JNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGC 
 
 3 1822 00194 8256 
 
 FRS 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CAL FORNIA SAN D 
 
 3 1822 00194 8256 
 
 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 
 oX x
 
 ON THE TRAIL OF 
 THE PIONEERS 
 
 A Sketch of the Missions 
 
 of the 
 United Free Church of Scotland 
 
 BY 
 
 J. H. MORRISON, M.A. 
 
 MINISTER OF THE UNITED FREE CHURCH, FALKLAND 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE history of missions throbs with romance on every 
 page, a fact which seems hardly yet to have dawned 
 upon the general reader, and least of all upon that 
 large section of readers who love romance. 
 
 Missionary reports are, of necessity, dull and, to a 
 great degree, unintelligible to all but the initiated. 
 They plunge in medias res, and bear down the hapless 
 reader with a cavalry charge of unfamiliar names ; 
 while, as they deal only with the work itself apart from 
 its environment, they leave the " native " a vague and 
 misty figure, devoid of nationality and human interest. 
 Only when each mission stands out clear, against its 
 own background of place and people, does it become 
 living and begin to take on the colours of romance. 
 
 The following pages are intended as a sketch of the 
 missions of the United Free Church of Scotland for the 
 uninitiated, and especially for the youth of the Church. 
 One would even hope that the fastidious ear of the 
 " young barbarian " might be caught, and he be led 
 to the discovery and enjoyment of the great missionary 
 classics. 
 
 The chapters were first delivered as a series of ad- 
 dresses to the young, under the form of a voyage round 
 the world to the various mission fields of the Church.
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 This form has been retained as a convenient frame- 
 work, although at one or two stages of the journey the 
 actual traveller might find some difficulty in booking a 
 passage ! 
 
 May the story, even in a brief and imperfect telling, 
 be to the reader, what it has been to the writer, a tonic 
 to faith and a spring to compassion. 
 
 I desire to express my obligation to Professor 
 Clow, D.D., Glasgow, for generous encouragement and 
 many helpful criticisms.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FOREIGN MISSION NIGHT . . . . . *~ i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE SISTER ON THE HILL ...... 7 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 FROM THE DANUBE TO THE GOLDEN HORN . . .12 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THROUGH THE ISLES OF GREECE TO GALILEE . . 17 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 WHERE JESUS TAUGHT AND HEALED . . .22 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 HEBRON IN THE HOLY LAND . . , . - . -27 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 DOWN THE RED SEA . . . . 33 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE BARREN ROCK OF ADEN ..... 37
 
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 PART II 
 INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A TRIANGLE AND Two RIVERS . . . 4 1 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 IN THE BAZAAR .'45 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 CASTE AND OUTCAST 49 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE PRIDE OF THE PESHWAS 54 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 As THE SAND OF THE SEA * 59 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 BEHIND THE PURDAH 6 4 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE KEY TO A PRINCE'S HEART 7 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE CITY OF HOPE 75 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 THE TAJ MAHAL AND THE WHITE ANGEL . . . 80 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ASHES AND TRAMPLED FLOWERS . . . .84
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 PACK 
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF PARASNATH .... 88 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 ON THE BANKS OF THE HUGLI 93 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 BUILDERS OF EMPIRE . . . . . . . . . 98 
 
 PART III 
 EAST OF THE BARRIER 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 BEYOND THE STRAITS OF MALACCA ... . 103 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 ABOUT THE BOXERS ....... 108 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 A LAND OF FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS . . . .113 
 
 PART IV 
 THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 THE ROMANCE OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS . . .118 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 THE SORROWS OF THE SOUTH SEAS . . . .124 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 THE OLD SLAVE DAYS IN JAMAICA .... 128
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE STORM- VEXED QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES . .134 
 
 PART V 
 THE DARK CONTINENT 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 IN THE HOMELAND OF THE NEGRO . . . . 139 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 THE GATEWAY OF THE EN YON CREEK . , . . 144 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 BESIDE THE GREAT KEI RIVER . . . . ,148 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 SOMGXADA, THE SWIFT STRIDER . . . '> . 155 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 REDS AND WHITES 160 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 UP THE ZAMBESI TO LAKE NYASA .... 165 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 SPEARS AND PRUNING-HOOKS . . . 170 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF LIVINGSTONE . . . . 174 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 178
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Ju-ju PILLAR, WEST AFRICA . . Frontispiece 
 
 MOUNT OF OLIVES FROM THE BEAUTIFUL GATE . p afe 30 
 
 RELIEF MAP OF INDIA . . . . 42 
 
 A VILLAGE AUDIENCE . . * . 62 
 
 UDAIPUR AND THE LAKE . . 71 
 
 TUG-OF-WAR, SANTALIA . . . . 91 
 
 MADRAS CHRISTIAN COLLEGE . . . . 100 
 
 PRESENTATION TO DR. WESTWATER . . in 
 
 MISSION HOUSE AND CHURCH, DILLON'S BAY . . ,,121 
 
 CREEK TOWN CHURCH . . 143 
 
 NATIVE CONVENTION AT DR. STEWART'S GRAVE . ,,159 
 
 STOCKADED VILLAGE IN THE LOANGWA VALLEY . ,,174
 
 PART I 
 THE NEAR EAST 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FOREIGN MISSION NIGHT 
 
 THE great Assembly Hall on the Mound is packed from 
 floor to ceiling. An unbroken sea of faces looks down 
 from the four surrounding galleries. Outside in the 
 corridors anxious groups hurry from door to door and 
 rush upstairs, only to meet others, equally anxious, 
 rushing down. Every entrance is blocked, and down 
 every gangway a long wedge of standing people has 
 been driven deep into the heart of the house. On the 
 low platform in front of the Moderator's chair, forming 
 a half-circle round the clerks' table, sits a dozen or there- 
 by of young men and girls, some of the latter in nurse's 
 garb, some in simple white. 
 
 It is the crowning night of the religious year in Scot- 
 land. The Church's pioneers have come back from 
 distant lands to tell of the progress of the Kingdom, 
 and those who sent them out have met in thousands to 
 hear their thrilling story. It is a festival of the romance 
 of missions. 
 
 A resounding Psalm strikes the note of triumph. 
 
 " His name for ever shall endure, 
 
 Last like the sun it shall. 
 Men shall be bless'd in Him, and bless'd 
 All nations shall Him call." 
 
 Then we settle to hear the story of how the prophetic 
 words have been fulfilled.
 
 2 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Speaker after speaker mounts the platform. Each is 
 worthy of a whole evening to tell his tale. Now, under 
 a rigid time-table, every word is weighty, compressed, 
 intense. First, a professor from one of our Indian 
 colleges conjures up before us a picture of India's un- 
 rest. He welcomes it, sees in it the promise of new life. 
 India's long sleep is broken, her young men are awake. 
 Now is our golden opportunity. It is ours to lead them 
 to the light of life. 
 
 A voice is next heard from West Africa. The speaker 
 has come straight from a region where a few years ago 
 no white man dared set his foot. He is oppressed by the 
 vastness of the surrounding heathenism. Deep in the 
 forest, villages, tribes, whole nations are in darkness and 
 stretch out wistful hands to the light. The Mohammedan 
 peril becomes daily more acute. " Shall the Crescent 
 or the Cross prevail ? " he cries. Again we are gripped 
 with a sharp sense of crisis. If the work is to be done 
 it must be now or never. 
 
 A moment later we are spirited away to the South 
 Pacific, and see a vision of its fairy isles. But there are 
 sombre colours in the picture. The man before us has 
 been face to face with cannibals. He has seen the 
 grave dug in which the sick were buried alive. He speaks 
 sadly of the blight of the Kanaka traffic, of disease and 
 outrage, of a dwindling population in the islands. But 
 the note of triumph rings out at the end. He has been 
 privileged to lead cannibals to the feet of Jesus, and he 
 challenges our unbelief in face of this great apologetic 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 We have now reached the supreme moment of the even- 
 ing, when the little circle of youthful volunteers are 
 solemnly dedicated to the work to which they have given 
 their hearts. They rise and are presented to the Modera- 
 tor, one by one, while the name and destination of each 
 is announced. '' To Kaffraria, to Rajputana, to Living- 
 stonia, to the zenana mission in Poona, to the orphanage 
 at Bhandara, to the Medical College in Mukden, a teacher 
 to Lovedale, a nurse to Aden, a carpenter to the Institu-
 
 FOREIGN MISSION NIGHT 3 
 
 tion at Duke Town." With every announcement there 
 is a round of sympathetic applause, which deepens in 
 emphasis as some field of special difficulty is mentioned 
 or some young volunteer steps forward bearing a name 
 known and beloved in the Church. A moment later the 
 applause is hushed and three thousand heads are bowed 
 while in the tense silence the voice of some father of the 
 Church is lifted up, imploring Heaven's blessing upon 
 those who, in their fresh devotion, have responded to 
 the Church's call, and are faring forth upon her errand. 
 
 A missionary hymn is sung and helps to relieve the 
 tension of feeling, which has become almost unbearable. 
 The heat is overpowering, many have been standing for 
 hours, but the vast audience remains unbroken. Most 
 would find it impossible to get out even if they would, 
 for the crowd is still straining round every door, and 
 pressing the wedges deeper in. But nobody wants to 
 stir. Three of the greatest of the Church's pioneers have 
 yet to be heard. 
 
 We are back again in India, this time in the jungle. 
 The whole assembly has sprung to its feet to welcome a 
 massive figure, stepping heavily on to the platform. 
 He looks round on the vast; cheering crowd, turning 
 his head in a slow, bewildered way, much as an old lion 
 might have done, which had been dragged from its lair 
 to make an imperial show in the arena. He has, in 
 fact, been dragged from his lair. Year after year he has 
 absolutely ignored furloughs, and at last has reluctantly 
 obeyed the Church's imperative command to come home 
 and show his face. His speech is deliberate and halting, 
 as if his English were half forgotten. But we know the 
 man. He is the uncrowned king of the Santals. He 
 has followed the hardy huntsmen of the Parganas, has 
 captured and tamed them, has trained them in useful 
 arts, has fed them in famine, has broken to them the 
 bread of life. 
 
 A medical missionary from the Far East follows, 
 keen-eyed and alert, with hair that has turned to silver. 
 " Why does he not wear his medals ? " somebody whis-
 
 4 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 pers, and begins to explain that he has been decorated 
 by three Emperors. We knew that, but we like him none 
 the worse for his plain black coat. " Old things are 
 passing away in the Far East," he says. " All things 
 are becoming new." With rapid touches he conveys to 
 us an impression of swift, kaleidoscopic change. Every 
 Chinese institution is in the melting-pot. Presently it 
 will be poured out to take shape and harden in the 
 mould. What mould ? Let the Church of Christ an- 
 swer. Again we seem to hear the sharp ring of the ' Now 
 or Never.' 
 
 Another great ovation greets the last speaker. To all 
 appearance he might be a burly Aberdeenshire farmer, 
 bearded and broad-shouldered, with eyes brimful of good 
 humour, and wearing an expression of modesty amount- 
 ing almost to bashfulness. That man was the first to 
 put a steamer on any of the great African lakes. He 
 has fought the Arab slave-driver and beaten him. He 
 has done more than any living man to heal the running 
 sore of Africa. He has seen every change from savagery 
 to civilisation, from bloody raids to settled peace, the 
 development of trade and commerce, the springing up 
 of churches, schools, colleges. And we, who sit at home, 
 
 ive him a quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes by a 
 
 tretch, to tell us all about it ! 
 
 The great night is over. The concluding strains ring 
 out like a trumpet call to the wide world. 
 
 " Let every creature rise and bring 
 Peculiar honours to our King. 
 Angels descend with songs again, 
 And earth repeat the loud 'Amen.' " 
 
 The vast audience pours out of the Assembly Hall. 
 Half dazed, with mind and heart burdened and over- 
 charged, we stand for a moment, looking down on the 
 lights of the city and up at the shining stars, drinking 
 in the breath of the soft spring night with its subtle 
 fragrance of unseen flowers and budding trees in the 
 gardens at our feet. Then, homeward in "thoughtful 
 silence.
 
 FOREIGN MISSION NIGHT 5 
 
 What a mighty work is this that has fallen to our 
 Church to do ! We cherish the pride of an Empire on 
 which the sun never sets. We glory in the high destiny 
 of our British race. We honour the pioneers who hold 
 the frontiers of the Empire, who break up the prairie 
 and fell the lumber, who carry the rail-heads deeper 
 into the forest and extend the bounds of peaceful 
 human habitation. 
 
 But there is a nobler pride in belonging to a Church 
 on which the sun never sets. Our missions girdle the 
 globe, and every hour of the twenty-four sees our 
 pioneers at work somewhere. The mind wanders in- 
 voluntarily to the far-off places where they live and 
 work. We see them in the bazaars and temples of 
 India, and in the sprinkled islands of the sea. We 
 picture them cutting pathways through the malarial 
 swamps of Africa, or crossing the frozen plains of Man- 
 churia, rumbling along in great ox-waggons or mounted 
 on sure-footed mules, travelling by steamer and canoe 
 on the bosom of mighty rivers, camping in the wilds 
 where, at night, the howl of the hyena and the lion's 
 roar is heard. We watch them at their work, with 
 coats off, taming the passionate savage, disputing 
 with the subtle Hindu and the proud Mohammedan 
 preaching, teaching, healing the sick, building houses, 
 making roads, printing, weaving, tilling the soil, and 
 labouring by every means to make the desert blossom 
 as the rose. 
 
 Heroic pioneers ! more than five hundred of them, 
 devoted men and women who have followed the arduous 
 path of foreign service at the call of Christ. Empire 
 builders are they all, forerunners of the King, who 
 " prepare the way of the Lord, and make straight in 
 the desert a highway for our God." 
 
 Travel and adventure, valour and virtue, are all to be 
 found in plenty on the trail of the pioneers. Follow 
 the trail as it winds around the world. Up the Rhine 
 and down the Danube, through the isles of Greece and 
 the Holy Land, down the Red Sea to the barren rock of
 
 6 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Aden, across our Indian Empire, through the Straits of 
 Malacca and up the China Sea to Manchuria. Then a 
 long southward run to the New Hebrides, round the back 
 of the world to Jamaica, across the Atlantic to the West 
 Coast of Africa, round the Cape to Kaffraria, up the 
 Zambesi to the great lakes, and then home. 
 
 Thirty thousand miles over land and sea, but you will 
 not regret an inch of the road. You will come back 
 missionary hero-worshippers. You will come back with 
 eyes opened, having learnt that all these foreign lands 
 have their own romance, and these foreign peoples, 
 whom we in ignorant contempt call heathen, however 
 diverse they be in appearance, in speech, in customs, 
 are all of them just as human as we are ourselves, and 
 just as dear to Jesus.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SISTER ON THE HILL 
 
 HER real name was Princess Marie Dorothea, and she 
 was the wife of the Archduke Joseph, whose lordly 
 palace looks down on the Danube at Budapesth. She 
 had come from Wiirtemberg in Germany and was a 
 Protestant. At first she cared little for her religion, 
 else, as she said afterwards, she could never have 
 married a Roman Catholic prince. 
 
 God had a strange work for her to do and she was 
 prepared for it by weary years and sharp sorrows. 
 Though she loved her husband and children dearly she 
 often felt lonely in a land where the Bible was a closed 
 and forbidden book, and gradually she learned to love it 
 and turn to it more and more. Then her eldest son, a 
 bright, handsome boy of seventeen, was taken from her, 
 and in her sorrow she was driven for refuge to the Word 
 of God and prayer. 
 
