young men astray, as they had ob- 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 263 
 
 served the examples of drinking, gambling, 
 and immorality the taking of native women 
 along the Construction. The almost utter dis- 
 regard of the Sabbath, and the consequent 
 necessity for these young men to work on Sun- 
 days had also been no small factor in their 
 undoing, but a certain number of them, like 
 Joseph and Moses, had remained steadfast. 
 
 In November I hired a hall and announced 
 services for nine o'clock on Sunday morning. 
 I was eating my breakfast at the hotel when 
 a young man rushed up to the back door and 
 broke out with the exclamation : "Please come 
 quick, Teacher, plenty much boys at the 
 church now." It was very true. We had three 
 large, overflowing services that day, and on 
 the part of scores of boys who had not had 
 the opportunities for education at their homes 
 there was an earnest request for a school, and 
 soon we had a flourishing night school, in 
 charge of Moses, who showed himself a most 
 capable and efficient teacher and manager. 
 With Moses and Joseph as a nucleus, I sifted 
 out the young men for church membership, 
 receiving many by letter, and took on a large 
 class of probationers, as well as a number of 
 "hearers," and so in December, when I was 
 accompanied by Mr. Guptill, at this capital 
 
264 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 town we organized a Methodist Episcopal 
 Church out of Presbyterians and a few Con- 
 gregationalists. Dr. Laws, Eev. Donald 
 Frazer, and other missionaries have been most 
 pleased and relieved to learn of our work in 
 the Katanga, where we can shepherd their 
 boys. As they wrote me, their hearts had been 
 wrung at the reports they had heard of some 
 of their fine young men going utterly astray. 
 Our relations with these other Societies will 
 be reciprocal. We are reaching many young 
 men who are not Christians on arrival at the 
 mineral fields, and on their return to their 
 homes they will be given letters to the 
 churches there. The spirit of comity prevails, 
 and the young converts, passing from one mis- 
 sion to another, feel perfectly at home. 
 
 Bishops Hartzell and Anderson were to have 
 visited us early in September, but the outbreak 
 of the war delayed them and so it was New 
 Year's Day when Bishop Hartzell reached 
 Elisabethville, but without Bishop Anderson, 
 who had been prevented by war conditions 
 from coming. I met Bishop Hartzell at Elisa- 
 bethville. On the day previous I had arranged 
 a special interview with the Vice-Governor 
 General, who consented to introduce this item 
 of business into the holiday. Upon coming 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 265 
 
 out from this interview, we were met by ap- 
 pointment by Mr. A. A. Thompson, Manager 
 for Robert Williams & Co., who took us, in his 
 American-built automobile, to see the smelters 
 where the output for the month previous had 
 been fifteen hundred tons of bar copper, which 
 output has been continued through the 
 months since. We were shown excavations 
 for additional furnaces that would more than 
 double this capacity. The construction of 
 these furnaces was stopped for a time by the 
 war, but has been renewed owing to the large 
 demand for copper. Bishop Hartzell was 
 greatly interested to see the number of Ameri- 
 can machines and appliances about the^ large 
 plant, and to learn that Mr. Horner, the Gen- 
 eral Manager for the entire group of mines, as 
 well as the Mining Engineer and his staff, and 
 several other important employees of the 
 mines, were Americans. 
 
 We reached Kambove at 10 that evening. 
 At the railroad station that night all our 
 mission forces had gathered to receive the 
 Bishop. The nearly two score of boys and 
 young men had lined themselves up in military 
 fashion and gave him a salute as he passed 
 them, then falling in line at the rear, sang 
 hymns all the way to the Mission. This was 
 
266 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 Bishop HartzelFs initial visit to this field, 
 and he was surprised and delighted with the 
 development of the work. 
 
 The next day, January 2, which was also 
 our tenth wedding anniversary, Bishop Hart- 
 zell organized the Congo Mission, setting this 
 field off from the West Central Africa Mission 
 Conference, of which it had been a part; but 
 in these five years w r e had not been able to 
 attend a single session of the Conference 
 which, in point of time and accessibility, was 
 nearly as remote from us as America. With 
 the completion of the Benguella Railway these 
 conditions will be greatly improved. For our 
 session we gathered around the table in the 
 dining-room of our residence "Fox Villa." 
 The early forenoon sun still shone through 
 the door and flooded the room with great 
 radiance, like unto the joy that filled all our 
 hearts. Looking out through the clear panes 
 of glass in the door, the eye traveled over a 
 vast expanse of wooded forest for more than 
 eighty miles to the Congo-Zambezi Divide 
 toward the southeast, the mass of dark foliage, 
 lighted up here and there by brilliant scarlet 
 as a few trees put forth their new belated 
 leaves. The Bishop sat at the head of the 
 table, and on one side of him were Mr. and 
 
THE OFFICE Fox VILLA GUEST HOUSE KAMBOVE 
 
 MOTHER'S HOUSE 
 MRS. SPRINGER COMING DOWN THE HILL 
 
 BISHOP HARTZELL AND MISSION GROUP, JANUARY 2, 1915 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 267 
 
 Mrs. Gup till, and on the other Mrs. Miller 
 and Mrs. Springer, and myself at the foot of 
 the table. 
 
 Luther's great hymn, "A Mighty Fortress 
 is our God," gave expression to our hearts' 
 deep emotions; then, as the Bishop followed 
 with the exposition of the Forty-sixth Psalm, 
 "Jehovah is our refuge and strength," etc., he 
 summed up the experience of the years past 
 and expressed what was our faith for the 
 future. We felt the Divine presence to be very 
 near and in the session of prayer following 
 each poured out his heart in praise, in conse- 
 cration, and in petition for the interests of the 
 Kingdom in this land. As the work of the five 
 years was reviewed and the present situation 
 considered, it seemed marvelous to us that 
 with so small a force and so limited resources, 
 so much had been accomplished. We were 
 anew overwhelmed with the sense of the per- 
 sonal presence of God, the Master Worker of 
 it all, and ourselves as his little children whose 
 sole business for the past five years had been 
 to walk quietly along, obedient day by day, 
 as His will, His purposes, and His plans were 
 made known to us, and His workings unfolded 
 before us. No tongue can tell what a blessed 
 fellowship, what a blessed sense of companion- 
 
268 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 ship, aye, of partnership there was during 
 these years, and which grows stronger all the 
 time. 
 
 Geographically, the Congo Mission covers a 
 section about four hundred miles square, mak- 
 ing an area of one hundred and sixty thousand 
 square miles, a territory as large as Michigan, 
 Illinois, and Indiana combined. This region 
 is very near the exact center of Africa, and 
 has often been designated as the "unreached 
 Livingstone country." That great explorer 
 walked along all sides of it, except the north, 
 and he touched it on the southwest corner and 
 on the east. For all of this large area, we were 
 able to report only two main stations and the 
 beginnings of the work at Elisabethville. 
 Doctor and Mrs. Piper were at Mwata 
 Yamvo's, the capital of the Lunda field, 
 which is exactly the size of the State of 
 Michigan. They were unable to be present at 
 this interesting conference because of the 
 great distance. In what might be regarded 
 as the Illinois part of the field, there is the 
 Kainbove Station and the work at Elisabeth- 
 ville. To the north, in what would then be 
 the Indiana area, there was no Christian work 
 whatsoever, but in that area was the densest 
 village population of all, and there to-day 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 269 
 
 Kaluwasi and four of his associates at least 
 are ready to cooperate with the missionary 
 on his arrival. 
 