 Her private apartments in the palace looked down 
 across the Danube to the crowded city and the vast 
 Hungarian plains beyond, and, as she gazed on the 
 scene with softened heart, she sighed for the spiritual 
 destitution of the land. Day after day she knelt at the 
 window and, sometimes stretching out her hands to 
 heaven in passionate desire, she prayed God to send 
 some messenger of the Cross to Hungary. Thus she 
 continued for about seven years. 
 
 One night in the summer of 1839 she started out of 
 sleep with an eerie feeling that something was about 
 to happen to her. Every night for a fortnight the strange 
 dream was repeated. Then she chanced to hear that, 
 in one of the hotels of the city, a Protestant minister 
 
 7
 
 8 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 was lying at the point of death. Instantly she said to 
 herself, " This is what was to happen." 
 
 But what was it ? To explain that, we must go back 
 to Scotland. Foreign missions were then in their in- 
 fancy. Many saw no need of them, maintaining that 
 the heathen were better left alone. Some even de- 
 nounced missionary societies as dangerous and treason- 
 able. But a more enlightened and Christian spirit had 
 begun to prevail. The Church of Scotland, remembering 
 that the Gospel belonged ' to the Jew first,' resolved to 
 send out four ministers to travel as far as Palestine, and 
 discover the most suitable place in which to establish a 
 Jewish mission. These deputies were Murray McCheyne 
 and his friend Andrew Bonar, with Dr. Keith and Pro- 
 fessor Black of Aberdeen. They set out, and, by and 
 by, reached Egypt, intending next to visit Palestine. 
 On one point they were all agreed, that of all the 
 countries where Jews dwelt it was most hopeless to visit 
 Austria, for no Protestant mission would be tolerated 
 there. 
 
 But an overruling Providence brought the unex- 
 pected to pass. Dr. Black was hurt through a fall from 
 his camel. The accident made it necessary that he and 
 Dr. Keith, instead of going on to Palestine, should travel 
 straight home by the Danube, passing thus through 
 the heart of the Austrian Empire. On reaching Buda- 
 pesth they could not but see that here was the very 
 metropolis of the Jewish race in Europe. There ap- 
 peared, however, not the remotest possibility of a mis- 
 sion. As they looked up at the Archduke's palace, 
 frowning down upon them, little did they dream of that 
 lonely kneeling figure at the window, and the strange 
 quarter from which their help would come. 
 
 Before they could proceed on their journey Dr. 
 Keith was struck down with fever, and, while he lay at 
 the point of death, news of him reached the palace. 
 Princess Marie at once came to, visit him and, thanks 
 to her unwearied care, he slowly recovered, During the 
 days of his convalescence the Princess poured into his
 
 THE SISTER ON THE HILL 9 
 
 ear the whole story of her sorrows and of her prayers. 
 Dr. Keith, on his part, told her of the reason that had 
 brought him to the city. Both were impressed by the 
 strangeness of their meeting, and the Princess eagerly 
 undertook to use all her influence towards the establish- 
 ment of a mission in the city. Thus it came about, by 
 means so singular and romantic, that our first mission 
 to the Jews was planted in Budapesth. 
 
 In the summer of 1841 a little band of missionaries 
 under the leadership of Dr. John Duncan, a famous 
 Hebrew scholar, sailed up the Rhine to Mayence, and, 
 travelling from Frankfurt by Niirnberg to Ratisbon, 
 steamed thence to Linz and Vienna. Another 120 miles 
 on the broad bosom of the Danube brought them to 
 Budapesth. They received a warm welcome from the 
 Princess Marie. She and Dr. Duncan discovered a 
 curious connecting link in the fact that both owned 
 the same spiritual father. Twenty years before, the 
 Princess had heard Cesar Malan preach in Geneva words 
 never to be forgotten, and in far-away Aberdeen, by 
 the same voice, ' Rabbi ' Duncan had been led into 
 the light. So strangely interwoven are the threads of 
 human life. 
 
 At first the mission had to encounter the most deter- 
 mined opposition, and but for the powerful protection 
 of Princess Marie it could not have held its ground in 
 the city. She was ever ready to interpose in time of 
 danger and foiled many a plot. On one occasion in her 
 absence, one of the missionaries was arrested and sen- 
 tenced to be expelled from the city. The Princess, re- 
 turning at the critical moment, appointed him her 
 private chaplain, to preach every Sabbath in the palace 
 and bring his congregation with him. It was amid 
 these alarms, when priests and spies were continually 
 on the watch, that the mission company, for reasons of 
 secrecy, learned to speak of the Princess as ' the sister 
 on the hill.' 
 
 In these early days some bright jewels were won for 
 the Redeemer's crown. No Israelite in the city was more
 
 10 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 respected than Mr. Saphir. He was a devout worshipper 
 of Jehovah, and, coming into contact with the mission, 
 he became an earnest seeker after light. At length he 
 declared his faith in Jesus as the Messiah and, with 
 adoring reverence, would join in the hymn, 
 
 "To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
 
 The God whom we adore, 
 Be glory as it was and is 
 And shall be ever more." 
 
 In D. O. Hill's great picture of the Disruption a bright 
 boy may be seen in front beside a venerable man who 
 is showing him something on a map of Palestine. The 
 old man is Dr. Duncan, and the boy is Adolph Saphir, 
 Mr. Saphir 's famous son, who became a distinguished 
 preacher in London and wrote in defence of the Scrip- 
 tures books that will long be read. 
 
 Another interesting case was that of Alfred Edersheim. 
 He was a student at the university when Dr. Duncan 
 came to Budapesth. After being led to Christ he took 
 his degree at Oxford, and curiously enough became 
 a minister in Dr. Duncan's native city of Aberdeen. He 
 is best known, however, as the author of a valuable life 
 of Christ, in which he brings all his vast Jewish learning 
 to explain and illustrate the Gospel story. 
 
 Had the Budapesth mission done nothing else but 
 bring these two young Jews, Saphir and Edersheim, to 
 the feet of Christ it would have been a great work. 
 There is an impression in many minds that Jews cannot 
 be converted and that missions among them are vain 
 and fruitless. An amusing story is told of Dr. Kidd 
 of Aberdeen, a quaint but worthy old divine. He was 
 present at a meeting called to form a Jewish missionary 
 society, and, being asked to take the opening prayer, 
 he proceeded, "O Lord, convert the Jews. But they 
 will not be converted till the appointed time. Some are 
 now trying to convert them, but let them not be too 
 confident, for Israel, poor Israel, is fit for nothing as 
 yet but going through the streets crying ' Old clo' ' ! " 
 Many people seem to share Dr. Kidd's opinion of ' poor
 
 THE SISTER ON THE HILL 11 
 
 Israel,' and in particular have no hope of the Jew re- 
 sponding to the Gospel. It should be known that 
 already one in every forty-five Jews is a baptised 
 Christian, whereas, of heathen and Mohammedans, only 
 one in sixty-six is a convert. Six hundred Jewish con- 
 verts are ministers of the Gospel in Europe to-day. " The 
 time to favour Zion, yea, the set time," may be nearer 
 than many think.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FROM THE DANUBE TO THE GOLDEN HORN 
 
 BUDAPESTH is a double city with the Danube flowing 
 through the heart of it. As we sail down the river, 
 following the route taken by the pioneers of the mission, 
 Buda lies on the right and Pesth on the left, linked by 
 several bridges thrown across the river. Pesth stands on 
 the plain, but Buda is built on rising ground that mounts 
 up steeply from the river-bank. Conspicuous on the 
 heights towers the palace of the Archduke, and up there, 
 in the southmost wing of the building, is the window at 
 which the Princess Marie knelt to pray. 
 
 We pass under a magnificent suspension bridge which, 
 like the palace, has a link of connection with the early 
 days of the mission. It was being built at the time Dr. 
 Duncan arrived, and a hundred British workmen with 
 their families were resident in the city. Dr. Duncan 
 at once commenced services among them, and this 
 proved an excellent plea for toleration. In spite of the 
 powerful influence of the Princess, it is doubtful if Dr. 
 Duncan would have been permitted to settle in the city 
 unless he had had his fellow-countrymen to minister to. 
 
 Two-thirds of the whole Jewish population of the 
 world are within easy reach of Budapesth as a centre. 
 In the city itself there are 180,000, and the management 
 of municipal affairs is largely in their hands. It is said 
 that Roosevelt, driving through the streets and looking 
 over the crowds that had come out to welcome him, 
 turned to his host with the question. " Biirgermeister, 
 have you any Christians in your city ? " 
 
 Solitary, in this metropolis of Judaism, stands our 
 mission. Fine new buildings have been erected near the 
 
 12
 
 THE DANUBE TO THE GOLDEN HORN 13 
 
 centre of Pesth. They are arranged round the four 
 sides of a quadrangle, and consist of a hall seated for 
 four hundred people, a school with accommodation for 
 as many pupils, a boarding-house for over fifty girls, 
 with apartments for missionaries and teachers. High 
 up on the front is carved the familiar emblem of the 
 Burning Bush. 
 
 Here the mission has entered on a new era of life and 
 usefulness. The suspicion and hostility of the Govern- 
 ment have passed away and the mission is a recognised 
 institution in the city. In proof of this it may be 
 mentioned that the Educational Council voted 2000 
 towards the erection of the new buildings. Almost 
 every form of mission work is carried on. More than 
 24,000 pupils have been educated in the school. 
 Meetings and classes are held in which the claims of 
 Jesus as their Messiah are pressed on the Jews, and 
 steadily, if slowly, the outcasts of Israel are gathered in. 
 
 At the same time the mission serves a wider field. 
 It has quickened into new life the Reformed Church of 
 Hungary, one of the largest Protestant churches in the 
 world. Copies of the Scriptures and of Christian books, 
 in eighteen languages, are distributed and sold in the 
 city and surrounding districts. Thus through many 
 channels the influence of the Gospel flows throughout 
 the land. And far beyond it. The man who translated 
 the Old Testament into Chinese was a convert of the 
 Budapesth mission. The Jewish race in the whole 
 world is one, and from this central and strategic point 
 circles of influence go widening out till they break on 
 the most distant shores. 
 
 From the Danube the next stage of our journey brings 
 us to the Golden Horn. We pass through lands that 
 have been for centuries the battleground of Turk and 
 Christian. In the age of the Reformation the Turks, at 
 the height of their glory, were the terror of Europe. The 
 ensign of the Crescent waved over Budapesth, Hungary 
 was a Turkish province, and Suleiman the Magnificent 
 led his troops to the walls of Vienna. There the tide
 
 14 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 turned, and ever since has slowly ebbed away, till now 
 Europe has all but shaken off the horrible nightmare of 
 Turkish oppression. 
 
 In Constantinople we have our second Jewish mis- 
 sion. How tragic the reverse of fortune that has be- 
 fallen the city ! Founded by the first Christian Emperor 
 and called by his name, she was for long the seat of 
 empire and one of the shining lights of Christendom. 
 In solemn procession Constantine marked out the 
 boundaries of his new capital. Bearing a lance in his 
 hand, he continued to advance till his astonished 
 followers ventured to observe that he had already 
 exceeded the most ample dimensions of a great city. 
 " I shall still advance," he replied, " till He, the in- 
 visible guide who marches before me, sees fit to stop." 
 A thousand years of Christian history followed. Then 
 came the fatal day when the ruthless Turks stormed the 
 city and all Europe trembled at her fall. 
 
 From a distance the city wears an enchanted look. 
 The seven low hills on which she stands are covered with 
 buildings of every shape and colour. Above is the soft, 
 blue Eastern sky. Beneath are the waters of the Sea 
 of Marmora, reflecting like a mirror the numerous domes 
 and minarets. The Bosporus sweeps along the city 
 front, carrying the waters of the Euxine with rapid and 
 incessant flow towards the Mediterranean. Up through 
 the centre of the city the Golden Horn ploughs its way, a 
 deep, curving lane of water six miles in length and a 
 quarter of a mile in breadth. It parts Stamboul, the 
 ancient city, from the northern suburbs of Galata and 
 Pera. 
 
 On entering the city the charm is rudely broken. 
 Filth, dust, and evil smells, narrow, wretchedly paved 
 alleys for streets, terrific din of yelling muleteers and 
 hawkers, such is Constantinople seen at close quarters. 
 
 Of the five settlements of Jews in the city the chief 
 is in Galata, where the Polish Jews reside. There are, 
 besides, two settlements of Spanish Jews on the Bos- 
 porus and two on the Golden Horn. Our mission, which
 
 THE DANUBE TO THE GOLDEN HORN 15 
 
 is in Galata, was planted as long ago as 1842, and for 
 nearly fifty years was the scene of the labours of Alex- 
 ander Tomory, one of the early converts of Budapesth. 
 
 Here, in the narrow lanes, with their terrible poverty, 
 their reeking filth, their unhidden vice, our missionaries 
 work. The tourist who visits the city thinks that what 
 he sees is bad enough, but he rarely, if ever, penetrates 
 into the depth of the cesspool. A doctor, on being 
 shown the mission, declared that though he had lived 
 in Constantinople for over thirty years he had no con- 
 ception there could be such abject poverty. He sug- 
 gested that the most necessary adjunct of the mission 
 would be a barrel of cod-liver oil, to stand at the Dis- 
 pensary door and be ladled out to all comers ! The 
 scourge of cholera is never long absent, and war has 
 brought an accumulation of miseries upon the wretched 
 populace. 
 
 Under such conditions the work is done. In the 
 school there are over five hundred pupils. In the little 
 church the son of a Jewish rabbi preaches, Sabbath 
 after Sabbath, to a crowded audience of his fellow- 
 countrymen. Above all there is the Dispensary, where 
 eight or nine thousand suffering people annually receive 
 the help of the Christian doctor and are brought into 
 contact with the Gospel. 
 
 We cannot leave the city without a visit to St. Sophia. 
 Across the Golden Horn the great dome rises in the heart 
 of Stamboul, surrounded by a cluster of half domes and 
 shelving roofs. " Glory be to God, I have vanquished 
 thee, O Solomon ! " cried the Emperor Justinian who 
 built it, at the festival of dedication. Alas, that this 
 magnificent temple, reared by Christian hands, and 
 adorned with gold and marble of every hue, the gifts of 
 Christian devotion, should now be a Mohammedan 
 mosque ! See where the Crescent replaces the Cross on 
 the summit of the great dome. Inside, a Mihrab has 
 been cut in the wall in the south-east corner to point 
 the direction of Mecca, and towards it the Moslem 
 worshippers turn their faces when they pray. They squat
 
 16 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 upon the floor, each one on his rug a congregation 
 sitting squint and praise Allah and Mohammed, where 
 once the praise of Christ was sung. The minister reads 
 from the Koran, and, as he reads, he grasps a naked 
 sword in his hand, as the Moslem custom is where they 
 occupy Christian churches. It is a fierce reminder that 
 the faith of Mohammed has been propagated by the 
 sword. 
 
 Now see this strange thing. Here is the Royal Gate 
 by which the Emperor was wont to enter the church 
 and where the Patriarch stood to receive him. Look 
 up, and there, above the cornice that surmounts the 
 gate you can make out a figure of Christ upon His 
 throne, holding in His hand a book open at these words, 
 " I am the light of the world." When the Moslems de- 
 faced the building and removed every Christian emblem 
 from it, they washed over the figure with lime, but it 
 has reappeared. May we not read in it a prophecy that 
 the true light will shine out again in these ancient Chris- 
 tian lands ? As we travel through scenes once fair and 
 prosperous but now desolate, once blessed by the feet 
 of Christ and His apostles but now blighted by the 
 unholy Turk, we shall not forget what we have seen 
 above the Royal Gate of St. Sophia.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THROUGH THE ISLES OF GREECE TO GALILEE 
 
 No part of our journey is so full of romance as that upon 
 which we now enter. Almost every island and stretch 
 of curving shore has an immortal name, every league of 
 sea has been ploughed by ships of heroes from the most 
 ancient times. And of higher renown than the Isles of 
 Greece are those hills of Galilee and that little inland 
 sea, made sacred by the blessed feet of the Son of God. 
 
 Sailing out of the Golden Horn, we cross the Sea of 
 Marmora and enter the Dardanelles. Here in the 
 narrow strait that parts Europe from Asia, Xerxes made 
 the bridge of boats across which he led his countless hosts 
 to conquer Greece. Seven days and nights with ceaseless 
 tramp they passed along the swaying bridge. Here, 
 a century and a half later, Alexander the Great led 
 Greece to the conquest of Asia. The more tender 
 memory of Leander comes to mind, how, time, after 
 time, he swam across to visit Hero, till the dark, stormy 
 night when the love gleam in the lady's tower went 
 out and her lover was cast up dead upon the shore. 
 
 Passing the Dardanelles, we enter the renowned ^Egean, 
 rich in the beauty of the immortal Isles of Greece, 
 
 " the sprinkled isles 
 Lily on lily that o'erlace the sea, 
 And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps ' Greece.' " 
 
 On our left, between Mount Ida and the sea, is the 
 plain of Troy, where Priam's city stood and where 
 Achilles fought and fell, as Homer sings. Here we 
 come upon the track of the Apostle Paul. It was from 
 Troy (or Troas) that he sailed across this very sea to 
 c 17
 
 18 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Europe, after he had seen in a vision the man of Mace- 
 donia, who prayed him, saying, " Come over and help 
 us." Yonder in the west are the hills of Macedonia, 
 rising over Imbros and Lemnos. To Troas Paul re- 
 turned on his last journey to Jerusalem, and from this 
 point onward to Palestine we follow the route of his 
 voyage as described in Acts xx-xxi. 
 
 But, alas, what desolation has befallen these coasts ! 
 Where are Troas and Assos, Miletus and Ephesus ? 
 Nothing is left of them but harbours silted up, frag- 
 ments of colossal masonry, and hill-sides strewn with 
 broken columns. Once the home of enterprise and liberty, 
 they have sunk under a slow decay, or been crushed by 
 the heel of the ruthless Turk. The exquisite beauty of 
 land and sea and sky remains, but the glorious works 
 of man are fallen. The lamps of the Seven Churches 
 have gone out. 
 
 We sail past Rhodes, the Queen of the -lEgean 
 and once the last outpost of Christendom, where the 
 desperate valour of the Knights of St. John held the 
 Saracens at bay. We cannot touch, as Paul did, at 
 Patara, for the city is in ruins, the harbour is silted up, 
 and the bay is a desert of moving sand. We cast, how- 
 ever, a kindly glance at the spot, remembering that here 
 was the birthplace of the good Saint Nicholas, the 
 children's friend, more familiarly known to us as Santa 
 Claus. 
 
 Now we cross the Levant to Syria, passing Cyprus on 
 the way. We do not land at Tyre, as did Paul, for the 
 ancient glory of Tyre is gone and the stream of commerce 
 flows through the busy seaport of Beirut, fifty miles 
 farther north. How enchanting is our first view of 
 Palestine. Mount Lebanon stretches along in front of 
 us, its majestic head crowned with virgin snow, which 
 glitters dazzling white in the clear air. Thus it must 
 have looked to the eyes of Abraham when he came from 
 Ur of the Chaldees to the Promised Land. Between 
 Lebanon and the sea is a rich and beautiful plain, 
 adorned with orange and lemon gardens, palms and
 
 sycamores, fig trees and almonds. The city rises in 
 lovely terraces above the harbour and looks out on the 
 blue Mediterranean. 
 
 St. George is the patron saint of Beirut. Here he 
 killed the dragon. When or why or what dragon 
 nobody knows, but the dragon is dead, so it must be 
 true. And, for the proof, the bay is called the Bay of 
 St. George, and you can see the well into which he cast 
 the dragon and the place where he washed his hands. 
 
 We travel south along the shore by Sidon, Sarepta, 
 and Tyre. This maritime plain, stretching along be- 
 tween Lebanon and the sea, is " the coasts of Tyre 
 and Sidon," once at least honoured by the Saviour's 
 presence. From here He returned to the Sea of Galilee 
 (Mark vii. 31), and we may be following the very road 
 He took. 
 
 Now we strike inland through the hills of Galilee. All 
 along the way we have an almost continuous view of the 
 great white head of Hermon, which, standing far in the 
 north, towers over the nearer hills. The Jordan rises 
 at its base and is fed by its melting snow. At last we 
 come to the brow of a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. 
 Deep, deep down, at the bottom of a great cup, 
 gleams the blue lake. Steep, guardian hills stand round 
 it and cast their changing shadows upon the water. 
 The bright green plain beneath our feet is the plain of 
 Gennesaret, where Capernaum once stood. Across the 
 lake are the cliffs of Gergesa, down which the herd of 
 swine rushed headlong to the sea. The grey limestone 
 flushes like pink marble in the evening sun. Yonder 
 white spot, half-way down the nearer shore, marks 
 the town of Tiberias, whither we are bound. 
 
 Every detail of hill-side and shore and lake is sacred 
 as the earthly home of the Son of God. Many changes 
 have passed over the scene with the passing years. 
 Capernaum, Chorazin, Bethsaida, are all gone. Long ago 
 the busy fishing boats vanished and the once-populous 
 shores lay silent and deserted. Only in recent years 
 have there come signs of reawakening life. Enterprising
 
 20 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Jewish colonists from abroad have established a pros- 
 perous fishing industry, and a little steamer and motor 
 launch ply to and fro upon the lake. 
 
 In spite of changes the scene brings back to us with 
 wonderful vividness the ministry of Jesus. Within 
 the circle of these hills most of His mighty works were 
 done. On these waves He walked and bade the storm 
 be still. Down there in Capernaum He dwelt, in " His 
 own city." In all the villages round about He preached 
 and healed. Down every hill-road they came in streams 
 bringing their sick with them. 
 
 It is early spring, and crowds of pilgrims on their 
 way to Jerusalem have come thronging about the 
 lake. Jesus sails out from Capernaum in Peter's boat 
 to find a place of retirement on the other side. But 
 the people have seen Him, and there they go, streaming 
 in long lines round the head of the lake. When He steps 
 ashore they are waiting Him and He cannot send them 
 away. On the green meadow yonder, just where the 
 Jordan flows into the lake, He makes them sit down, 
 and with the five loaves and the two fishes He feeds 
 them until all are satisfied. 
 
 In the summer of 1839 Andrew Bonar and McCheyne, 
 two ardent lovers of the Jewish race, visited the lake. 
 They had been sent out by the Church of Scotland to 
 discover the most suitable places for planting Jewish 
 missions. On the shore of the lake they walked together 
 and talked of Jesus, feeling " an indescribable interest 
 even in lifting a shell from the shore of a sea where 
 Jesus had so often walked." What their thoughts were 
 McCheyne has recorded in his beautiful poem " The 
 Sea of Galilee ": 
 
 " How pleasant to me is thy deep blue wave, 
 
 Thou Sea of Galilee ! 
 For the glorious One who came to save 
 Hath often stood by thee. 
 
 Fair are the lakes in the land I love, 
 
 Where pine and heather grow, 
 But thou hast loveliness far above 
 
 What nature can bestow.
 
 THE ISLES OF GREECE TO GALILEE 21 
 
 Graceful around thee the mountains meet, 
 
 Thou calm reposing sea, 
 But ah, far more, the beautiful feet 
 
 Of Jesus walked o'er thee. 
 
 O Saviour, gone to God's right hand, 
 
 Yet the same Saviour still, 
 Graved on Thy heart is this lovely strand 
 
 And every fragrant hill." 
 
 It was felt that surely nothing could be more grateful 
 to the Saviour than to preach the Gospel where He 
 Himself had so often preached. But, in the sluggishness 
 of the Church, nearly half a century passed away before 
 the founding of a mission at the Sea of Galilee.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WHERE JESUS TAUGHT AND HEALED 
 
 FOUR cities in Palestine are counted sacred by the Jews, 
 Jerusalem and Hebron, Tiberias and Safed. In three 
 of these our Church has planted missions. 
 
 Tiberias and Safed are worked together. In summer, 
 when the heat grows unbearable down by the shore, a 
 move is made to Safed, which stands on a hill-top near 
 the north-west corner of the lake. Very possibly our 
 Lord pointed to Safed when He said to His disciples, 
 " A city set on an hill cannot be hid." Certainly Safed 
 answers to that description, for it is conspicuous from 
 all over Galilee. So steeply is it perched upon the sum- 
 mit of the hill that the flat roofs of the houses below form 
 the street above. In the earthquake of 1837 the whole 
 town slid down the hill, street crashing upon street, till 
 all lay together in one immense mass of ruins at the foot 
 of the slope. 
 
 Tiberias, the white town by the lake shore, is the 
 chief seat of the mission. It was built by Herod Antipas, 
 " that fox," who beheaded John the Baptist, and to 
 whom Jesus was sent by Pilate to be tried. There is 
 no evidence that our Lord ever visited Tiberias, though 
 He lived so near it. The devout Jews of His day had 
 scruples about going into the town because Herod 
 had built it partly on an ancient burying-ground. 
 Perhaps the fact that Herod's palace was there may have 
 kept Him away from it. 
 
 Like most Eastern towns, Tiberias looks best at a 
 distance. One would hardly choose to live there. It 
 lies nearly seven hundred feet below sea-level, and 
 is oppressively hot, and there are those who aver that 
 
 22
 
 WHERE JESUS TAUGHT AND HEALED 23 
 
 it is the residence of the King of the Fleas ! The 
 inhabitants, of whom there are five or six thousand, are 
 by no means an attractive lot. They have been described 
 as " the most unpleasant looking of all the inhabitants 
 of the land." Mark Twain's picture of them is not 
 flattering: " long-nosed, lanky, dyspeptic-looking ghouls, 
 with the indescribable hats on, and a long curl dangling 
 down in front of each ear .' ' Many lead lives of indolence, 
 subsisting mainly on the Zalukah, money sent by pious 
 Jews in Europe and America for the support of their 
 poorer brethren in the Holy Land. Near the town are 
 the hot springs, famous from ancient times, where the 
 people love to sit for hours, immersed up to the neck 
 in almost boiling water. Indolent, pauperised and de- 
 graded, is not their degradation the measure of their 
 need ? 
 
 As we approach the town from the north the most 
 conspicuous buildings are those of the mission, con- 
 sisting of a hospital with two houses adjacent for the 
 missionaries. They stand close to the shore, facing 
 the lake which Jesus knew so well. In front are a few 
 palm trees and a well-tilled garden sloping down to the 
 water. Everything within and around the hospital is 
 clean, wholesome, and attractive, all in vivid contrast 
 to the filth and negligence of the town. Inside the wards 
 the white walls are hung with Arabic and Hebrew texts, 
 and pictures such as Jesus walking on the sea. How 
 strangely thrilling it is to turn from the picture and 
 look out at the window over the very sea on which 
 He walked. From the end windows of the women's 
 ward, which face the north, a distant view is had of 
 the snowy head of Mount Hermon. 
 
 Every morning a motley crowd of men, women, and 
 children gathers at the hospital, black- turbaned Jews 
 with their dangling side-curls, veiled Jewesses, Arabs of 
 various kinds from the town, Fellaheen from the sur- 
 rounding country, Bedouins from the desert, all sorts and 
 conditions of men. The hospital bell rings and the doctor 
 with his assistants enters the waiting-room. A passage
 
 24 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 of Scripture is read, followed by a short address, prayer 
 is offered, and then the various cases are attended to. 
 On Sunday morning an Arabic service is held for the 
 patients and their friends, and every afternoon the 
 kindly Bible-reader goes through the wards from bed 
 to bed. 
 
 Strange and touching scenes have been witnessed in 
 these wards. Look at that bright-faced old man sitting 
 up in bed in the corner of the ward. He seems an irre- 
 pressible comic. " How is it, Elias," the doctor asks 
 him, " that you are always so cheery ? " " Praise the 
 Lord, the times are good," replies this Syrian Mark 
 Tapley. What is his story ? Some weeks ago he was 
 j ourneying from Jerusalem. When passing near Shechem 
 he fell among thieves, who stripped him, wounded him 
 most brutally with their iron-spiked clubs, and left him 
 for dead on the road. By chance some men came where 
 he was, and taking pity on him, put him on an ass and 
 brought him to Nazareth. From there he was sent 
 on to Tiberias and laid down at the hospital gate. One 
 leg had to be amputated, and his life was despaired of, 
 but the cheery old fellow is pulling through. How he will 
 ever get home to Aleppo neither he nor anybody else 
 knows ; but he counts it a lucky day when he came 
 under Christian care and skill. Good old Mark ! Give 
 us a handshake, and may time deal gently with you. 
 
 Over yonder is Derwish, the son of a Bedouin chief 
 beyond the lake. He grasps the doctor's hand and calls 
 down blessings on his head. He has been several weeks 
 in the hospital recovering from a serious operation. 
 One day his father and three brothers came to visit 
 him, stalwart fellows with belts stuck full of huge pistols. 
 The father looked round the spotless ward, gazed 
 awhile at the comfortable bed on which his son lay, and 
 then, grasping the coverlet, he said earnestly, " This 
 shows love and the fear of God." On leaving he gave 
 the doctor three gold coins. "Come and visit me," he 
 said. ' You will be welcome, with a hundred of your 
 friends."
 
 WHERE JESUS TAUGHT AND HEALED 25 
 
 The lights are low in the ward. It is long past mid- 
 night. On one of the beds a Jew lies dying. As the 
 nurse bends over him and whispers the name of Jesus 
 in his ear, the dying man opens his eyes. " I am trust- 
 ing in the Lord Jesus," he whispers. " I am a Christian 
 at heart." He tries to gasp out his story, how he had 
 somewhere received a New Testament and learned from 
 it to know Jesus as the Messiah. A few moments more 
 and his spirit has fled to seek mercy of Him whom he 
 had followed, though but secretly " for fear of the 
 Jews." It is no easy thing for Jew or Moslem to confess 
 Christ openly. Those who do so are often compelled to 
 leave the country and seek in some foreign land the 
 freedom of conscience denied to them at home. 
 
 So for nearly thirty years the work in Tiberias has 
 gone on, till now the fame of the hospital has travelled 
 throughout all Syria. As in the days of Jesus, they 
 bring the sick from far and near. Dr. Paterson of 
 Hebron relates the following incident: "Riding up 
 the steep hills which mount westward from the Sea of 
 Galilee, I met, one morning in spring, a poor Arab walk- 
 ing beside a donkey which carried his sick wife. He 
 called to me to stop, he seized my bridle. Did I know 
 of one who healed at Tiberias ? Was he wise ? Was he 
 kind ? Would he cure the woman ? And as I rode on 
 towards Nazareth, having reassured the man, I fell to 
 thinking that just such a scene might have been enacted 
 on that very road in the days of Him in whose name the 
 missionary doctor at Tiberias ministers to the suffering 
 to-day. For down every road leading to the Sea of 
 Galilee there flocked men and women bearing the sick, 
 half in doubt, half in hope, that One who healed, whom 
 they knew only by hearsay, might be gracious to them 
 also." 
 