 When we turned from what had been accom- 
 plished and looked at the needs of the field, 
 the results achieved paled into insignificance 
 in view of what was to be done. We had a 
 keen sense of having just arrived and of look- 
 ing out upon the vast opportunities before us ; 
 but we now had roofs over our heads ; we had 
 boys and young men in training, and a few 
 earnest evangelistic teachers at work, these 
 all constituting samples to circulate among the 
 people, samples of what they were called to. 
 We had in operation the Book Store for the 
 dissemination of good literature of all kinds 
 to the peoples of Central Africa, and con- 
 nected with that a Mission Press ; and also we 
 had the beginnings of the Livingstone Me- 
 morial Library. 
 
 While the beginnings of the Book Store 
 have been given, I have not yet stated that the 
 original capital of two English pounds ster- 
 ling (ten dollars) was given me in 1907 by 
 a German Jew, a reservist in the German 
 army, as we passed through Kansanshi. He 
 came to Kambove with his three hundred 
 native workmen soon after our arrival in 1913, 
 
270 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 and it was from him that I secured the twenty 
 boys to work on the adobe bricks. On the out- 
 break of the war he, with the other Germans, 
 was summoned and sent down to Pretoria to 
 be interned. A Russian Jew, with British 
 citizenship, gave me two pounds additional for 
 our work, and this sum I also added to the 
 capital of the Book Store. 
 
 The initial unit of the outfit for the Congo 
 Mission Press came from Detroit, Michigan, 
 having been given by the Kev. Arthur Wesley, 
 of the family of Methodism's founder. It was 
 added to by my uncle, Kev. I. E. Springer, and 
 his son, Durand, formerly a member of the 
 Book Committee. My uncle is a superannuate 
 of the Detroit Conference after fifty years of 
 service. As he and the Rev. George Marsh, 
 who had aided in perfecting and packing the 
 outfit, drove the last screw into the packing 
 cases, Uncle proposed that they consecrate the 
 outfit by prayer, and there, amid the packing 
 litter in that church basement, he poured out 
 a fervent prayer for rich blessing upon this 
 small outfit, and for the great publishing 
 house that is certain to grow out of it, and 
 for its great usefulness in the service of the 
 Kingdom in Central Africa. This press was 
 set to work a little later, in 1915, by Mr. Gup- 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 271 
 
 till, and the first impression from it was John 
 3. 16 in three languages. Mr. Guptill has 
 since turned off considerable material for the 
 class room, and has also produced the first 
 hymn book in the Luunda language. Later two 
 primers were undertaken for this same lan- 
 guage. The Press, though separately named, 
 is an integral part of the Book Store. What 
 an opportunity it has before it with the larger 
 part of Central Africa for a field ! 
 
 Our plans include the employment of a 
 number of young men, many of whom will be 
 teachers and evangelists of the Mission, who, 
 like Jacob, know more than one language. 
 These will assist in the translation of books 
 into the various vernaculars, and then selec- 
 tion will be made from among these young 
 men to extend the translation to other dialects. 
 Our first attention will be given to such books 
 as Pilgrim's Progress; books of Bible stories, 
 helpful expositions, devotional books, etc., and 
 thus we will build up a literature for the 
 peoples in their own tongues. 
 
 While there are many tongues and dialects 
 in Central Africa, these fall into groups, and 
 by cooperation between the various mission- 
 ary agencies, union versions are being pro- 
 duced, thus reducing the linguistic difficulties 
 
272 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 to a minimum. Scripture and Bible publica- 
 tion is almost wholly cared for by the British 
 and Foreign, the Scottish and the American 
 Bible Societies. These are essential adjuncts 
 of all missionary societies and, deservedly, 
 have the grateful appreciation of all mission- 
 aries, but, beyond what these do, there is great 
 need for presses right on the field to produce 
 supplementary literature for the enrichment 
 of the mental life of these peoples. 
 
 Mention was made of the Livingstone Me- 
 morial Library. In 1913, as our humble share 
 in the celebration of the Livingstone Centen- 
 nial, we decided to establish this Library to his 
 memory in connection with our work in the 
 Katanga, and we felt that it was particularly 
 appropriate that such a memorial library 
 should be located in this area, as we were in 
 the section of Central Africa last on his heart. 
 When setting out on his last journey, he wrote 
 to his daughter that he had three objects in 
 view; he wished to visit the copper mines in 
 the Katanga country, also some reported hot 
 springs, and to look up certain cave dwellers 
 of whom he had heard. These cave dwellers 
 we have never been able to trace. The hot 
 springs are about fifty miles east of Kambove. 
 As for the copper mines, we were in the very 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 273 
 
 midst of them. Kambove Mine, the second 
 largest deposit of copper in the world, is about 
 the center of the rich mineral field, which 
 extends for about two hundred miles in a 
 northwesterly and southeasterly direction. 
 Livingstone was the first European to make 
 mention of these copper deposits. On his first 
 trip from the Zambezi River above the Vic- 
 toria Falls to the West Coast and return, and 
 which trip w r as then extended to the East 
 Coast, he heard from the natives of these 
 copper deposits, and located them approxi- 
 mately on his map. In 1914, when again 
 studying this map, published in connection 
 with his first book, it was with peculiar in- 
 terest that we noted the strange coincidence 
 that the location of the two stations we had 
 built in 1913 were the two notable geographical 
 locations that he had put on his map in this 
 region to the north, namely, "Musumba-Mati- 
 amvo" and "Reported Malachite Mines." 
 Through the years following his initial trip he 
 evidently never forgot the country of Chief 
 Katanga, then the great native ruler of this 
 section. And in 1872-1873 he was w r earily 
 plodding through the swamps, along the south 
 end of Lake Benguelo, and then was turning 
 northwesterly to visit this very region. This 
 
274 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 evidently was ever with the hope that the 
 industry that would be introduced in connec- 
 tion with the development of these mineral 
 deposits would hasten the destruction of the 
 accursed slave traffic, which he hated with all 
 the intensity of his soul. And we can easily 
 believe that the needs of the unreached in- 
 terior were in his petitions as, alone in that 
 humble hut two hundred and fifty miles south- 
 east of Kambove, on his knees in that final 
 prayer, he poured out his soul unto God and 
 yielded up his brave spirit. 
 
 As I have elsewhere recorded, Robert Wil- 
 liams repeatedly avows his debt to Livingstone 
 that he first heard of these copper deposits and 
 was encouraged to send his prospectors a thou- 
 sand miles ahead of the railway and to per- 
 sist until they found these deposits. Living- 
 stone particularly mentions two hills of cop- 
 per, between which was a stream from the bed 
 of which natives washed gold. From the west 
 end of the house, in which as a group of Mis- 
 sion workers we were gathered, one sees, a 
 mile and a half away, two hills of copper, im- 
 mediately between which is the head of a gorge 
 recently given the name of Livingstone Spruit 
 (creek), where the early prospectors found 
 nuggets of gold, and which by the natives was 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 275 
 
 called "M'sidi's hole." Here at the Kambove 
 Mission, in sight of this stream bearing Liv- 
 ingstone's name, is where the infant Library 
 at present has its home. 
 
 Besides the main working reference Library, 
 to be affiliated in the future with our highest 
 educational institution, wherever it may be 
 located, and which will probably bear the 
 name of the Congo Institute, and which in 
 some not distant decade will be doing work 
 up to college grade, we want to have branches 
 in various towns and a circulating department 
 to help the reading public European and 
 native to beguile and improve their leisure 
 time. 
 