 The sick, when they returiLhome, carry with them 
 as of old, and spread abroad everywhere, the fame of 
 Jesus. So that to-day, through the skill and love of 
 His servants in Tiberias, He has again become known to 
 the people round the lake as the great Physician. " I
 
 26 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 never expected to see a sight like this on earth," ex- 
 claimed a visitor. " Now I understand the life of 
 Christ as I never understood it before." And indeed one 
 might search the wide world in vain to find anything 
 liker the Saviour's own ministry than this mission of 
 healing to the body and salvation to the soul beside the 
 Sea of Galilee.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 HEBRON IN THE HOLY LAND 
 
 THE road from Tiberias to Hebron leads through the 
 heart of the Holy Land. The distance is not great in 
 miles, for Palestine is the least of all lands. From Ti- 
 berias to Jerusalem is about as far as from Dundee 
 to Aberdeen, and Hebron is some twenty miles farther 
 south. Yet within that narrow compass was enacted 
 all that is most significant in the world's history. 
 
 Half a day's journey to the south-west brings us to 
 Nazareth, lying in a cup-shaped hollow among the hills. 
 The town itself has little interest for us. The peaceful 
 village of Gospel days has disappeared, and in its place 
 is a town of seven or eight thousand people, cursed with 
 seventeen public-houses. 
 
 We climb the hill to the south of the town and view 
 a scene that Jesus must often have gazed on as a boy. 
 We are on the southern edge of the hills of Galilee. At 
 our feet a broad plain stretches across the whole country 
 from the Mediterranean to the lip of the Jordan valley. 
 Many a battle has been fought on that plain since the 
 day when Deborah and Barak swooped down on the 
 hosts of Sisera. The bold, solitary hill to the west is 
 Carmel, where Elijah contended with the prophets of 
 Baal. At the other end of the plain, where it begins to 
 dip down towards the Jordan, Jehu came driving 
 furiously to avenge the iniquities of the house of Ahab. 
 In front, across the plain, are the rounded hills of Sam- 
 aria. Mark that little hill standing well out into the 
 plain, with the road to the south running like a ribbon 
 up the face of it. On the summit is the village of Nain, 
 
 27
 
 28 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 and somewhere on that road Jesus met the funeral of 
 the widow's son. 
 
 We cross the plain and note, here and there, surprising 
 signs of up-to-date cultivation. Jewish colonists are 
 settling in increasing numbers on the plain, and bid 
 fair, with the help of modern implements, to change 
 it from a rough, neglected prairie to a place of waving 
 harvests. 
 
 The road, winding among the hills of Samaria, brings 
 us to the neighbourhood of Jacob's well. It seems 
 hardly worth while to visit it. A church has in recent 
 years been built over it, and the well-mouth opens in the 
 musty vault below. Moreover, as the well is really 
 dry, the wily priests pour water down it, which they 
 draw out again for guileless pilgrims to drink. Better 
 leave the place un visited, and preserve the picture of 
 our Saviour sitting by the well-side in the sunshine, 
 with the fields around Him ripening to the harvest. 
 
 By and by the road gets clear of the Samaritan hills 
 and begins to ascend up towards Jerusalem. The land 
 of Judah is in reality a great, broad-backed mountain, 
 with steep sides that go plunging down by tremendous 
 ravines to the Jordan valley on the one hand and the 
 land of the Philistines on the other. The summit is a 
 bare, stony upland, wind-swept and waterless, fitted 
 to breed a race of hardy, highland shepherds. Up and 
 up the road climbs, winding round Gilgal and past 
 Bethel. Now Jerusalem appears in sight, the Holy City, 
 city of David and Solomon, to which the tribes went up, 
 city of Gethsemane and Calvary and Olivet. 
 
 The north road enters by the Damascus Gate, but ere 
 we reach the gate we turn off the road a little to the 
 left and pass along outside the wall. Often have we 
 sung : 
 
 " There is a green hill far away, 
 
 Without a city wall, 
 AVhere our dear Lord was crucified 
 Who died to save us all." 
 
 Here is that sacred hill, with its bare and gently
 
 HEBRON IN THE HOLY LAND 29 
 
 rounded top. The side next the city wall is broken by 
 a steep cliff, with two holes like eyes in the face of it, 
 which may have given to the hill the name of Calvary, 
 the place of a skull. At the base of the cliff is a little 
 garden in which is a rocky tomb that has been used 
 once and is now empty. It might possibly be the very 
 tomb in which the body of our Lord was laid. 
 
 The city is full of interest. Every stone in it is elo- 
 quent of a royal and sacred past. Here stood the throne 
 of David. Here Isaiah and Jeremiah fulfilled their 
 ministry. Outside the walls are ancient tombs of 
 kings and prophets. Through these streets Christ bore 
 His cross to Calvary. The city shows a strange ming- 
 ling of races and religions. Jew, Christian, and Mo- 
 hammedan, each claims it as his own. Imposing 
 processions move along its crowded ways. Pilgrims 
 kneel on the ground and passionately kiss the sacred 
 places. Jews stand beneath the massive ruins of the 
 Temple and, leaning their heads against the wall, 
 bewail the sorrows of their people. Above them Moslems 
 pray in the Holy of Holies. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking scene of all is the view of 
 Olivet from the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. Walk 
 along the eastern side of the city on the path that runs 
 along at the base of the wall. The ground breaks 
 away at our feet, falling down a steep slope to the 
 Kidron, three hundred feet below, and mounting al- 
 most as steeply on the other side. The opposite hill 
 is Olivet, not clothed with olives now as it must once 
 have been, but bare and desolate save for a few scattered 
 trees. Right over against us three roads branch out 
 at the foot of the hill and climb the slope at different 
 angles. One road goes straight up. It is the road 
 to Jericho, which, after crossing the ridge, plunges 
 down nearly four thousand feet into the suffocating 
 abyss of the Jordan valley. Up that road King 
 David went, when he fled from Absalom, barefoot and 
 with his head covered, weeping as he went. The 
 other two roads, which slope away to the right, both
 
 30 
 
 lead to Bethany at the back of the hill. By one of these 
 roads the Saviour must have come when He made His 
 triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 
 
 At the point where the three roads meet in the valley 
 there is a garden with some gnarled old olive trees in 
 it. It is the garden of Gethsemane. On the very summit 
 of the hill a lofty spire pierces the sky. It is the Church 
 of the Ascension, a memorial of the fact that Christ 
 ascended up from the Mount of Olives. This explains 
 the immense number of graves that are strewn about 
 the base of the hill. Multitudes have desired to be 
 laid to rest there, in hope of a glorious resurrection 
 when the Lord shall come again. 
 
 Turn now and look at the city wall that frowns above us. 
 Once it was part of the outer wall of the Temple, but the 
 Temple is long gone and the Mosque of Omar stands in 
 the holy place. You can trace in the wall the outline 
 of a great gateway which has been built up. It was the 
 Gate of the Temple. Here the lame man sat for Beautiful 
 alms, till one day, as the shadows of the Temple began to 
 lengthen over the Kidron valley, Peter and John passed 
 in at the gate and bade him, in the name of Jesus Christ 
 of Nazareth, rise up and walk. The Moslems have built 
 up the gate because there was a tradition among the 
 Jews that when the Messiah came to recover the city, 
 He would enter by that gate. So there stands the 
 Mosque of Omar in the Holy Place, and here is the 
 Beautiful Gate built up to shut the Saviour out. But 
 Mohammed is dead and Christ is risen. Yonder the 
 Church of the Ascension points a triumphant finger 
 to the sky, and the Beautiful Gate looks across the valley 
 to the Mount of Olives as if waiting the day of the 
 Lord's return. 
 
 But we must hasten on to Hebron. The road runs 
 along the broad, bare ridge of the mountain of Judah, 
 which shelves down on the left into the bottomless pit 
 of the Dead Sea, with the hills of Moab rising like 
 a wall beyond. Towards these hills Ruth must often 
 have turned her eyes as she gleaned in the harvest field
 
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 HEBRON IN THE HOLY LAND 31 
 
 of Boaz, perhaps the very field we are passing. Five 
 miles out the road we come to Bethlehem. The flocks 
 of sheep on the plains remind us that David spent his 
 boyhood there, remind us also of that never-to-be-for- 
 gotten night when the angel appeared to the shepherds 
 as they watched their flocks and brought the glad 
 tidings that Christ was born in yonder little white town. 
 
 At last Hebron appears in sight, lying in a long and 
 fertile valley which opens towards the south. It is a 
 most ancient and sacred city. Here Abraham came 
 and dwelt under the oak in Mamre. Abraham's oak is 
 still shown, a wide-spreading and venerable tree, under 
 whose shade the Jews of Hebron love to picnic on the 
 green sward, but it cannot be so old as the days of the 
 patriarch. 
 
 A far more interesting spot is the cave of Machpelah. 
 It is enclosed and jealously guarded by the Moslems, who 
 venerate Abraham as the Father of the Faithful. The 
 building rises conspicuous on the east side of the town, 
 and one gazes upon it with a strange thrill. There can 
 be little doubt that the mingled dust of Abraham and 
 Sarah, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Jacob and Leah, lies 
 there. 
 
 Hebron is a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, 
 of whom only two thousand are Jews, the rest being 
 fanatical Moslems. " The sullenness of the people you 
 meet on the road," says a recent traveller, " gives token 
 of its spirit before you enter. The street scenes were 
 the worst we saw from south to north. Women drew 
 aside their veils to curse us as we passed. Stones were 
 flung by unseen hands behind walls. In the centre of 
 the town a man was twisting the arm of a boy, beating 
 him furiously on the head and neck, flinging him on 
 the road to kick and trample on him." 
 
 In the outskirts of this fanatical Moslem town a 
 medical mission was planted in 1893, and there is at 
 least one foreigner whose presence is welcome every- 
 where the good doctor who presides over the mission. 
 Sullen faces break into smiles when he appears, for Chris-
 
 32 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 tian love and skill and patience are wearing down the 
 barriers of fanatical hate. More than ten thousand 
 cases are treated in the course of the year, and the 
 influence upon the whole community is very marked. 
 
 A visitor from Scotland, accompanying the doctor on 
 one of his rounds, witnessed a sight which, he declared, 
 it was worth going thousands of miles to see. Among 
 the patients was a little child, whose father was a sheikh 
 of a somewhat fanatical character, but who was glad to 
 call in the skill of the Christian hakim. A successful 
 operation had been performed and the little fellow was 
 almost fully recovered. The father accompanied the 
 doctor to the road, and as they talked, suddenly mastered 
 by his emotions, he threw himself upon the doctor's 
 neck, exclaiming, " What is it that makes you Christians 
 show such kindness to us poor Moslems ? " 
 
 Love is stronger than hate, and the day is surely 
 coining when, in the sunny vale where Abraham 
 pitched his tent, the God of Abraham will yet be wor- 
 shipped, and those who are his children after the flesh, 
 Moslem and Jew alike, will become his children in 
 spirit through the faith that is in Jesus Christ.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 DOWN THE RED SEA 
 
 A FEW days ago we stood under the oak in Mamre, now 
 we are nearing Port Said. A quick run by rail from 
 Jerusalem down to Joppa, thence by steamer, has 
 brought us in sight of Egypt. Nothing is visible but a 
 clump of dingy houses on a dead-flat shore, with an 
 absolutely featureless country behind them. Can this 
 be Egypt, that ancient and royal land ? Where are 
 the mighty pyramids and the rolling Nile ? 
 
 Yet that boundless stretch of sandy plain has a strange 
 fascination. It leads the mind to horizons far be- 
 yond the line where the sky meets the level sand. 
 Away out across that arid waste, lads from our 
 Scottish glens have marched to conquer the wild sons 
 of the desert. The fanatical valour of the dervish was 
 shattered against British discipline, and now the land 
 enjoys the blessings of a settled peace. 
 
 But a more momentous struggle is going on, and the 
 prize is not Egypt alone, but Africa. Five thousand 
 missionaries ten thousand the Moslems say are train- 
 ing in Cairo, to go forth and win Africa for Mohammed. 
 Up the Nile and across the broad Sudan, down on 
 Uganda in the east and the Gold Coast in the west, 
 they are pressing eagerly forward. Whole tribes and 
 nations have already been subdued, and the thin red 
 line of Christian missions, that stretches across Central 
 Africa, is in danger of being swept away. Shall the 
 Crescent or the Cross wave over Africa ? That is a 
 question which the next few years will decide. 
 
 As soon as we step ashore at Port Said we are assailed 
 by a frantic, yelling crew. Men and women, beggars and 
 r 33
 
 34 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 cripples, dogs and donkeys, threaten to tear and trample 
 each other for the possession of us. They thrust picture 
 post-cards at us, they insist on being our guides, they 
 give us not a moment's peace. A shrill-voiced urchin 
 hails everybody with the astounding remark, " I've 
 been to Auchtermuchty." He evidently finds this 
 an effective means of drawing the reluctant Scotch 
 bawbee. Another black imp salutes us familiarly with, 
 " Hello, Jock Ferguson frae Aiberdeen." We turn coldly 
 away and he goes elsewhere in search of Jock. But his 
 friend from the Granite City has either not come out 
 this trip or is keeping modestly in the background ! 
 
 Ah well, it is a saddening business, this degradation 
 of human nature. The East, they say, meets the West 
 at Port Said. Alas for such a meeting, which has 
 stripped the East of her ancient dignity and clothed her 
 in motley rags of contempt. We can at least avoid the 
 gross error of the globe-trotter who hastily judges the 
 whole wide East by the swarms of shameless beggars 
 that yell and struggle on the quays of seaport towns. 
 
 Right glad we are to get aboard again. Now we pass 
 slowly along the Suez Canal, that wonderful thread of 
 water which divides two continents and unites two 
 oceans. It is much like what one would expect, a mere 
 trench dug in the sand, straight, narrow, monotonous, 
 except where it broadens out in the middle at the Bitter 
 Lake. 
 
 A welcome relief it is when the boat ploughs into the 
 deep blue water of the Gulf of Suez. Still there is little 
 to be seen, but we remember the wonders of old. Near 
 the head of the gulf the Israelites made their memorable 
 crossing, and beneath these waves the proud hosts of 
 Pharaoh sleep their sleep. Down along that dreary, 
 barren coast, and in the wilderness that lies behind it, 
 Israel spent forty years of wandering. In the heart of 
 these rugged, granite crags towers the thunder-riven 
 peak of Sinai. 
 
 Half-way down the Red Sea we pass the port of 
 Jidda, and again we scan the bare hills with interest,
 
 DOWN THE RED SEA 35 
 
 for away behind them, in a narrow, barren valley, lies 
 Mecca, the holy city of the Moslems. Strange that this 
 desolate region should have been the cradle of two of 
 the world's great religions. Yet perhaps it is not so 
 strange, for the lonely, boundless desert, the solemn 
 mountains, and the changeless sky are most fitted to 
 impress on man his own nothingness and the omni- 
 potence of God. 
 
 Aden is our next stopping-place, and it may be of 
 interest to learn something of the founder of our mission 
 there, one of the noblest of missionary heroes. 
 
 I lived as a boy near a high old bridge, with narrow 
 roadway and low parapets. A long, straight avenue led 
 down to the bridge and, after crossing it, took a sharp 
 turn to the right. One of my earliest recollections is of 
 seeing a cyclist coming down the avenue at breakneck 
 speed, across the narrow bridge, and round the corner 
 like a flash. These were the days of high bicycles, and 
 even they were not very common. So it made an im- 
 mense impression on us to see a splendid fellow of six 
 foot three, mounted on a wheel of the same height 
 indeed he once rode a cycle seven foot two. When, 
 moreover, we knew that he had ridden from Land's End 
 to John o' Groats, had beaten the world's champion, and 
 broken more records than any living man, it is little 
 wonder that we watched him with feelings akin to awe. 
 The old folks shook their heads, saying he would go 
 over the bridge some day and break his neck. But he 
 lived to become our Church's pioneer in Aden. His 
 name was Ion Keith-Falconer, son of the eighth Earl of 
 Kintore. 
 
 His was a strenuous life. Endowed with the most 
 brilliant talents, added to the natural advantages of 
 wealth and noble birth, he might have aspired to a dis- 
 tinguished public career. When only twenty-nine he 
 was appointed Professor of Arabic at Cambridge. But 
 from his earliest boyhood the supreme passion of his 
 heart had been the winning of souls for Christ. Both in 
 Cambridge and London he laboured among the outcast,
 
 36 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 but ever he heard the cry of the heathen world and was 
 at last constrained to give his life to Arabia. 
 
 In 1886 he arrived in Aden, accompanied by his wife 
 and a medical missionary. With characteristic vigour 
 he set to work to establish a hospital and a school, 
 bearing the whole expense of the mission himself. The 
 beginnings were most hopeful, and it seemed as if he 
 was destined to become the apostle of South Arabia. 
 But it was not to be. Living in a low hut in the terrible 
 climate of Aden, he fell a victim to fever and died ere 
 he was thirty-one. How often it has happened that the 
 beginning of a mission has been the digging of a grave. 
 
 It may seem strange that God should take away one 
 so strong and gentle, so learned and humble, so true and 
 lovable, at the beginning of his career. But his death 
 moved the world more deeply than perhaps a long life- 
 time of service would have done. Many chivalrous 
 young hearts were thrilled by the devotion of this young 
 nobleman, and there were not wanting volunteers to fill 
 his place. 
 
 He had intended to hand over the hospital, when 
 finished, to our Church. When he died little more than 
 the foundations were laid. These the Church received 
 as a sacred legacy, and named the mission after its 
 founder. Thus the memory of Ion Keith-Falconer 
 will be kept alive in the land he loved and among the 
 people for whom he gave his life.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BARREN ROCK OF ADEN 
 
 WE emerge from the Red Sea through the Strait of Bab- 
 el-Mandeb, and a hundred miles to the east is Aden, the 
 Gibraltar of our Empire in Asia. As we sail into the 
 wide, open bay there towers up on the right a repulsive- 
 looking mass of black, barren rocks. In front, the low 
 sandy shore stretches away towards the illimitable 
 desert. The harbour is at Steamer Point, on the western 
 side of the rocky peninsula. 
 
 We visit first, as is fitting, the grave of Ion Keith- 
 Falconer in the little British cemetery. It is a dreary 
 spot, without a tree or a flower, but only the black rocks 
 behind and the barren sand in front, and choking dust 
 clouds driven along on the scorching wind. " If any 
 man serve Me, let him follow Me." As we read the in- 
 scription on the simple headstone, we think of that 
 noble young servant of Christ who might have enjoyed 
 a life of comfort and luxury amid earth's fairest scenes, 
 but who chose to follow the Master to this, the most 
 arid and dreary spot in the habitable globe. 
 
 At Steamer Point stands the Keith-Falconer Memorial 
 Church, a pretty little building, looking down on the 
 sea. It was built by the pennies of the Sunday School 
 scholars of the old Free Church, for the use of our 
 Scottish soldiers who may be in garrison at Aden. 
 During the week the soldiers use the vestry as a reading- 
 room, and tales could be told of both soldiers and sailors 
 who have been led to Jesus in that little church. 
 
 Now look straight north, across the bay and the flat, 
 sandy shore. On the distant horizon you can see the 
 top of a solitary building, outlined against the sky. 
 
 37
 
 38 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 It is the mission hospital at Sheikh-Othman, the greatest 
 blessing, perhaps, that ever came to South Arabia. 
 
 But ere we go out to it we must pay a brief visit to 
 the town of Aden. The road plunges in among the black 
 rocks and, winding through a narrow pass, runs into 
 the crater of an extinct volcano. Here we find the town, 
 shut up as in an oven, with a wall of cinder-like rock a 
 thousand feet high all round it, except for an opening 
 towards the sea. What must it be like to live, or rather 
 to bake, in this awful hole ! 
 
 Water is worth money here. In the rainy season it 
 streams down the bare rocks into great tanks prepared 
 to catch it. This is all that is to be had, unless you 
 drive a well a hundred feet down into the solid rock, or 
 distil the sea-water, as they do at Steamer Point. 
 
 Sheikh-Othman was chosen as the site of the hospital 
 because the place is healthier than Aden and is on the 
 highway to the interior. On the road we meet endless 
 strings of camels. Surely it must be some great market 
 day or camel show ! But no, they tell us, it is always 
 like this. These are the camels that bring to Aden for 
 shipment the coffee and gums and spices of Arabia. 
 More than a quarter of a million pass along this road 
 every year. As we watch their long, stately stride 
 across the level sand, our thoughts follow them to 
 the mysterious desert out of which they have come and 
 to which they are returning. 
 
 A strange and unknown land is Arabia, where the 
 wild bedouin pitches his tent beneath the palm trees 
 beside the spring. Rivers it has like every other land, 
 but none of them ever reach the sea. All are swallowed 
 up in the thirsty sand. Yet they do not run their course 
 in vain. Along their banks a little strip is rescued from 
 the desert and made green and fertile. 
 
 A mystic land, towards which the heart of every true 
 Moslem yearns. It is the cradle of his faith. Daily, 
 as he kneels on his carpet to pray, he turns his face to 
 Mecca. Seventy thousand pilgrims visit the holy city 
 every year, to kiss the Black Stone of the Kaaba, and
 
 THE BARREN ROCK OF ADEN 39 
 
 drink of the well Zemzem. Then they return home 
 again to die content, in the sure hope of Paradise. 
 
 At the southern gateway of this mysterious land 
 stands the mission hospital of Sheikh-Othman. Sorely 
 is it needed, for " Happy Araby " knows little of the 
 true healing either of body or of soul. Fifteen hun- 
 dred miles you may journey north from the hospital 
 and never meet a Christian missionary. Along the 
 four thousand miles of coast, from Sinai round to the 
 head of the Persian Gulf, there are but four mission 
 stations. To us it has fallen to lead the assault upon 
 the homeland of the Moslems and help to win its millions 
 from their blind devotion to the False Prophet to a 
 saving knowledge of Him who is the truth. 
 
 The hospital is a plain, substantial, square block, 
 three storeys high, with verandas on all the sides. 
 On an average more than a hundred patients come for 
 treatment every day. In the morning a brief service is 
 held on the veranda, and then a long, arduous day of 
 medical and surgical work begins. Many are cases of 
 desperate need. Patients have come long distances 
 to this as their last and only hope. Some have even been 
 weeks on the road, for the fame of the hospital has spread 
 far and wide. 
 
 With the fame of the hospital has spread also the 
 name and the love of Christ. Mohammedans everywhere 
 are hard to win, and in Arabia their fanatical hatred of 
 infidels is peculiarly intense. It is their boast that no 
 Christian may set foot in Mecca and live. But, even 
 in Arabia, hearts are touched by the gentle kindness of 
 the Christian physician. His work is a perpetual wonder 
 and mystery to the people. Who ever heard of a Moslem 
 helping a Christian ? Yet here are Christians spending 
 their lives in helping Moslems. Especially when they 
 have been healed, or someone dear to them has been 
 brought back from the gates of death, when the blind 
 man sees again the light of the sun, or the deaf woman 
 hears again the sweet voices of her children, then human 
 gratitude conquers Moslem hate.
 
 40 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 The mission doctor can travel unarmed and unharmed 
 through wide districts, far from Aden, where no other 
 foreigner would dare to go. Once he ventured into a 
 lawless district where was a notorious haunt of robbers. 
 The roadside was thickly marked with little cairns, 
 under each of which lay a murdered traveller. When he 
 entered the village and made himself known a woman 
 came hurrying out of a house with a bowl of milk and 
 a handful of scones. " You have come to me as the 
 guest of God," she said, " for you healed my son." On 
 another occasion three armed men rushed towards his 
 camel, seized the bridle and commanded it to kneel. 
 The doctor thought his last hour had come, but he was 
 speedily reassured when he found that the men had 
 been patients at the hospital, and now only wished him 
 to drink a cup of coffee with them ere he went on his 
 way. 
 
 Yet with all this friendliness and gratitude, it is des- 
 perately hard to be a Christian in Arabia. In some 
 places it would be certain death. Not long ago, the 
 Sultan of Lahej, the district immediately to the north 
 of Aden, threw a man into prison for no other offence 
 but suffering his sister to return to her husband who 
 had become a Christian. It is hardly to be wondered 
 at if few have the courage openly to confess Christ. 
 Shall we pray that the reign of the False Prophet may 
 come to a speedy end, and the fierce Moslems be sub- 
 dued by the love of Christ ?
 
 PART II 
 INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A TRIANGLE AND TWO RIVERS 
 
 FROM Aden we pass to India, the greatest and, in 
 some respects, the most entrancing field of our Church's 
 foreign mission work. 
 
 At the magic name of India there rise up before the 
 mind's eye palaces and temples, with their shining 
 domes and gilded minarets, processions of ponderous 
 elephants go trooping past, stealthy tigers creep through 
 the jungle, stately palm trees lift their graceful heads 
 to the sunny sky. It is a land of old renown and of 
 thrilling story. When we speak of " Oriental splen- 
 dour " we pay a tribute to the magnificence of India's 
 princes and the matchless palaces of the Great Mogul. 
 When we think of the Mutiny the pulse beats high at 
 the memory of Lucknow and the Ridge at Delhi. 
 
 India is not a single country, but a continent, over- 
 whelming in its vastness and bewildering in the variety 
 of its races and tribes and tongues. Here 300 millions 
 of the human race find their home. No one knows the 
 whole of India. Those who have lived there longest are 
 the most ready to confess their ignorance. It is left to 
 the restless globe-trotter, who has rushed across country 
 from Bombay to Calcutta, or the self-confident shipman 
 who has sailed up the Hugli, to speak with authority 
 about this mighty land. 
 
 A glance at the map of India shows that the southern 
 part has the shape of an inverted triangle. Near the 
 
 41
 
 42 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 three corners of the triangle, roughly speaking, will be 
 found the three great cities of Bombay, Calcutta, and 
 Madras. In each of these cities our Church has a mis- 
 sionary college. Draw a line from Bombay to Calcutta 
 and near the middle of it is Nagpur, the capital of the 
 Central Provinces, where a fourth college is planted, 
 not so large as the other three. 
 
 A closer scrutiny of the map reveals the fact that the 
 hills of India also form a triangle, lying within the first. 
 Starting near the southern end of the peninsula, two 
 ranges, the Eastern and Western Ghats, run up parallel 
 to the two coasts, leaving a strip of flat land between 
 their bases and the sea. Across the north run the 
 Vindhya and Satpura Mountains. Within the triangle 
 thus formed lie the Highlands of Hindustan and, in the 
 south, the great upland known as the Dekhan. The 
 north-west corner is marked by the Aravallies in the 
 centre Of Rajputana, while at the north-east corner 
 stands the sacred hill of Parasnath, concerning both of 
 which we shall have .more to say. 
 
 Beyond the .mountain triangle stretches an immense 
 plain which covers the whole of North India and forms 
 the basin of two of the world's mightiest rivers, the 
 Ganges and the Indus. Rising together in the far north, 
 the Indus flows south-west to the Arabian Sea, the 
 Ganges south-east to the Bay of Bengal, and between 
 them they drain the half of India. Beyond the two 
 rivers, shutting off India from the rest of Asia, runs the 
 gigantic rocky wall of the Himalayas, whose glittering 
 snowy peaks, as they pierce the blue, can be seen far 
 over the burning plain. 
 
 Of the peoples that inhabit this land many, strange 
 to say, are our own cousins, though the exact degree of 
 cousinship would be hard to tell. Ages ago our ancestors 
 and theirs lived together somewhere in the heart of 
 Asia, forming one people and speaking one language. 
 But, by and by, when our ancestors moved west into 
 Europe, the Hindus moved south and occupied India. 
 
 They were not the first inhabitants, but found an
 
 RELIEF MAP OF INDIA 
 
 To face page 42
 
 A TRIANGLE AND TWO RIVERS 43 
 
 older race whom they drove up into the hills, just as our 
 ancestors drove the Celts. Some of these aboriginal 
 tribes still survive, of whom may be mentioned the Bhils 
 in the Aravalli Mountains and the Santals in the jungle 
 around Parasnath. Among both these peoples our 
 missionaries work. It is curious to reflect that there 
 is a wider difference of race between a Rajput and a 
 Bhil, or between a Brahmin and a Santal, though they 
 are next-door neighbours, than between a Scotsman and 
 a Rajput or a Brahmin. 
 
 About the time of the Norman Conquest there came 
 another great invasion of India. Hordes of Mohamme- 
 dans forced their way through the mountains of the 
 north-west and poured down upon the plain of the two 
 rivers. There they gradually established a powerful 
 empire, till the Great Mogul, seated on the Peacock 
 Throne in Delhi, was the overlord of all India. This 
 accounts for the fact that there are over sixty million 
 Mohammedans in India to-day. 
 
 Two Hindu races, however, maintained, in their 
 mountain fastnesses, a heroic struggle against the proud 
 Mohammedans. They were the Rajputs and the 
 Marathas. Immediately to the south of Delhi, in the 
 north-west corner of the mountain triangle, dwelt the 
 Rajputs, whose hill-forts among the Aravallies even 
 Akbar the Great could never thoroughly subdue. The 
 hills to the south-east of Bombay were the home of the 
 Marathas, among whom arose a hero second to none in 
 the annals of daring and chivalry. As the Mogul Empire 
 decayed the Marathas overran Central India and their 
 wild cavalry carried the terror of their name to every 
 corner of the land. The chief seat of their power was 
 at Poona, and from there westward to Nagpur is still 
 known as the Maratha country. 
 
 Having now gained some idea of the land in general, 
 and especially of the chief centres where our missions 
 are to be found, it will be most natural and easy to visit 
 them in the following order. We land at Bombay and 
 take our first impressions of the country and the people
 
 44 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 and the work. Next, we shall visit the Maratha country. 
 Then, returning to Bombay, strike due north to Rajpu- 
 tana. From there cross the north of India to Calcutta, 
 travelling down the Ganges valley through the renowned 
 cities of the Moguls and the Mutiny country, and 
 visiting on the way the Santals in the jungle around 
 Parasnath. From Calcutta a voyage down the Coro- 
 mandel coast to Madras will complete our survey.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IN THE BAZAAR 
 
 THE approach to India is not impressive. Seven days 
 east of Aden, a lone, low hill appears on the horizon and 
 behind it is the city of Bombay. The island, on which 
 the city stands, lies close to the shore, making a sheltered 
 roadstead between it and the mainland. At the south 
 end of the island is a wide, horseshoe bay, and, as we 
 sail past, we see a fine esplanade sweeping round the 
 sea front. Yonder, at the head of the bay, stands our 
 missionary college, named after its founder Dr. John 
 Wilson, one of the greatest names in the missionary 
 history of India. Immediately behind the college can 
 be seen the Towers of Silence, where the Parsees expose 
 their dead to be devoured by vultures, so that the sacred 
 elements of fire, air, earth, and water may not be pol- 
 luted. 
 