 The continued influence of David Living- 
 stone is still felt throughout all of Central 
 Africa, and no activity of Europeans in all 
 this land, be it commercial, industrial, govern- 
 mental, or religious, but owes a great debt of 
 gratitude to that intrepid servant of God who 
 opened up more than a million square miles of 
 darkest Africa to a new day and development. 
 
 Conference Sunday was a notable day; the 
 usual communion service brought together 
 quite a number of the Christian Capitas, who 
 make a point of being there on such occasions, 
 while the announcement of the coming of the 
 
276 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 Bishop brought quite a number additional. 
 One candidate (not the first by several, how- 
 ever ) was presented for baptism by the Bishop, 
 namely, Mubita, a Murotsi. It was a group 
 of his people that Livingstone led with their 
 elephant tusks to the West Coast that they 
 might find a market for their ivory, besides a 
 slave-mart. This trip was the beginning of 
 Livingstone's great explorations. Mubita had 
 been ready for baptism for some time, and we 
 had delayed the ceremony until the visit of 
 the Bishop, but this had not delayed the use 
 of Mubita as an evangelist. For some time he 
 had been my principal interpreter, and he 
 served in this capacity for Bishop Hartzell 
 this day. About Kambove were several groups 
 of his tribes, men working on railroad con- 
 struction, to whom he alone of all our helpers 
 could speak understanding^. After the bap- 
 tism Brother Guptill and myself received eight 
 boys on probation, and then followed the com- 
 munion service. On Easter Sabbath I had 
 taken in twenty-one probationers, and still 
 other groups later. A few had already been 
 received into full membership. 
 
 The task of appointing the few workers 
 available presented no serious problems to the 
 episcopal mind, but there was sorrow not to 
 
THE CONGO MISSION ORGANIZED 277 
 
 be able to send men out to the several needy 
 points. Dr. and Mrs. Piper were already over- 
 taxed, and the work at their station called 
 aloud for immediate reenforcements of at least 
 one additional couple. Kambove likewise 
 demands two couples to care for the large 
 work and to extend it to the villages, which 
 latter line of work we simply had not been 
 able, up to that time, to give any time or atten- 
 tion to. Elisabethville but waited for the mis- 
 sionary, to blossom out into a great and exten- 
 sive work. Chilongo, sixty miles to the north- 
 west of Kambove, which is to be the junction 
 point of the Cape-to-Cairo and the Benguella 
 Eailways, and the point where the five-year 
 Construction Depot has been located, cries out 
 in its needs for missionaries. Then, further 
 to the north, Bukama, Kongola, Kinda, and 
 Kaluwasfs country, all these with no one to 
 go to them. No wonder we fell on our knees 
 and cried that laborers be thrust out into the 
 harvest, and that prayer surely will be an- 
 swered. 
 
 The financial review, a summary of which is 
 given as an appendix, "gave us great encourage- 
 ment with a total income in five years of f 23,- 
 030.65. Seven missionaries had been brought 
 to the field, and these had given sixteen years 
 
278 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 of missionary service, and their expenses in 
 itinerating had been met. Buildings and per- 
 manent equipment to the value of more than 
 $6,000 were on hand. As we contemplated 
 what had been accomplished, we wondered 
 what relation our treasury sustained to the 
 widow's cruse. 
 
 On Monday the Bishop went with us to visit 
 the mine and to consult with the manager, 
 Mr. R. M. Johnson, a fellow American, about 
 future work among the native employees of the 
 mine. The Bishop was greatly pleased with 
 his visit and with the prospects for the future. 
 We also called on M. Ladame, Belgian Admin- 
 istrator Territorial. 
 
 Tuesday morning I accompanied Bishop 
 Hartzell back to Elisabethville, where there 
 was a wait of two hours before his train left 
 for the south. Mr. Horner, the General 
 Manager of the Union Miniere, came up to the 
 station in his automobile to meet the Bishop 
 and they had a pleasant interview. Then the 
 train bore the Bishop away to the south to his 
 other Conferences, well pleased with the infant 
 Congo Mission which he left behind and which, 
 as he wrote from the border, was a lively 
 youngster. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 A BUNCH OF OUK BOYS 
 
 has the distinction of being the first 
 pupil to pay the fee of one hundred francs 
 (twenty dollars) to enter the Fox Bible Train- 
 ing School. He came to me at the Mission at 
 Kambove one day and announced his intention 
 of coming into the school. We talked over the 
 conditions, which were that the boys must 
 accept our rules and keep them, agree to stay 
 five years in the school, and make payment of 
 this fee all of which he said was perfectly 
 agreeable to him, and he would go at once and 
 get his box of things and enter the school. 
 
 I saw nothing of him for a few weeks and 
 had begun to fear that he had changed his 
 mind when he marched on to the grounds one 
 day carrying his box. He came to the office, 
 pulled out an old rag, and took from it one 
 hundred separate francs and laid them down 
 one by one upon the table. That pile of francs 
 looked good to me. On coming to Kambove, 
 where there was plenty of work and where 
 young men could get employment and in a few 
 
 279 
 
280 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 months save up this amount, we had decided 
 that we would start out with the requirement 
 of this entrance fee. We recognized that it 
 might be a year or two before any boys w^ould 
 want schooling so keenly that they would pay 
 the fee, but here was Malaya coining with his 
 payment within six months of our arrival. 
 After he left the office I called Mrs. Springer 
 down to look at that pile of francs on my 
 table, and we rejoiced together over the reali- 
 zation of our faith that the entrance fee would 
 not constitute an insurmountable barrier to 
 any one washing to enter the school. 
 
 Malaya took up his studies with great ear- 
 nestness and made good progress for his age, 
 which might have been anywhere between 
 twenty-five and thirty-five. He had never been 
 to school before and had to begin with the 
 a b c's. He had not been at the Mission long 
 when he had dreams that greatly impressed 
 him. As he lay in his little hut in the com- 
 pound one night, he seemed to be visited by 
 One like unto the Son of God, who was travel- 
 ing from the West to the East. He spoke to 
 him by name and said, "Malaya, it is very good 
 that you have come here to study, but you 
 must not only learn to read; you must give 
 particular heed to the Great Book which the 
 
A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 281 
 
 missionary has brought. I will return later 
 and see if you have done this." A few nights 
 later the same visitor came to him again and 
 said, "Malaya, it is a very good thing that you 
 have come into the school, but it is not enough 
 for you to learn to read the Great Book; you 
 must also give your heart to God. I shall be 
 coming back this way again later on, and I 
 want to see that you have truly done this and 
 come into fellowship with your Heavenly 
 Father." 
 
 It was shortly after this that we had one 
 of our series of special meetings, and the first 
 night Malaya arose and gave his testimony 
 and said that he had decided to follow the in- 
 junction given him and give his heart to God. 
 From this time on he manifested a new spirit. 
 His conversion, like the conversion 6f all of 
 our boys, was quiet but very real. 
 
 He had left his wife at his home up near 
 Lake Tanganyika, several hundred miles north- 
 east. He soon asked permission to be absent 
 from the school long enough to go home and 
 get her that she also might come to the school 
 to be taught. When we left Africa he was 
 still absent on this journey, and we are greatly 
 interested to know whether he found his wife 
 still faithful to him or not. 
 
282 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 Chiyoka is an Umbundu from Angola. He 
 came to the interior with Kayeka, acting as 
 one of his carriers. Here was a case where 
 a boy, having exhausted all the courses offered 
 at the vernacular school, was hungry for fur- 
 ther education. Being a bright youth and 
 competent as a teacher he had been employed 
 in the mission school. This Mission had plans 
 for a higher institution to be established as 
 soon as possible. The years were going by and 
 it had not been established. Chiyoka's hunger 
 only increased with the years, and he was now 
 in the early twenties. Learning of Kayeka's 
 plan to come to the interior, and also learning 
 from Kayeka of the school that we had in 
 which we were teaching English, he asked to 
 be released to come to us. For some reason 
 his release was not granted at that time, and 
 so he quietly slipped away and joined Kayeka 
 some distance down the road. We make it a 
 rule when a boy comes from another mission 
 that he bring a letter of discharge from that 
 mission, as we wish to discourage the develop- 
 ment of "mission rounders," a class of youths 
 that do no good to themselves nor to the mis- 
 sions they favor by their presence. When 
 Chiyoka was unable to give us such a recom- 
 mendation and we learned that he had left 
 
A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 283 
 
 without the consent of the Mission, we insisted 
 that he must return, and if he could later 
 bring us a letter of dismissal we would receive 
 him. He went back the eight hundred miles 
 to Angola and matters had so changed that 
 at that time he was free to come to us if he 
 so desired. He set his face eastward again 
 and came a thousand miles to Kambove, mak- 
 ing nearly three thousand miles in all that he 
 had traveled. 
 
 He was able to pay only a few francs on his 
 entrance fee, but was willing to work out the 
 rest, and so for five months he assisted me in 
 the building operations, doing a skilled class 
 of work in laying up walls, plastering, etc. 
 He had just completed the payment of his fee 
 and had been in school a month when I dis- 
 missed a workman who had been helping me 
 in the building. Chiyoka had become fasci- 
 nated with this young man and was induced 
 to leave with him. I had a talk with him the 
 morning that he left, but he seemed utterly 
 deaf to reason, and would think of nothing 
 but going away with his friend. But the ex- 
 periences of the few months following brought 
 him to his senses and later he returned again 
 to the Mission a sadder and wiser youth. He 
 settled down to the routine of the school with 
 
284 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 a rare and beautiful spirit, wMcli is his chief 
 characteristic. We have been able to use him 
 as a teacher in the afternoons and in the night 
 schools and, readily learning the dialects cur- 
 rent about the Kambove camps, he was useful 
 as an interpreter at a very early date. 
 
 Simon's home was about six hundred miles 
 southeast of Kambove. He came to the 
 Katanga, as have thousands of young men 
 from that same region, as to some Eldorado 
 where great wealth was to be realized. He is 
 of the Ngoni tribe, an offshoot of the Zulu. 
 He had completed the courses in the vernacu- 
 lar school near his home, and had also learned 
 some English and had been used as a sub- 
 teacher. He had been variously employed 
 along the railroad construction, and then one 
 day came to me asking for employment for a 
 year or so. He much preferred to be working 
 in a mission where he could learn a little more 
 English. I found him a very useful worker, 
 taking some of the classes in the vernacular 
 both at the Mission and in the camp com- 
 pounds near us. He was particularly useful 
 as a colporteur and evangelist, and I was able 
 to send him out on trips of more than one 
 hundred miles, selling primers, hymn books, 
 
A BUNCH op OUR BOYS 285 
 
 Scriptures, etc., in the vernaculars and in Eng- 
 lish. He was my chief interpreter for some 
 time. The question is often raised whether 
 the Holy Spirit can work through an interpre- 
 ter. That question was finally answered to 
 my entire satisfaction in the use of Simon, 
 particularly in some of the evangelistic meet- 
 ings where we had the pleasure of seeing many 
 decisions made for Christ. After completing 
 his year's work with us he went home, and 
 expects to return later, bringing his wife with 
 him, and become a permanent resident in the 
 Katanga, probably to be associated with our 
 Mission as an evangelist and teacher. 
 
 There are in the aggregate scores of young 
 men, even better trained and more experienced 
 than Simon, whom we can employ at once as 
 teachers and evangelists in our work along 
 railroads and about the mines as soon as we 
 have missionaries on the ground to direct 
 them. 
 
 Kauseni was one of the twenty boys whom 
 I secured from a contractor for carrying water 
 to make the adobe bricks for our house. Dur- 
 ing those ten days that he was in the Mission, 
 though the school was not in progress at that 
 time, he became greatly interested and evi- 
 
286 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 dently determined that later lie would come 
 and enter the school. When his master left 
 Kambove, he asked to be released and came at 
 once to us. To his eyes the school was the 
 best thing in sight, and he confessed later to 
 a heart hungering that had troubled him. His 
 decision to enter the school, as in so many 
 other cases, practically involved the decision 
 to turn to Christ, which he did soon after 
 definitely joining us. He had no money with 
 which to pay his fee and so had to work it out. 
 He was so promising a youth that soon I took 
 him from the work of building and put him 
 into the house as bedroom boy. He soon 
 advanced to the responsibilities of cook. 
 While he was working out his fee we had a 
 visit from Mr. Campbell, of the Plymouth 
 Brethren Mission, whose station was on Lake 
 Benguelo among Kauseni's people. When Mr. 
 Campbell left us for his home, Kauseni was 
 seized with homesickness and a great desire 
 to join him and return to his people, but Mr. 
 Campbell would not hear to it. He was not 
 going to take boys away from our school nor 
 to allow this boy to change his purpose simply 
 because of his visit. One object which we 
 hope to accomplish through the requirement 
 of the entrance fee is the development of a 
 
A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 287 
 
 persistence of purpose in the boys. Kauseni 
 listened to the admonitions of Mr. Campbell 
 as well as of ourselves, and soon settled con- 
 tentedly to his work and is developing splen- 
 didly in the school. 
 
 Weka is also of the Ngoni tribe, and has a 
 very forceful personality. He had worked for 
 four years along the railroad construction and 
 in the mines, and for the larger part of that 
 time had been a capita, that is, a trusty work- 
 man and overseer. He had had no schooling 
 and realized his handicap in competition with 
 many mission young men who had been asso- 
 ciated with Mm in those years. There had 
 also arisen in him a great hungering for some- 
 thing which was not satisfied in his present 
 life. One day a friend of his by the name of 
 Jim went down to Elisabethville and told him 
 that Bwana (Master) Springer had opened a 
 school at Kambove, and asked him why he 
 did not go. Weka thought a moment or two 
 and said, "I will go. I have a box full of good 
 clothes and I have money, but my heart is not 
 satisfied." 
 
 Not long after I saw him come onto the 
 grounds early one morning with his tin box 
 on his shoulder and, setting it down, he came 
 
288 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 to me. In reply to my question as to what he 
 wanted, he said he wished to enter the school. 
 I told him to come and see me later at the 
 office. When I explained to him the condi- 
 tions under which he must enter the school, 
 he said that he understood them all, and at 
 once took out four English sovereigns to pay 
 his entrance fee. He then gave me five pounds 
 (twenty-five dollars) to send to the govern- 
 ment official near his home to place in the 
 hands of his wife and a young brother that 
 they might come and join him at the Mission. 
 He wished both to enter the school. 
 
 Weka's decision to come to school had evi- 
 dently also been associated with a determina- 
 tion to heed all the teachings of the mission- 
 ary, for not long after his arrival he an- 
 nounced that he was going to walk in the way 
 of Jesus. In giving his testimony and in pray- 
 ing, as well as in all his life, Weka manifests 
 the utmost seriousness and earnestness, at the 
 same time that he is of a jovial, fun-loving 
 disposition. 
 