 Steaming round the eastmost horn of the bay, with 
 the gaudy lighthouse at its extremity, we enter the 
 spacious harbour, beautified with islands and crowded 
 with shipping. The city opens out before us, not in the 
 least like the India of our dreams, but exactly like 
 one of our home cities, with massive lines of warehouses, 
 and scores of factory chimneys blackening the air with 
 their smoke. We land and find the tramcar, the post 
 office, the railway station. 
 
 Do not be deceived nor disappointed. This is not 
 India, it is but England on Indian soil. The real India 
 has yet to be seen. All over this great land our fellow- 
 countrymen are to be met rulers, soldiers, planters, 
 traders. They have done much for India, but they 
 are not India. For the most part their life is separate 
 
 45
 
 46 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 and distinct. The European quarter in the cities lies 
 apart from the native, and the military cantonment is 
 a town by itself. Many live in India for years and never 
 see the native in his own home. Some of these are the 
 people who come back and declare they never met a 
 native Christian nor saw a native church. I knew a 
 man who lived for years in India and never saw a snake 
 but then he never went to look for snakes. 
 
 We have come to see the real India, and get to know, 
 as far as may be, the heart of its people, and what the 
 Gospel is doing for them. We turn our steps, therefore, 
 to the native quarter of the city for our first glimpse 
 of the people in their own homes. 
 
 The bazaar is a feature of every Indian city. The 
 word has no such associations as it has with us. It 
 simply denotes the quarter of the city where the 
 native shops are. Usually it is a terrible tangle of narrow 
 streets and crooked lanes. The houses are thrown to- 
 gether without any uniform plan, except the uniformity 
 of being all awry. They " reel like a row of drunken 
 men arm in arm." The shops have neither doors, 
 windows, nor counters. The whole front is open to 
 the street and the shopman sits on the floor inside with 
 all his goods around him. Here he lives, cooks his 
 dinner, washes his face, changes his clothes all in 
 the face of the public. Many of these shopkeepers are 
 craftsmen as well. The potter sits at his wheel, next 
 door is the blacksmith. Here is the goldbeater, and, 
 beside him, the worker in brass. Every variety of handi- 
 craft is to be found in the bazaar. 
 
 An hour or two of wandering through these bewilder- 
 ing lanes has stamped some vivid impressions on our 
 minds impressions which a wider experience of India 
 will only confirm. 
 
 The first impression is of a land teeming with life, 
 human and animal. The narrow streets and lanes are 
 thronged and congested with endless moving masses 
 of brown people. Yet only a fraction of India's millions 
 live in the cities. The profusion of animal life is even
 
 IN THE BAZAAR 47 
 
 more striking. All sorts of strange creatures thrust 
 themselves into the streets in the most incongruous 
 fashion. Grey Indian crows and chattering minas hop 
 about as thick as sparrows, goats plough their way 
 through the traffic, ponderous bullocks saunter along 
 the pavement and lie down to sleep at the shop doors, 
 troops of monkeys scream and fight upon the house- 
 tops. 
 
 Another impression is of glaring light and vivid 
 colours. The sun beats with dazzling effect on the white 
 walls, the shadows are black and deep. The moving 
 crowd has all the colours of a carnival, the men in white 
 with turbans of green and yellow, the women in hoods of 
 blue. All so different from the dull browns and sombre 
 greys that fill our streets at home. 
 
 But impressions of a less pleasing kind begin to pre- 
 vail. On every hand we are assailed by filth and evil 
 smells. Rudyard Kipling, who was born in Bombay, 
 can say no more than this for his native city, that its 
 odour is a degree less horrible than Calcutta's. Bombay, 
 he assures us, has " a veneer of asafoetida " which 
 Calcutta lacks ! Mark the three little red circles on the 
 door yonder. That spells three cases of plague. In 
 these stifling lanes and filthy hovels the dreaded plague 
 lurks and festers continually, and, at times, rising on the 
 putrid air, it carries off its victims in tens of thousands. 
 
 The sun glares down mercilessly out of an aching 
 empty sky. We begin to feel the oppressiveness of a 
 dusty, weary land, and as we gaze more narrowly on 
 the passing crowd, we seem to see on many faces a 
 weary, burdened look. They wear the aspect of a 
 soft-treading, much-enduring people, patiently bowing 
 under the yoke of their fate, but with little zest in life 
 and less hope in death. 
 
 But, hark, the singing ! It sounds like " Rock of 
 Ages." How strange to hear the old familiar tune in 
 a place like this ! The music comes from a little group 
 gathered at the street corner, exactly like an open-air 
 meeting at home.
 
 48 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 It is one of our missionaries preaching in the bazaar. 
 He stands in the centre of the group with a ring of 
 native helpers round him. One leads the singing with 
 a concertina. The tune is familiar but the words are 
 strange. We may hazard a guess that they are Marathi 
 or Gujarati, although sixty languages are spoken in the 
 city. 
 
 The crowd increases, shopmen lean out of their shops 
 to listen, passers-by linger a few moments. The hymn 
 concluded, the missionary begins to speak. He is inter- 
 rupted, somebody in the crowd appears to ask a ques- 
 tion, a rough fellow moves away with a harsh laugh. 
 A face here and there betrays interest, but most show 
 merely blank indifference or idle curiosity. Another 
 hymn and the crowd breaks up. 
 
 What do these brown men and women think of it 
 all ? The missionary stands for a few moments survey- 
 ing the ceaseless throng. In his heart is a prayer that 
 the good seed sown by the wayside may not be lost, 
 but may spring up somewhere and be reaped in God's 
 great harvest day. As he passes up the street he sees 
 an old man at his shop door, with spectacles on, poring 
 over a tract that was put in his hand an hour ago.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CASTE AND OUTCAST 
 
 \ 
 
 OVER, two hundred millions of the people of India are 
 Hindus. They, with the sixty-two millions of Moham- 
 medans, make up nine-tenths of the population. The 
 remaining tenth is divided into various sects, of which 
 one only need be mentioned here the Parsees. There 
 are less than a hundred thousand of them in all India, 
 but seventy thousand live in Bombay and are by far 
 the wealthiest and best educated of the natives. Many 
 of the merchant princes of Bombay are Parsees. 
 
 The Hindu religion is an amazing labyrinth. There 
 are actually more gods in India than human beings. 
 The sacred books give the number as 330 millions. 
 All these are regarded as in some way part of one divine 
 essence, though some are more renowned and more 
 widely worshipped than others. The whole land is 
 filled with sacred places, from the stateliest temple to 
 the rude shrine at which the peasant offers his handful 
 of rice. Images abound everywhere under a tree, 
 down by the stream, at the end of the village street for 
 everywhere are the demons and spirits that need to be 
 appeased. At certain seasons gorgeous festivals are 
 held, and the holy cities draw their thousands of pil- 
 grims from all parts. 
 
 The Hindu believes that at death his soul will enter 
 another body, it may be of man or bird or beast. " Do 
 you hear the bird singing yonder in the tree ? " said an 
 aged Hindu to his friend. " If you hear such a voice 
 when I am gone, think that it may be me. I will come 
 and sing to you if I can." But no Hindu can tell what 
 E 49
 
 50 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 his future life will be, and the awful uncertainty lies 
 dark upon his spirit. 
 
 Hindu society is divided into a number of castes or 
 grades which are rigidly separate from one another. 
 The members of a caste are held to be descended from 
 a common ancestor, and they usually follow the same 
 occupation, generation after generation. No man can 
 ever rise to be a member of a higher caste than that in 
 which he was born. 
 
 The highest caste is that of the Brahmins, the here- 
 ditary priests of India, who number fifteen millions, 
 though less than three millions are actually engaged 
 in religious service. In all, over two thousand castes 
 have been enumerated, shading down through varying 
 degrees from the Brahmin at the top to the Pariah at the 
 bottom of the scale. 
 
 Each caste has its own rules and customs which strictly 
 govern the lives of its members, prescribing in minute 
 detail what they must eat and drink and wear. These 
 rules are as binding as the Ten Commandments. The 
 one deadly sin is to break caste. A Hindu would 
 shudder at the thought, as we should at suicide. His 
 own mother would sooner see him laid in the grave, 
 his whole family would be overwhelmed with grief 
 and shame. 
 
 Caste is the bitterest foe of the Gospel in India. 
 Where caste reigns there can be no Christian brother- 
 hood. To sit at the Lord's Table and break bread with 
 foreigners or with men of other castes is impossible till 
 caste is utterly renounced. What that means can only 
 be imagined by those who know the tyranny of caste. 
 Our earliest native convert in Western India, when he 
 came to his first communion, was torn with fearful 
 emotions, and when, at length, the sacred bread was 
 offered him, he started up, crying out, " I cannot break 
 my caste," and rushed distracted from the church. 
 
 It may be imagined then what a storm arose in 
 Bombay when Dr. Wilson, having planted our mission- 
 ary college in that city, began to make converts among
 
 CASTE AND OUTCAST 51 
 
 his students. The whole city was in an uproar and the 
 young men had to take refuge in Dr. Wilson's house. 
 Appeal was made to the law courts, parents took per- 
 jured oaths that their sons were under age and must 
 be given up, the lives of the missionary and his con- 
 verts were in daily peril. 
 
 Similar scenes were witnessed in Calcutta and else- 
 where, and the same bitter spirit still lives in India, 
 especially in the small towns and secluded villages, 
 where feelings of caste are strongest and the Brahmin 
 holds undisputed sway. Young converts have been 
 kidnapped and imprisoned, some even put to death. 
 Over the fate of others a dark cloud hangs. They dis- 
 appeared and were never more heard of. 
 
 The bitterness, the fury, the cruel bigotry of caste can 
 barely be imagined. Venkata Rau was a drunkard 
 and a profligate whose family and friends had turned 
 their backs upon him. The only exception was his 
 wife, who still fondly clung to him. By God's grace he 
 became a Christian, and, as soon as she heard it, his 
 faithful wife fled away from him in horror. A drunkard 
 and a profligate she could endure, but not a Christian, 
 not a man who had broken caste. 
 
 It is an appalling prospect for a Hindu when he stands 
 on the brink of decision for Christ. His heart is rent 
 in twain, every tender link of home and childhood must 
 be snapped, he must literally forsake all if he would 
 follow Jesus. No wonder there are many secret dis- 
 ciples among the Hindus. Who could greatly blame 
 one who says, " I cannot break my mother's heart. 
 Let my old father go down to the grave in peace." In 
 some cases a man's own family will entreat him, saying, 
 " Worship God as you will. Be a Christian at heart. 
 Only we beseech you, do not bring sorrow and shame 
 upon us all by breaking caste." Is it surprising if some 
 yield, and silence, as best they can, the reproaches of 
 an uneasy conscience ? 
 
 But there are others who have heard the voice of 
 Jesus, saying, " He that loveth father or mother more
 
 52 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 than Me is not worthy of Me," and at that voice they 
 have forsaken all. Among Dr. Wilson's early converts 
 there were two whose names became household words 
 in Scotland. 
 
 The first was a Parsee, called Dhanjibhai Nauroji. 
 With two student friends he confessed Christ in 1839. 
 The wealthy and powerful Parsees were furious at his 
 conversion. He had to be guarded by soldiers in Dr. 
 Wilson's house. He was shot at through the window. 
 For six months he dared not show face. But he 
 stood firm, and, after three years of study in Edin- 
 burgh, he was ordained to the Christian ministry by 
 Dr. Candlish in Tanfield Hall. His dark face, with 
 pointed turban, appears in D. O. Hill's famous picture 
 of the Disruption, inserted along with that of Adolph 
 Saphir as the first-fruits of the Church's work in foreign 
 fields. Nauroji lived to become the " grand old man " 
 of the Church in Western India, and died in 1908, in 
 the eighty-seventh year of his age and the sixty -third 
 of his ministry the last survivor of all the notable 
 faces in the historic Disruption picture. 
 
 The other convert was Narayan Sheshadri, a Brahmin, 
 who was baptised in 1843. Thirty years after, referring 
 to that never-to-be-forgotten day, he said, " It was 
 terrible to be torn from a beloved father, from four 
 brothers and three sisters, and from a loving mother 
 the like of whom I have not seen among my people. 
 My elder brother received such a shock, when he heard 
 of my conversion, that he went out of his mind. But, 
 when I thought of the Lord Jesus leaving the bosom 
 of the everlasting Father and shedding His precious 
 blood upon the accursed tree, I saw that it was worth 
 while giving up everything for His sake even life 
 itself, if need be." 
 
 This noble Brahmin, leaving his home and renouncing 
 the exclusive privilege of his priestly caste, made him- 
 self the servant of the meanest of his people for Jesus' 
 sake. He spent a long life as a Christian minister, 
 labouring at Jalna among the Mangs and Mahars, the
 
 CASTE AND OUTCAST 53 
 
 lowest castes in the Marat ha country people whose 
 very shadow in passing is pollution to a Brahmin. Such 
 a life foretells the day when, in Christ, there shall be 
 neither caste nor outcast, but one great brotherhood, 
 embracing India's millions.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE PRIDE OF THE PESHWAS 
 
 THE country to the south-east of Bombay is known as the 
 Maratha country. The railway runs through the 
 Konkan, a narrow strip of plain between the Western 
 Ghats and the sea, and interesting as the place where 
 Scotland first preached the Gospel in India. 
 
 Gradually we draw nearer the hills, which tower like 
 a great wall on the left. Now we begin the steep ascent 
 with the help of a special engine. Up and up the line 
 goes for fifteen miles. Every mile the air feels fresher, 
 still hot, indeed, but not like the sweltering plain below. 
 Now we reach the summit and rush away across the 
 broad Dekhan. Forty-two miles more and we are in 
 Poona. 
 
 Poona is an important and historic city. Here, on 
 the bank of the Mutha, 150,000 people find their home. 
 In the busy streets can be heard the click of the silk 
 and cotton weaver's loom, and the ring of the metal- 
 worker's hammer. Four months in the year the Gover- 
 nor of Bombay comes up to Poona to escape the stifling 
 heat of the capital, and breathe the purer air of the 
 Dekhan. 
 
 But Poona has little respect for the Government. 
 On the contrary, it has long been a stronghold of Hindu- 
 ism and of disloyalty. The Brahmins of Poona are the 
 cleverest, proudest, and bitterest of their race. Watch 
 some of the faces in the street. Mark the small, square, 
 shaven head, the heavy brows shadowing the glittering 
 eyes, the thin and tightly drawn lips. These are men 
 of subtle mind, of invincible pride, of pitiless cruelty. 
 
 Poona is a most religious place. On a low hill to the 
 
 54
 
 THE PRIDE OF THE PESHWAS 55 
 
 south of the city stands the temple of Parvati, a famous 
 shrine of Hinduism. Unhappily religion here does not 
 mean morality. Quite the reverse. At that abominable 
 shrine on the hill fair young girls are bought by the 
 priests or dedicated by their parents to a life of shame. 
 So that, as a native Christian said, the whole region 
 round has " the smell of Satan." 
 
 The pride of Poona has roots of patriotism as well as 
 of religion. The city is divided into seven wards, named 
 after the seven days of the week. In the Saturday ward 
 stands the ruined palace of the Peshwas. Only the wall 
 remains, but to the Brahmin it speaks stirringly of a 
 glorious past. 
 