 In due time we heard from the government 
 official to the effect that Weka's wife had not 
 been faithful to him, but had become the wife 
 of another man. I called Weka one afternoon 
 and told him the word I had received. Mother 
 
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A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 289 
 
 Miller, who was sitting near, thought, of 
 course, that Weka would be terribly upset over 
 the news. What was her surprise when he 
 turned and said, "Longili" (all right), and 
 went down the hill whistling. When asked 
 later what he would do, he said, "I will go 
 home and make that other man pay me back 
 my four cattle that I gave for her, so that I 
 can have them in securing another wife." 
 Weka wanted to have the two children by this 
 wife come to him, but learned later that they 
 had died during an epidemic of smallpox. 
 
 Weka, who was about thirty-five years of 
 age, was one of the older of the native work- 
 men along the railroad construction, most of 
 them being young unmarried fellows. In the 
 majority of cases they had come out from their 
 homes to earn enough money to buy wives. 
 When a married man leaves his home for a 
 year or more, it is very common on returning 
 to find that, as happened in Weka's case, his 
 wife has been married to another man. This 
 constitutes one of the great problems that 
 must be faced in Central Africa, and will re- 
 quire the cooperation of the three great 
 agencies in Africa the Church, the Govern- 
 ment, and the industrial agencies that recruit 
 and employ these men. 
 
290 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 Although Weka had been an overseer for 
 years, on coming to the Mission he took his 
 place among the other boys, doing the hum- 
 blest work of the compound and of the Mis- 
 sion, but we have found him very useful in 
 supervising some of the younger boys. He 
 feels a great responsibility in helping to keep 
 order in the compound, and does not hesitate 
 to administer chastisement to some of the 
 young upstarts who forget their places. 
 
 Matenteko was our cross. He had had no 
 schooling, but was blest with plenty of egoism. 
 His employers had mostly been Belgians, and 
 he evidently had been allowed to argue the 
 point with them and to tell them how to run 
 the house, to do the work, etc. When he came 
 to the school he wanted to do the same with 
 me. I have had a number of pupils who 
 wished to tell me how to run the school, but 
 never in such a marked degree as Matenteko. 
 When he wanted to argue a case, and I would 
 quietly tell him that the point was not de- 
 batable, he would go away and talk it over at 
 great length to himself and to any one who 
 would listen to him. As we had taken him 
 into the house for work, he became a great 
 trial to Mrs. Springer. 
 
A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 291 
 
 Matenteko had great ambitions. Long be- 
 fore coming to us he had been investing his 
 money in things more or less needless to him, 
 evidently with the idea that these accessories 
 would bring him on the same level with the 
 white man. He purchased a folding cot, a 
 table, and a chair, and to crown all, he had 
 purchased from one of his masters a large 
 frock coat, in which his small figure was 
 entirely enveloped. These things he brought 
 with him. Oftentimes missions are criticized 
 by the man on the street, saying that we 
 encourage our boys to dress up in European 
 clothes, and that this results in their having 
 an exaggerated idea of their importance, and 
 that we encourage them in this idea. But 
 Matenteko is a shining example of the fact 
 that these boys get these clothes and these 
 ideas entirely apart from any contact with 
 the Mission. It was our painful duty to take 
 Matenteko in hand, and to seek to rid him of 
 these absurd ideas. He will be much easier 
 to deal with when many of his ideas gained 
 from the years of contact with the Europeans 
 before he came to the Mission are changed. 
 He was the one boy in our group that we often 
 felt we could dispense with without sorrow, 
 but at the same time we felt that he was a part 
 
292 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 of our work and that we could not dispose of 
 
 him. 
 
 > 
 
 Mubita was one of the two young men that 
 came from near Victoria Falls, eight hundred 
 miles southwest, and joined our school out in 
 the woods at Lukoshi, and the one baptized 
 by Bishop Hartzell. He was an earnest, hard- 
 working pupil, but not brilliant as a student. 
 When I excused Jacob and Peter and James 
 for months, in order that they might hunt up 
 some wives, my main helper was Mubita. He 
 had left a wife at home and expects some time 
 to go back to see if she is still faithful to him. 
 If so, he will probably bring her to the 
 Katanga. At his home he has a number of 
 head of cattle, so that from a native point of 
 view he is quite well off. Even though still in 
 the middle of his course, he is very useful in 
 teaching and evangelizing, also as a colporteur 
 for the Book Store. 
 
 Nelson was a bright young lad from the 
 Congregational Mission (English) a few hun- 
 dred miles to the east of Kambove. He came 
 out to the mining district to earn money and 
 at first had a good deal of sickness. He had 
 found no place that looked like home to him 
 
A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 293 
 
 until he reached our Mission. We soon em- 
 ployed him as a house boy, and on the arrival 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Guptill he was employed in 
 their kitchen. He also became their teacher 
 in the Chiwemba, and acted as general inter- 
 preter as well. He was a bright young fellow, 
 but inclined to be heady. However, he soon 
 settled down. Lately he has been wanting to 
 qualify as a teacher and evangelist in connec- 
 tion with our Mission. He is one of four boys 
 in this group that have been connected with 
 four different mission societies before they 
 came to the Katanga to find work. There are 
 many partly trained boys whose lives are go- 
 ing to waste along railroad construction and 
 whom we are hoping to reach, and are reach- 
 ing, and whom we will utilize in the work of 
 the Kingdom. 
 
 Kansamba was distinctly one of the lesser 
 lights of the Mission. He was brought to us 
 by his parents at Lukoshi. He was defective 
 in his hearing, and this had affected his de- 
 velopment so much that in the village he was 
 fast drifting toward idiocy. He was really 
 very bright and needed only the care and 
 attention of kind hearts to develop into a nor- 
 mal boy. He had special gifts in writing, 
 
294 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 drawing, etc. Thousands of boys like Mni are 
 lost in the villages of Central Africa because 
 no one understands them and no one knows 
 how to remedy their defects. 
 
 Mugala was really not of our school. He 
 came to us through the night school, saying 
 that he wanted to remain with us for a few 
 years, but the fascination of the old life in 
 town was too much for him. He evidently had 
 no deep-seated desire to change his life. We 
 discovered that he was unreliable and inclined 
 to be a thief. When spoken to about these 
 matters he declared that he did not care to 
 enter school, and so he went away from the 
 Mission, despite our efforts to influence and 
 to keep him. 
 
 Ngamba is the slave boy mentioned as being 
 bought for a plate of meal by one of Kayeka's 
 carriers as they were coming through the 
 famine country. On their arrival at Lukoshi 
 I noticed that he watched me intently at any- 
 thing that I was doing. He was very keen to 
 learn and showed great aptitude for machinery 
 and for all kinds of industrial work. Among 
 the people of Central Africa are to be found 
 the rudiments of all the arts and industries. 
 
A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 295 
 
 They are more or less adepts in the working 
 of iron, in wood-carving, decorating, etc., to 
 say nothing of the great industry of agricul- 
 ture. 
 
 Ngamba was the most willing person when 
 working along the lines of his interest and 
 desire. When traveling on the path I found 
 him the best runner to keep along with the 
 bicycle, and to be on hand for any errands I 
 wanted done. But at times he was as stub- 
 born as a donkey. We soon took him into the 
 house as a servant. One great difficulty with 
 him was that he loved to wear his old, dirty 
 clothes, though he had plenty of good clean 
 ones. Admonition was not sufficient in his 
 case. At times I had to take him to his hut 
 and fairly take his old clothes off and have 
 them destroyed. He was very bright in his 
 school work and in general he has been very 
 reliable and gives promise of great usefulness 
 in the future. 
 
 Mulaya, otherwise Joab, as we dubbed him 
 to distinguish him from Malaya, would cer- 
 tainly take the prize as the ugliest boy in 
 school, but he would also take the prize for 
 being the most willing of spirit. He came first 
 to the night school near the railroad station, 
 
296 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 and declared his intention of entering the 
 boarding school. There was some money 
 owing him along railroad construction and he 
 went up to collect it. His creditor disclaimed 
 the debt and threw him into a fire, burning his 
 knees and elbows. Missing him for several 
 evenings at the night school, I asked a friend 
 about him, and was told that he was lying 
 with his wounds in a hut not far away. I 
 found him with several large sores from the 
 burns, and had him brought into the Mission 
 at once and attended to him. Soon he was on 
 the way to recovery. 
 
 He had no money with which to pay the fee, 
 but cheerfully went to work for five months 
 to pay it off. He continued his studies at 
 the night school during this period, and was 
 ever ready to assume large responsibilities in 
 seeing that everything went on well. 
 
 The boys took much pleasure in escorting 
 Mother Miller to her house, and Joab was 
 always on hand to take over her books, carry 
 the lantern, and see her safely home, even 
 though he might be assisted by several others. 
 He was some distance from his home, which 
 was near Broken Hill, belonging to the same 
 tribe as James, and was, as far as we know, the 
 third boy of that tribe to go to school. To us 
 
A BUNCH OF OUR BOYS 297 
 
 he was always most obedient, but among his 
 peers in the compound he always stood up for 
 his full rights, and would allow no imposition 
 upon them without protest. Another young 
 lad there about the same age was very heady 
 and cheeky, and was constantly trying to lord 
 it over Joab. There was almost a daily neces- 
 sity of separating these two, as they were 
 attempting to settle their disputes. He has 
 the stuff of which efficient, reliable workers 
 are made. 
 
 It is often a puzzle to some people as to why 
 missionaries are so keen to get back to their 
 respective fields. I wonder if in the recital of 
 these cases there is not an answer to that ques- 
 tion. The Mission constitutes the only chance 
 and hope for better things for these boys. Had 
 it not been for our coming to Kambove at this 
 time, there would have been no schooling for 
 any of them. As we see their hearts and lives 
 respond and see them transformed from wild, 
 willful, selfish individuals into efficient work- 
 ers for the Kingdom, is it any wonder that we 
 are keen to remain at our task and to serve 
 those in whom we find such large returns for 
 our investment of life and endeavor? 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 AS TO THE FUTURE 
 
 THAT a great future industrially lies im- 
 mediately before Africa, no informed person 
 can doubt To-day African exports of gold, of 
 diamonds, and of copper figure largely in the 
 world's totals. Fruit, corn, hides, rubber, 
 ostrich feathers, hardwoods, copal, from all 
 parts of this vast continent, find their way in 
 large quantities to nearly all markets, and this 
 is but the beginning. Men who know the vari- 
 ous sections well are continually remarking 
 that the resources of the continent have been 
 merely scratched. 
 
 So inaccessible by water is the interior that 
 this vast continent has had to await the rail- 
 road age for its development and for the out- 
 pouring of its fabulous wealth. Up to the 
 present, the steel rails have crept inland from 
 a few ports and the beginning of linking them 
 into one vast system in the interior has been 
 made. 
 
 Sir Harry H. Johnston, experienced adminis- 
 298 
 
As TO THE FUTURE 299 
 
 trator of various colonies, and the well-known 
 author of several informing volumes on Africa, 
 in speaking before the Koyal Geographical So- 
 ciety of Great Britain in June, 1915, spoke of 
 "The Coming Discovery of Africa," in these 
 words : 
 
 "When the trouble of the war is over the 
 real discovery of Africa will begin. We have 
 only so far set out Africa with tolerable cor- 
 rectness on the map and glanced with an in- 
 quiring and scientific eye on its surface in 
 some small portions. These investigations 
 from 1884 onwards revealed or suggested such 
 astonishing sources of wealth to humanity that 
 they have stimulated that colonial movement 
 in regard to Africa which lies at the base of 
 the present war. What has been revealed, 
 however, is probably trifling compared to 
 what remains to be discovered. I venture to 
 predict that a good deal of the area of the 
 Sahara Desert will be found to be rich in oil- 
 bearing strata, and some of its mountains and 
 plateaux on the verge of the Sudan wealthy in 
 copper and perhaps in tin; that the mineral 
 wealth of Somaliland, of Abyssinia, of the 
 Nile-Congo water-parting, of Darfur, of Ka- 
 tanga above all, of Eastern Angola, of Liberia, 
 of Rhodesia, Portuguese East Africa, Nyasa- 
 
300 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 land and the northern and central Cameroons 
 will eventually justify the vague surmises or 
 the actual predictions of prospectors. In 
 regard to this branch of research I should like 
 to call attention to the really valuable reports 
 issued from time to time by the Imperial In- 
 stitute, because they have justified my predic- 
 tions in the past. Then there are the sources 
 of vegetable wealth in the wild produce of the 
 forest, or in the climate and soil needed for 
 plantations. There is the oil-palm, the produce 
 of which can now be utilized to any extent 
 without much fear of its depreciation in value 
 through over-production. Kubber, coffee, 
 cocoa, sugar, pineapples, bananas, oranges, 
 even apples, peaches, plums, and grapes are 
 becoming items of importance already in Afri- 
 can exports. As regards animal products, 
 something really intelligent in the way of 
 elephant conservation may keep the world 
 sufficiently supplied with ivory. Vast tracts 
 of Africa are already being opened up for 
 cattle-breeding and horse-breeding. Once the 
 French get to work with their trans-Saharan 
 railway or railways, and once there is assured 
 peace in trans-Zambezian Africa, an enormous 
 increase will take place in African exports of 
 mineral, vegetable, and animal produce. 
 
As TO THE FUTURE 301 
 
 "I have only attempted to give a general im- 
 pression of the known wealth of Africa and its 
 location. But I should like to point out that 
 the most recent results of exploring Africa 
 have led to some of its deserts proving more 
 valuable than regions obviously fertile and at- 
 tractive to the eye. The high veldt and the 
 northern Karoo in South Africa, Namaqua- 
 land and many parts of the northern Sahara 
 were regarded as hopeless, eternally desolate, 
 and worthless tracts of country a few years 
 ago, which would never pay for opening up. 
 Now they turn out annually millions of 
 pounds' worth of diamonds or copper, of phos- 
 phates and other mineral manures, or yield 
 obvious indications of oil-bearing strata below 
 the surface. The desolate thorny Haud of 
 Somaliland, dreary, treeless, waterless tracts 
 in East Africa, are either oil-bearing or have 
 valuable deposits of soda or phosphates. Much 
 of the Sahara Desert will prove worth railway 
 construction on account of its phosphates, its 
 salt, and its petroleum. My map of great rail- 
 ways of the future represents with scarcely 
 an addition or exaggeration the existing rail- 
 ways and the published railway projects of 
 Africa in, let us say, July, 1914. Unless West- 
 ern and Eastern Europe emerge utterly bank- 
 