 Two centuries and a half ago, about the time our 
 forefathers were contending for Christ's crown and cove- 
 nant, there arose a hero among the Marathas, by name 
 Sivaji, who performed amazing exploits against the 
 powers of the Great Mogul. From the city can be seen 
 a bold, square peak in the range of hills to the south. 
 On that peak was " the lion's den," as the Marathas 
 called it, the old fort of Singarh, in which Sivaji lurked 
 and out of which he leaped with unerring swiftness upon 
 his prey. A " mountain rat " the Great Mogul dubbed 
 him in contempt, but Aurungzebe could neither catch 
 nor kill the rat. His gorgeous armies were worn out in 
 the long campaigns, and, as the Mogul Empire decayed, 
 the Marathas became a power in the land. 
 
 But the Peshwas ? They were the hereditary Prime 
 Ministers of the Maratha state, who gradually took into 
 their own hands the whole royal power, till the Peshwa's 
 palace in Poona became the governing centre of the 
 kingdom. Still their empire grew and spread over 
 the broad Dekhan. Nothing could withstand the wild 
 onrush of their cavalry. Flying squadrons of marauders 
 watered their horses at every stream in India, while 
 English merchants trembled behind their desks in Cal- 
 cutta and dug the Maratha trench in front of the town. 
 
 Then Wellington came he was not the Iron Duke 
 in those days, but plain General Wellesley and he
 
 56 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 smashed the Maratha power. The battle was fought at 
 Assaye, a hundred miles west of Poona, in the district 
 where we now have our Jalna mission. It was the most 
 fiercely contested battle our soldiers had up till then 
 fought in India, and by it the Empire of India passed 
 from the Marathas to the British. 
 
 When our missionaries first went to Poona in 1831, 
 these events were fresh in the minds of the people. 
 Men were still living who had seen the Peshwa's palace 
 in flames. It could hardly be expected that they should 
 welcome the Gospel. The hand that had smitten with 
 the sword now offered the Bible. It seemed treason to 
 accept it, and, to this day, it is counted unpatriotic 
 among the Marathas to be a Christian. 
 
 Nowhere is Christian love and patience more sorely 
 tried than in the proud city of Poona. The preacher 
 of the Gospel, as he stands in the street delivering his 
 message, is an object of public scorn. Passing Brahmins 
 jeer at him and sometimes he may require police pro- 
 tection from the violence of the mob. Now and again 
 some precious fruits are gathered, and a little Christian 
 congregation worships in Poona. A hospital also has 
 recently been built, where works of healing, done in 
 the name of Christ, may help somewhat to soften preju- 
 dice. But the ranks of the proud Brahmins remain 
 practically unbroken. They turn from the Gospel with 
 disdain. 
 
 It is written that God hath chosen the foolish things 
 of the world to confound the wise, and the base things 
 of the world and things that are despised to confound 
 the mighty. So has it come to pass in India. As the 
 Brahmins are above all other castes, so, beneath all 
 others, are the Mangs, or village menials, who stand next 
 to the Pariahs or outcasts. One step above the Mangs 
 are the Mahars or village messengers. In the old days 
 in Poona the Brahmins imposed three degrading laws 
 upon the Mahars. They must wear a necklace of black 
 wool to mark them out when they went on their errands. 
 They must trail a palm branch tied to their waists and
 
 THE PRIDE OF THE PESHWAS 57 
 
 hanging down behind so as to sweep the road and 
 cleanse it from the pollution of their footprints. They 
 must also carry a vessel in which to spit that the road 
 might not be defiled. Meantime my lord the Brahmin 
 stalked along spitting to his heart's content. Such is 
 Brahmin pride, and such the contempt with which the 
 lowest castes are regarded. 
 
 Now, behold the grace of our Saviour. While the 
 Brahmin has rejected the message of salvation multi- 
 tudes of the lowest castes have gladly welcomed it. 
 From among the Mangs and Mahars have come most 
 of our converts in the Maratha country. Of course, the 
 Brahmin sneers and says the Gospel is only fit for 
 sweepers, even as of old the Pharisees said, " the friend 
 of publicans and sinners." 
 
 A hundred miles north-east of Poona is Jalna, and 
 there you will find hundreds of low-caste people in our 
 mission churches. It was among them that Dr. Narayan 
 Sheshadri spent his long life of noble and Christ -like 
 service. He it was who founded in 1869 the Christian 
 village of Bethel, for the relief of those who, through 
 accepting the Gospel, had lost their employment. 
 
 Sometimes we hear talk at home about " rice Chris- 
 tians," and it is said that these low-caste people come to 
 the mission for what they will get. If that is their 
 motive they soon find out their mistake, for even Mangs 
 and Mahars have much to suffer for Jesus' sake. An 
 incident which happened not long ago in one of the 
 villages near Jalna will show the splendid faith and 
 fortitude of these despised converts. 
 
 It is the duty of the Mangs to beat the drums at the 
 village festivals. After becoming Christians many still 
 continued to do so, saying they could beat the drum 
 without worshipping the idol. It was dangerous ground, 
 and the missionary, when he came to visit them, urged 
 them to be out and out for Christ, even at the risk of 
 their daily bread. The Mangs discussed the matter 
 among themselves and prayed about it. It was a 
 terrible strait to be in, for they were pitifully poor.
 
 58 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 " I was sitting at my tent door in the bright moon- 
 light," writes the missionary, " when I heard the village 
 drums begin to beat. Nearer and nearer the sound came, 
 mingled with shouting. What could it mean ? Were 
 the people defiant ? At last I caught the words, ' Christ 
 maharajki jai ! ' Victory to Christ ! and then I knew 
 what it meant. Up they came, a triumphant throng, the 
 drummers drumming as they had never drummed before. 
 Casting down the drums upon the ground, they raised 
 again the shout, * Victory to Christ ! ' Then, standing 
 in the moonlight, grouped around the fallen emblems 
 of their bondage, we sang together the doxology, and it 
 was as the voice of a mighty host that had gained a great 
 victory." 
 
 How miserable is the Brahmin's pride ! " Hath not 
 God chosen the poor of India, rich in faith, and heirs 
 of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that 
 love Him?"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AS THE SAND OF THE SEA 
 
 IN the spring of 1845 a tall horseman rode out of the 
 city of Poona, accompanied by a lady borne along in a 
 palanquin. The horseman is Stephen Hislop, our 
 first missionary to Nagpur. He has a six weeks' ride 
 before him ere his destination is reached, five hundred 
 miles east of Bombay. 
 
 The church in Nagpur will long cherish the memory of 
 his remarkable career and work, how he preached and 
 taught and studied, how he discovered the coalfields of 
 Central India, how his first convert lay four months 
 in prison till Hislop made all India ring about it, how 
 he saved the English residents from massacre at the 
 time of the Mutiny, and how, at last, his brave and noble 
 life came to a tragic end, on the dark night when he 
 rode over the bank of a swollen stream, and horse and 
 rider were swept away. 
 
 Nagpur, in the old Maratha days, was the seat of the 
 Bhonsla princes, to-day it is the capital of the Central 
 Provinces. Our mission here has been called a " model 
 mission." It embraces every department of missionary 
 work. There is the Hislop College with its hostels. 
 There are street preachers and zenana visitors. There 
 are schools for boys and girls, a dispensary, and a book- 
 shop for Christian literature. In the country districts 
 round there are numerous centres of work among the 
 villages. 
 
 India is, above everything, a land of villages. Take 
 the biggest wall-map of India and a pepper-box. 
 Sprinkle the pepper all over the map, giving an extra 
 shake or two above the part that represents the Ganges 
 
 59
 
 60 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 valley. Then say to yourself, " Each of these innumer- 
 able grains is a village." The land is covered with them. 
 They seem to have fallen as thick as snowflakes on 
 every plain and vale and hill. Their actual number is 
 over half a million, and 285 millions of people live in 
 them. So that, for every native that lives in the cities 
 of India, twenty live in the villages. 
 
 Now shut your eyes and think. Here we are at 
 Nagpur, in the heart of this mighty land. A thousand 
 miles it stretches to north and to south of us ; the dis- 
 tance east and west is hardly less great. Everywhere 
 throughout the length and breadth of it the villages are 
 scattered, " as the stars of the sky in multitude and as 
 the sand which is by the seashore innumerable." If 
 one were to start on a journey through the villages of 
 India, spending only a single day in each, it would take 
 fourteen hundred years to complete the journey. Need- 
 less to say, nobody has ever attempted it, nobody has 
 ever been in all the villages of India. 
 
 Yet there they all are, each one containing on an 
 average five to six hundred men, women, and children, 
 who are born and die, toil and play, joy and sorrow, just 
 as people do in a Scottish village. 
 
 The headman of the village is the patel, and, assisting 
 him, is the patwari or village clerk, usually a Brahmin, 
 who keeps a record of the village lands. Besides those 
 who cultivate the land there are the village artisans 
 the carpenter, the blacksmith, the potter, the barber, 
 etc., who are paid for their work by receiving a share 
 of the harvest. Each of the trades belongs to a separate 
 caste, so that the carpenter's son must be a carpenter 
 and the potter's son a potter. 
 
 The village houses are mere huts with thatched roofs, 
 but many have quite an air of respectability with their 
 whitewashed walls and neat verandas. Outside the 
 village wall are huddled together the homes of the out- 
 casts, wretched hovels where dwell the leather workers 
 and pariahs of all sorts who are counted too unclean to 
 tread the village street.
 
 AS THE SAND OF THE SEA 61 
 
 Such is the Indian village, and such it has been from 
 time immemorial. India's thrilling history has left no 
 mark upon her villages. Invaders have come down from 
 the mountains and up from the sea, empires have risen 
 and fallen, but ever the village ryot followed his patient 
 oxen, and the village potter spun his wheel. It is said 
 there may still be found, in remote districts, some who 
 believe that the Great Mogul is reigning to this day in 
 Delhi. 
 
 It is evening, and the lengthening shadows are wel- 
 come after the glaring heat of the day. Round the 
 village well the men have gathered for their chat and 
 smoke in the gloaming. Suddenly there is a stir, caused 
 by the appearance of a company of strangers. It is the 
 missionary, who is on tour with some of his native 
 helpers. This is not the first time he has been in the 
 village, else the excitement would be greater, and end- 
 less questions would have to be answered. The mis- 
 sionary has been here before, and indeed there are one 
 or two Christian families in the village. 
 
 The news spreads and the crowd about the well 
 thickens rapidly. Not that there is general interest in 
 the preacher's message. Far from that ! But the 
 meeting is a welcome diversion, and the people are dis- 
 posed to be friendly, keeping, at the same time, on their 
 guard, for they have heard of magic powders that can 
 bewitch the soul. 
 
 So they gather round with some curiosity, but no 
 sense of reverence. The native evangelist is the first to 
 speak, and, with marvellous patience and earnestness, 
 he holds on his way, under a running fire of comments, 
 questions, and objections, foolish and otherwise. 
 
 Meantime darkness has fallen, and the magic-lantern 
 is produced and focussed, the screen being simply 
 stretched across the street. The lantern is always a 
 draw. Even the supercilious Brahmin comes sneaking 
 up at the back of the crowd. Pictures of the Saviour 
 are never shown, for fear it should be thought they were 
 sacred pictures to be worshipped. But the parables are
 
 62 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 depicted and many other Bible scenes, familiar to us 
 but wonderfully fresh to the people of the East, who, 
 to-day as of old, are never weary of a story. 
 
 By and by a bitter opponent discovers himself in the 
 audience. He interrupts, mocks, questions, till the 
 speaker is in despair. The situation is rapidly getting 
 beyond endurance when relief comes from an unexpected 
 quarter. A certain long-eared animal, that is wandering 
 round the outskirts of the crowd, suddenly commands 
 the attention of the company by uttering a loud hee- 
 haw. Whereupon the speaker, fixing his eye upon the 
 obnoxious individual (not the donkey), says, in quiet, 
 clear tones, " You may go home now, your brother is 
 calling you." This sally is greeted with general laughter, 
 and the objector is sufficiently discomfited to hold his 
 tongue. 
 
 The Gospel story is resumed, and the attention of 
 the hearers deepens. It seems as if the Word has 
 gripped. After a long hour the service ends and the 
 crowd breaks up. " Sahib, it is a good word," some of 
 them say, but they feel that, somehow, it belongs to 
 a different world from theirs. They cannot dream of 
 change. 
 
 To the Christians in the village this visit has been as 
 water to a thirsty land. After the meeting they sit and 
 talk with the missionary, far into the night. They have 
 much to tell of trial and difficulty. Work has been hard 
 to get, an attempt has been made to forbid them water 
 from the village well, scorn and abuse have been heaped 
 upon them. Yet they are hopeful and confident. Pre- 
 judice is beginning to break down, and Christian patience 
 will surely win the day. 
 
 They have a request to make which has long lain on 
 their hearts. Could not a native teacher be stationed 
 in the village ? They have spoken to the patel about 
 it and he is favourable. Ground could be got, and a 
 little house built for church and school. But the 
 missionary sadly shakes his head. It is a splendid 
 opening, for the village lies in the centre of a densely
 
 AS THE SAND OF THE SEA 63 
 
 populated district. But it would cost twenty pounds, 
 and he knows he cannot get a single penny more. 
 
 Stretched upon his tent bed, he turns it over in his 
 mind. " Oh the pity of it ! Only twenty pounds ! If 
 every member of the home Church would give but a 
 single halfpenny in fifty years, that would do it. Surely 
 not a heavy tax a halfpenny per lifetime, centenarians 
 one penny ! " He smiles a weary smile which is a sigh, 
 and so sleeps. 
 
 At the first streak of dawn he is up and out, for 
 another long day is ahead of him. Some of the villagers 
 stand round to see the start. " Sahib, when will you 
 return ? " one asks. But the sahib cannot tell. There 
 are sixteen hundred other villages in his parish, every 
 one as needy as this one. Who knows when he will be 
 back, or how the little handful of disciples will fare till 
 his return ? God give them grace to stand true ! As he 
 moves off, again the thought conies to him, " Ah, that 
 twenty pounds ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BEHIND THE PURDAH 
 
 A HINDU writer has said that, though there are many 
 sects in India, all are agreed on two main points, the 
 sanctity of the cow and the depravity of women. There 
 is, unhappily, too much truth in that saying. 
 
 The life of the women in India is full of dark tragedy. 
 They suffer many things we dare not write about, and 
 shudder to think of. Multitudes, no doubt, are con- 
 tented and happy enough, never having known any other 
 mode of life, but multitudes more carry weary hearts, 
 and daily feel the degradation and misery of their lot. 
 
 Home in India is not what home is in Scotland. When 
 the young bridegroom is leaving the house on his wedding 
 morning, his mother asks him, " Baba, where are you 
 going ? " "To bring in your maidservant," he replies. 
 And that, in reality, is what he does. The young couple 
 do not settle in a cosy little home of their own, but the 
 bride comes to live at her husband's father's house, 
 where his married brothers with their wives and children 
 live, and where she is under the rule of her mother-in- 
 law. She does not sit at table with her husband, but 
 serves him first and then eats what is left. In every way 
 she is treated as an inferior being. 
 
 Three great wrongs are inflicted on the women of India. 
 
 First, the zenana. All the Mohammedan and Hindu 
 women of the higher classes are practically prisoners in 
 their own homes. Incredible care is taken to keep them 
 hidden. Cases are on record of jealous husbands putting 
 their wives to death because some man had accidentally 
 caught a glimpse of them. The purdah lady herself 
 counts it highly indecent to be seen. When she goes 
 
 64
 
 BEHIND THE PURDAH 65 
 
 out, she either drives in a purdah ghari, a cart covered 
 with curtains, or she walks closely veiled. 
 