302 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 rupt from this devastating war, we may per- 
 missibly imagine that they will next put their 
 capital^ not into the making of further arma- 
 ments to destroy one another, ~but into the war- 
 fare against hostile and grudging Nature. And 
 in this struggle our most potent arm is the 
 railway. Also there is no agent so pacifying 
 as the railway. If some advisers had been 
 listened to in 1901-3 we should not have wasted 
 about four million sterling in warring against 
 the Mad Mullah in the deserts of British Soma- 
 liland, but we should have built a railway 
 through some part of that country. Such an 
 enterprise at once captures the imagination 
 of the savage, or the semi-savage, and at the 
 same time provides wages for restless avari- 
 cious warriors. It will be noticed on my map 
 that there may be two alternative routes from 
 the Cape to Cairo: one through Katanga 
 (nearly complete now as far north as Stanley 
 Falls), the Bahr-el-ghazal and el-Obeid; and 
 the other through Nyasaland, past the .Victoria 
 N!yanza to the lower Sobat and Khartoum. 
 But people in South Africa who want not only 
 variety of route and perhaps an even quicker 
 way of reaching Britain (or, vice versa, those 
 among our grand-children who wish to pro- 
 ceed to Cape Town by rail in preference to the 
 
As TO THE FUTURE 303 
 
 riskier airship) are recommended to try the 
 Tangier- Fez- Agades-Kano-Leopoldville line. 
 This will consist of the French Trans-Saharan 
 railway (already completed nearly as far as 
 Igli), and will link up with a great number of 
 coast railways already constructed in West, 
 West-Central, and South- West Africa. 'Tan- 
 gier to Cape Town without changing !' W T hat 
 a splendid achievement that will be! Very 
 likely by then we shall have got the Channel 
 railway tunnel in working order, and a steam- 
 ferry will take the London train from Alge- 
 ciras to Tangier; so that conceivably forty or 
 fifty years from now we may be able to get 
 into our 'sleeper' at Victoria (London) and 
 emerge from a delightful unbroken train jour- 
 ney in a glorified Cape Town a city which 
 Nature has destined to be one of the most 
 beautiful in the world ; a city which is the only 
 appropriate capital for United South Africa." 
 Our Congo Mission area includes nearly all 
 of the mineral region referred to above as 
 "Katanga above all," with its deposits of cop- 
 per, iron, lime, tin, gold, and its vast water- 
 power possibilities. The Cape-to-Cairo Rail- 
 road, connecting with six South and East Afri- 
 can ports, traverses our eastern border for five 
 hundred miles, and soon will have connections 
 
304 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 i 
 
 with at least five other ports on the east, the 
 west, and the north coasts. What Chicago, 
 "the city that cannot be avoided," is to 
 America, that the Katanga our Congo Mis- 
 sion area will be to Africa, the junction point 
 of the great Continental Kailways. And 
 happy is the fact that this section is blessed 
 with a salubrious climate, possessing an eleva- 
 tion from three thousand to five thousand feet 
 above sea level, and a mean annual tempera- 
 ture of about eighty degrees. 
 
 A stable European government exists and is 
 assured for the future. The industrial-com- 
 mercial development is proceeding and is cer- 
 tain to increase rapidly. What about the 
 educational, moral, social, and religious needs 
 of the millions of untutored, backward, imita- 
 tive natives whose cooperation in all the de- 
 velopment of Africa is absolutely essential and 
 really for their good if under favorable condk 
 tions? 
 
 The dangers that lie ahead can be seen from 
 the experience of Johannesburg and vicinity, 
 where on mines and in towns four hundred 
 thousand native workmen are continually cen- 
 tralized. These come from every part of the 
 sub-continent, and even from Central Africa. 
 The majority engage for labor during limited 
 
As TO THE FUTURE 305 
 
 periods of six months to a year, and then 
 return to their homes ; others in large numbers 
 are settling permanently in the towns, either 
 bringing their wives from their former homes, 
 or else picking up girls and women in town, 
 but in many cases forming no permanent 
 domestic relations. These natives are wage 
 earners almost without exception and are ad- 
 vancing rapidly in industrial ability and in 
 earning power. They have a limited number 
 of needs, and so have considerable money to 
 spend. Vicious white men prey upon them, 
 pandering to their weaknesses, to their lusts, 
 and to their vanity. The sale of European 
 liquors to natives is prohibited by law, but on 
 the Rand illicit liquor selling is an extensive 
 and thriving business. Recently there were at 
 one time six hundred European prisoners in 
 jail in Johannesburg on charges of this illicit 
 liquor selling to natives to say nothing of 
 those still at large. There is a commingling of 
 members of the black and white races in vice, 
 involving both sexes of both races in and about 
 Johannesburg, that is absolutely revolting to 
 learn about, to say nothing of having to face 
 in actuality. 
 
 Johannesburg is rightly considered the 
 greatest and most important, as well as the 
 
306 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 strategic mission center in South Africa. 
 Similarly, and for the same reasons, the min- 
 eral district within the Congo Mission area 
 is and will be increasingly the strategic mis- 
 sion field of Central Africa. 
 
 Johannesburg is the greatest industrial and 
 manual training center in the subcontinent, 
 and the native workmen are continually being 
 raised to greater degrees of efficiency in the 
 efforts of the mines to reduce the working 
 costs. As a result the native employees are 
 advancing to more and more responsible posi- 
 tions and better paid jobs. A similar process 
 is already at work on these mines in the 
 Katanga. 
 
 Johannesburg has also been justly termed 
 a "University of Crime," despite the presence 
 of many good citizens and not a few mission 
 workers in the vicinity. Likewise this Ka- 
 tanga mineral field is a school of crime, of 
 lewdness, and of many forms of evil, and will 
 be so increasingly unless the forces of right- 
 eousness become active and make impossible 
 the development of conditions similar to those 
 which obtain in the older mining center. 
 
 This is a new mining area. These forces of 
 evil are as yet individual and occasional. In 
 the Katanga we have the opportunity of 
 
As TO THE FUTURE 307 
 
 almost an even start. It remains to be seen 
 whether the forces of evil will be allowed an 
 unhindered, uncontested opportunity of becom- 
 ing firmly established and organized as they 
 are in that older mining center of South 
 Africa, or whether there will be leaders for 
 righteousness on the ground to watch, to warn, 
 and to oppose, aided as such leaders can and 
 would be, by the governmental and industrial 
 forces of the country. Just as in America and 
 in Europe, the Church must furnish the rally- 
 ing point and the aggressive campaigner in 
 the fight against vice. Will we meet the chal- 
 lenge of the opportunity and have our men at 
 every important point from this time on, that 
 is, at Elisabethville, Kambove, Chilongo, Bu- 
 karna, Kuwi, Dilolo, Kalonga, and elsewhere?' 
 Most people agree in these days that when 
 everything is summed up, the world is, on the 
 whole, getting better, but there are spots that 
 unquestionably are growing worse, and the 
 vicinities of many of these industrial centers 
 are among these. The evil forces have so far 
 predominated over the good. The industrial 
 and commercial development of Africa is pro- 
 ceeding very generally throughout the conti- 
 nent, and is many fold more active and general 
 than is the work of missions. "Civilization" 
 
308 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 as represented by European clothing and per- 
 sonal effects, by stores, by bars, by better 
 roads, by bicycles, by the telegraph, by steel 
 rails, by bricks and corrugated iron, by the 
 clock-regulated whistle of the mines and the 
 shops, is impotent to hold the heart of the 
 white man to the good he learned in his youth, 
 or to change the heart of the dark denizen of 
 the woods of Central Africa to the better 
 things and to a new life. 
 
 To state it differently, the natives of Africa 
 are not remaining in status quo, following the 
 comparatively indifferent customs of unre- 
 lieved paganism, but through the partition of 
 Africa among the powers of Europe, through 
 the exploitation of the resources of every nook 
 and corner of the continent, through the com- 
 mercial products dumped into every section 
 of the land from all parts of the world, the 
 African has been related in an intimate and 
 vital way to the entire world. His quiet life 
 in the village, formerly sufficient of itself for 
 all his needs, has been rudely overturned. His 
 tribal tenure of land has been bewilderingly 
 interfered with and restricted and in essential 
 respects denied. His over-lords demand 
 strange and inexplicable taxes and service, 
 many of his customs have been forbidden, re- 
 
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As TO THE FUTURE 309 
 
 straints to excess and youthful folly formerly 
 exercised by the parents and the tribe have 
 been swept away in the name of personal 
 liberty, and the virile youth of the tribes have 
 been tempted and invited to Irng absences 
 from home to labor for the stranger. To this 
 child race it is all bewildering, but the African 
 is rubbing his eyes, he is awaking, he has a 
 happy faculty of self -adjustment to new condi- 
 tions; his philosophy of life leads him to ac- 
 cept what is and to adapt himself to the cir- 
 cumstances of the hour. He sees that the old 
 has passed away or is passing ; he looks to see 
 what the future has in store. 
 
 But he is a child: he has no chart or com- 
 pass for the new sea of life upon which he has 
 been thrust. In his sky there shines no fixed 
 North Star or Southern Cross to aid him in 
 his reckonings. The checks that primitive 
 life develops are being left behind with the 
 crumbling huts in the forest. New tempta- 
 tions, new dangers, new vices face him in these 
 new and strange circumstances. New powers 
 of money, new ambitions, and new ideals greet 
 him in the new Africa of to-day. There is the 
 meeting of aggressive, powerful, selfish, com- 
 mercial Europe with primitive, scantily clad, 
 backward, pagan Africa. For the solution of 
 
310 PIONEERING IN THE CONGO 
 
 the problems that have arisen in this connec- 
 tion, there is required a program that con- 
 siders and provides for the complex needs of 
 the individual, of the family, of the commu- 
 nity, the village, and tribe, for all the hours 
 and days of the week, and that serves the 
 physical, the mental, the social, and above all 
 the religious needs of all these units and 
 groups. 
 
 Thus thoroughly inclusive is the program 
 that is required. Nor is this a program that 
 can be fully and minutely elaborated in ad- 
 vance. "Each institution must work out its 
 problems on its own ground" must be the guid- 
 ing principle here also. The need is for men 
 and women aware of the experience and wis- 
 dom of the Church in the past and alive to the 
 best thought and methods of the latest day, 
 living, thinking, evangelizing, teaching, guid- 
 ing, and training, and thus meeting the total 
 needs of the various groups. And full recogni- 
 tion needs always to be made of the fact that 
 while the Church is the distinctive factor, it is 
 not the only factor in the advancement of the 
 Kingdom of God. Government, commerce, and 
 industry all have their part to play in the 
 total work of the extension of the Kingdom of 
 God upon earth. The officials and agents of 
 
As TO THE FUTURE 811 
 
 these other factors are sometimes conscious 
 and sometimes unconscious of the part they 
 do play, or should, in this program, but it 
 is a notable fact that many of them gladly 
 respond to the leadership of the ecclesiastical 
 forces for the betterment of society and the 
 correcting of evil conditions. While the Congo 
 Mission represents one particular denomina- 
 tion in this field, it will not and cannot work 
 merely to further denominational interests. 
 The natives who congregate on these mines 
 and centers are from the areas of a dozen 
 different denominations. Those who are con- 
 verted and join our church will be given letters 
 to their several churches on their return to 
 their homes. And we request those denomina- 
 tions who have members coming to work in our 
 field to give their young men church letters. 
 
 So that a distinctly Christian rather than 
 denominational work has been begun, a work 
 of and for the Kingdom. And to such a policy 
 and to such a program the Congo Mission 
 stands committed. 
 
 Much of the "geographical feat" has been 
 accomplished and now before us lies the great 
 missionary "enterprise." Let us go forward 
 to the task in the spirit of that other saying 
 of Livingstone's, 
 
"I WILL PLACE NO VALUE 
 
 ON ANYTHING I HAVE OR MAY 
 
 POSSESS EXCEPT IN RELATION TO 
 
 THE KINGDOM OP 
 
 CHRIST" 
 
 LIVINGSTONE'S MONUMENT AT CHITAMBO'S, N. RHODESIA, 
 WHERE His HEART is BURIED 
 
APPENDIX 
 
STATEMENT 
 
 MADE FROM THE AUDITED ACCOUNTS OP THE 
 
 CONGO MISSION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 FOR THE PERIOD 1910-1914 
 
 RECEIPTS 
 
 Special Gifts received through 
 the Board of Foreign Mis- 
 sions $15 
 
 Special Gifts from U. S. re- 
 ceived on the field 
 
 Dr. Fox Fund: 
 
 Principal $2,700.00 
 
 Interest 485.00 
 
 357.32 
 235.00 
 
 From J. M. Springer: 
 For Circular Let- 
 ters $337.89 
 
 For Cyclostyle.. 119.32 
 
 Contributed by Europeans in 
 the Belgian Congo 
 
 Value of Timber and other 
 Building Materials received 
 free on the field 
 
 Collections (mostly fron na- 
 tives) 
 
 School Fees at Kambove 
 
 From the Board for Outgoing 
 of Dr. and Mrs. 
 Piper $834.20 
 
 Outfit for Pipers. . . 200 . 00 
 
 Outgoing of Rev. 
 and Mrs. Guptill 1,141.33 
 
 Advance on Salary 
 of Dr. Piper 408.96 
 
 Received from two Jews, ap- 
 plied as original capital of 
 Bookstore 
 
 3,185.00 
 
 457.21 
 154.91 
 
 704.35 
 
 142.37 
 
 190.00 
 
 ,584.49 
 20.00 
 
 $23,030.65 
 
 EXPENDITURES 
 Sixteen years of missionary 
 
 service (salaries) $7,957.63 
 
 Outgoing of seven mission- 
 aries 4,547.66 
 
 Buildings Lukoshi, Mwata 
 
 Yamvo, Kambove 3,831 . 75 
 
 Household Furniture 676 . 36 
 
 Station Equipment, organ, 
 
 bicycle, tent, lantern, etc. . 568.43 
 
 Printing Press 406.77 
 
 Tools, etc....' 870.44 
 
 Itinerating 276.98 
 
 Transportation 951.37 
 
 Evangelists and Native Help- 
 ers 700.50 
 
 Support of Pupils 1,311. 13 
 
 Special Women's work 13 . 00 
 
 Circular Letters 402.63 
 
 Taxes and Incidentals. 315 . 18 
 
 Exchange, etc 180.82 
 
 Capital furnished Bookstore. 20.00 
 
 $23,030.65 
 
 JOHN M. SPKINGER, 
 
 Treasurer. 
 
r^J H*V7*r.*& 
 
Of 7KCEHTML AFRICA 
 MISSION FIELD 
 
 JOHN /tfMTM 
 
Y 1 9282