 The zenana, or women's part of the house, may vary 
 from the extensive wing of a Rajah's palace, walled 
 round and guarded like a prison, to a dingy room or 
 two in the back part of some humbler dwelling. There 
 the womenfolk of the family spend their tedious days and 
 nights, cut off from all the sights and sounds of the out- 
 side world, and often seeing nothing from the window but 
 a little strip of sky. 
 
 Thus life passes with them, dull, monotonous, debasing, 
 often embittered by the jealousy of a rival wife or the 
 spite of a sister-in-law, and with no events of note, save 
 the births, marriages, and deaths of the members of the 
 household. This purdah system is strictest in the north, 
 where Mohammedans are most numerous, but its bane- 
 ful influence is felt all over India. 
 
 The second great wrong is early marriage. Girls are 
 married when only ten or twelve years old, and happy 
 childhood comes to an end. Some will have one or two 
 children by the time they are fourteen. Many die, the 
 rest grow old before their time, worn out in body and 
 spirit. Hindu women in middle life look painfully aged 
 and decrepit. 
 
 But the most tragic wrong of all is compulsory widow- 
 hood. It would need a pen dipped in blood and tears 
 to record the sorrows of the widows of India. There are 
 twenty-three millions of them, many of whom have 
 never really been married at all. A little baby girl is 
 betrothed to a baby boy, or it may be to an old man. 
 You meet a marriage procession coming down the village 
 street, the bridegroom walking in front, his spindle legs 
 and feeble gait plainly indicating that his best days are 
 over. But where is the bride ? Observe the string 
 tied to the bridegroom's arm, the other end of which 
 is tied to the infant in that woman's arms. She, poor, 
 wee mite, is the bride, though she little knows it. To- 
 day she is betrothed and bound to this old man for life. 
 When he dies she is a widow and may never marry again.
 
 66 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 These millions of widows, then, have in many cases 
 never lived with their husbands, nor even seen them. 
 They were widows since before they can remember, and 
 widows they must remain to the last. Their lot is un- 
 speakably hard. The child-widow has her beautiful 
 hair shorn off ; her sisters get pretty dresses and bright 
 jewels, but she must wear none ; she keeps out of sight 
 on feast days, for her presence is unlucky ; when her 
 brothers bring home their wives she is their servant and 
 the household drudge. Her whole life is under a curse. 
 Through her sin, she is taught, her husband died, and 
 for this she must endure the punishment of a cheerless 
 existence, till death sets her free. 
 
 These conditions under which the women of India live 
 explain the need of special women's missions. Only 
 the lady missionary can teach in girls' schools, 
 visit the zenanas, and do medical work among the 
 purdah ladies. Men could not possibly do such work, 
 and yet it must be done if India is to be saved. The 
 mothers must be converted ere there can be Christian 
 homes, and the girls must be educated as well as the 
 boys. 
 
 Let us visit one of our girls' schools. There are a 
 hundred of them, but one will suffice. We enter, and 
 find classrooms and desks as in a school at home. But, 
 over the desks, rows of brown faces peer at us with 
 curiosity. Many look bright and bonny, with their 
 big, dark eyes and glossy black hair. All wear long 
 dresses, and the little girls of the infant class look like 
 dolly women with their wee bare feet peeping out. 
 
 The roll is called " Tarabai, Sitabai, Venubai, Chun- 
 drabai." How queer their names should all end in 
 ' bai ' ! No queerer than that other names should end 
 in ' -ie,' as Jeanie, Maggie, Jessie. It simply means that 
 little girls in India, like little girls in Scotland, are dear 
 pets. 
 
 The work of the school begins. It is amusing to listen 
 to the infants learning the alphabet, and swaying to 
 and fro as they chant the syllables, " kaka, kiki, kuku,
 
 BEHIND THE PURDAH 67 
 
 kekei, kokau." Another class is at arithmetic, and they 
 reel off the multiplication table at an amazing rate, for 
 they have excellent memories. A pencil falls on the 
 floor, but nobody stoops to pick it up. Only a little 
 brown foot creeps out from below the desk, the toes grip 
 the pencil, and swiftly convey it to the hand. We sadly 
 realise how much we lose by wearing boots ! 
 
 The most precious hour of the school day is the Bible 
 hour, when all the old familiar stories are told to little 
 ears that never heard the name of Jesus at a mother's 
 knee. How eagerly they listen, and how keen they are 
 to answer. Who can tell how much of the truth they 
 will carry away and repeat at home ? Lulloobai was a 
 little princess who once came to school in Nagpur. She 
 told the teacher that her elder sister, who was the 
 Rajah's queen, and was shut up in the zenana of the 
 palace, had sent her to learn all she could, and repeat 
 the lessons when she went home. Unhappily the 
 authorities of the palace soon put a stop to her coming. 
 But many other scholars carry the story of Jesus into 
 Hindu homes. 
 
 It is school prize day, the crowning day of the year, 
 and all the girls are dressed in their brightest. The 
 little ones sit on the floor in front, and the varied hues 
 of their saris make the room look like a bed of gorgeous 
 flowers. A hymn is sung, followed by a programme of 
 action songs. Then comes the great event, the pre- 
 sentation of the prizes. It is a charming sight to see 
 the wee tots making their pretty salaams of thanks. 
 Some fairly beam with delight as they clasp a dolly 
 in their arms and toddle away, looking more than ever 
 like little mothers. 
 
 The prize of the school falls to a girl of nine, whose 
 winsome face looks very happy. As she takes the prize 
 she flashes a radiant glance to her teacher. These two 
 have a secret between them. Radhibai had set her 
 heart on the prize. On the morning of the examina- 
 tion her grandmother bade her go and pray to the family 
 god. She refused, saying she prayed to Jesus only.
 
 68 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Then said her grandmother, " If you don't get the prize 
 you will know it is no use to pray to Jesus." But Radhi- 
 bai declared she would pray to Jesus whether she got 
 the prize or not. So when the results came out and she 
 knew that the coveted prize was to be hers, her little 
 heart was so full she could not help but tell her teacher 
 all about it. 
 
 But, all this while, we are saying to ourselves, " Where 
 are the big girls ? " Our question is soon answered. 
 The school has no Standards V and VI because the girls 
 of that age have all been married. A few are allowed to 
 come back to school after marriage, but not many. If in 
 their new homes their lessons are forgotten, and the 
 Gospel story fades from memory like a dream of child- 
 hood, who can wonder at it ? 
 
 The zenana workers try to follow up the teaching of 
 the schools by visiting the women and girls in their 
 homes. They go from house to house, wherever they 
 can find admission, and carry the Gospel to those who 
 are shut in from hearing it in any other way. Follow 
 one of our zenana ladies in her round of visits, and we 
 shall get some idea of the work. 
 
 The first house she enters is of some pretension. The 
 ladies' apartments are done up partly in European style, 
 or, to be more exact, they have the taste and elegance 
 of furnished lodgings. Into this home one of the school- 
 girls has recently come as a bride. She gives her friend 
 a shy welcome, and her dark, wistful eyes speak eloquent 
 things. One can see the little creature is wearying for 
 her mother. The mother-in-law, who rules the house- 
 hold, is aggressively dirty, and wears, in fact, the appear- 
 ance of a withered old hag. Quite a contrast are her 
 daughters-in-law, who flaunt gaudy dresses and an 
 amount of glittering jewelry. Some children are play- 
 ing on the floor; other, more minute inhabitants, if 
 unseen, will presently begin to be felt. 
 
 The visitor sings a hymn and is asked to sing another. 
 Conversation follows, but it is not easy to make headway. 
 A boy of fourteen or fifteen keeps running in and out.
 
 BEHIND THE PURDAH 69 
 
 Every time he enters the little bride has to veil her face, 
 for the boy is her husband's uncle ! By and by one of 
 the sisters-in-law grows impatient and begins to flounce 
 about the room, jingling her abundant jewelry. The 
 visitor feels it is time to take her leave. Still her sweet 
 singing and gentle courtesy have made a favourable 
 impression, and a hearty invitation is given to come 
 again. When she is gone the old lady changes her 
 clothes and takes a bath to get rid of ceremonial un- 
 cleanness, which is the only form of pollution she dreads. 
 
 The next house is a house of mourning. The visitor's 
 little friend and pupil is dead. Her sister-in-law tells 
 how, as the end drew near, she spoke strange things about 
 a shepherd. Then the mission lady remembers that, 
 on her last visit, the dying girl asked her to sing " The 
 Lord's my shepherd," and she thanks God for one poor 
 lamb who went down through the dark valley fearing no 
 evil because the Good Shepherd was near. 
 
 It is the close of the afternoon, and the visitor feels 
 she has hardly strength for her last visit. The narrow 
 street is stifling, and not a breath of air reaches the 
 dingy little court in the centre of the house. It is hardly 
 possible to sing or speak in the cruel heat, with parched 
 lips and throbbing head. She rises to take her leave, with 
 a dull sense of the hopelessness of it all. As she reaches 
 the door, a little brown hand slips a tiny silver coin into 
 hers, and a girl's voice whispers, " That is for the Lord 
 Jesus." In that Hindu home a girl had been quietly 
 praying to Jesus for her father's recovery, and this is 
 her thank-offering. 
 
 It would be a mistake to imagine that many secret 
 disciples are hidden in the zenanas, yet there are some. 
 For if it is hard for a man to confess Christ in India, it 
 is a thousand times harder for a woman. As well might 
 a lamb try to escape out of the paw of a lion as a Hindu 
 woman attempt to break the fetters of caste. Yet the 
 Gospel, with patience and sympathy, is working wonders, 
 and there will yet be seen this crowning wonder, of India 
 a land of Christian homes.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE KEY TO A PRINCE'S HEART 
 
 RETURNING to Bombay from the Maratha country, we 
 strike due north to the land of the Rajputs. Raj- 
 putana lies at the north-west corner of the mountain 
 triangle. Up through the middle of the country run 
 the Aravallies, which in olden times were the refuge of 
 the Rajputs in their struggle for liberty against the 
 Great Mogul. To the west, the land is mostly barren 
 veldt, stretching out into the Great Indian Desert. 
 
 To-day the Rajputs are governed by their own native 
 princes, in loyal subjection to our king. One district 
 in the centre, Ajmer, is directly under British rule, 
 and round about it are grouped the native states, 
 twenty in number, of which the most important are 
 Jaipur to the north of Ajmer, Jodhpur to the west, and 
 Udaipur to the south. The native princes bear the title 
 of Maharaja, except the prince of Udaipur, who is called 
 the Maharana. 
 
 Of the ten million people who inhabit Rajputana, 
 scarcely one million are genuine Rajputs. They form, 
 however, the ruling caste, and no matter how poor a 
 Rajput may be, he holds his head high, for he knows 
 he is kin to the prince. They belong to the same race 
 as ourselves, and many a Rajput, with his stalwart 
 frame and bushy beard, bears not a little resemblance to a 
 burly Scotch farmer. There is among them, too, the 
 high-spirited pride and independence which we associate 
 with the land of heather. A small farmer, who had been 
 ruined by the famine, was offered seed corn by the 
 Government, but he drew himself up proudly. " I am 
 a Rahtor," he said, " I cannot take charity." 
 
 70
 
 THE KEY TO A PRINCE'S HEART 71 
 
 Proceeding up the east side of the Aravallies, we reach 
 Chitor, the junction for Udaipur, which lies sixty-nine 
 miles distant among the hills. Before we enter the 
 little train which climbs up the narrow-gauge line to 
 Udaipur, we must give more than a passing glance to 
 Chitor, for here, perhaps better than anywhere, we may 
 learn the pride and matchless prowess of the Rajputs. 
 
 In the days of the Great Mogul Chitor was the capital 
 of Udaipur. Perched on a towering rock, that rises 
 five hundred feet sheer out of the plain, the fort and 
 royal palace are still to be seen, magnificently strong, 
 but, alas ! not impregnable. When the Moslem hosts 
 came sweeping south from Delhi and Agra, it stood 
 right in the line of their march and bore the brunt of 
 their terrible assault. Three times the fortress of 
 Chitor was stormed, but let it be told to the immortal 
 glory of the Rajputs ! on each occasion the princes of 
 the royal house, when all hope was lost, sallied forth 
 sword in hand, and died fighting to the last man, while 
 their ladies within the palace kindled a great funeral 
 pyre and cast themselves upon it. When the lustful 
 conquerors burst into the palace they found their prey 
 had escaped them through the flames. The Maharana 
 of Udaipur is the proudest of the Rajputs, for no daugh- 
 ter of his princely house was ever a slave girl in the 
 Mogul's palace, an indignity to which all the other 
 Rajput princes had to submit. 
 
 From the oft-ravaged Chitor the capital was removed 
 to Udaipur in the heart of the Aravallies. The sturdy 
 little engine toils up and up, till we arrive in one of 
 the loveliest scenes, and perhaps the loveliest city, in 
 India. Udaipur lies in a hollow of the hills, with a 
 placid little lake gleaming in the heart of the town, 
 and reflecting in its blue waters the shining walls of the 
 white palace. In the lake are two tiny islands, on each 
 of which is built a summer palace of purest marble, 
 seeming as if reared by fairy hands. One of these, we 
 imagine, might well have been the palace where the fairy 
 prince and the princess lived happy ever after.
 
 72 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 If Udaipur be the chosen home of beauty and romance, 
 Jaipur, on the contrary, is astonishingly modern. As 
 the prince of Udaipur retired into the hills for safety in 
 the ancient times of war, so, in later and more peaceful 
 days, the prince of Jaipur moved down from his mountain 
 fastness and built his royal city on the plain. Amber, 
 the ancient capital, sits perched aloft among the crags, 
 her narrow, tortuous streets clambering up to the 
 fretted marble palace, which looks as if it had been 
 deserted but yesterday. Down in the plain below, the 
 modern capital spreads out spaciously, every street as 
 straight as a ruler, the main street two miles long and a 
 hundred and eleven feet wide. The founder, Prince 
 Jai Singh, was a great astronomer and a man far in 
 advance of his age. His descendants, the Maharajahs 
 of Jaipur, have ever loved to keep in the van of pro- 
 gress, and their city is the most prosperous and advanced 
 in Rajputana. 
 
 When our missionaries began work, fifty years ago, 
 they found themselves face to face with an acute 
 difficulty. It was easy to settle in Ajmer, the British 
 district, but to gain a footing in the native states was 
 another matter. If a prince did not care to have a 
 missionary in his city there was no appeal, for the 
 Government leaves the native rulers free to act as they 
 please in such matters. 
 
 Strange stories could be told of what Christian con- 
 verts have had to suffer in some of the native states, 
 while the Imperial Government refused to interfere. 
 In Mysore and Travancore it has been decided that a 
 convert loses all his property, his children may be taken 
 from him, and he himself, as a native judge said, is 
 " classed with madmen and idiots." It seems a burning 
 shame that under a Christian Government such things 
 should be tolerated. Still there is the fact, and the 
 problem before our missionaries in Rajputana was, 
 how to win the favour of the Rajput princes. 
 
 Needless to say, it has been done, thanks especially 
 to the influence of medical mission work. Rajputana
 
 THE KEY TO A PRINCE'S HEART 73 
 
 is a striking proof of the power and value of medical 
 missions. They have been the key that has unlocked 
 every door, and won for the Gospel an entrance into the 
 cities and palaces of the Rajputs, as well as into their 
 villages and peasant huts. It is the story of a conquest 
 such as was never made by the sword of Akbar. 
 
 Jaipur was the first to surrender, in 1866. Dr. Valen- 
 tine was passing through the city when the wife of the 
 Maharaja was taken ill, and he was called in to attend 
 her. Under his treatment she recovered, and in the 
 meantime Dr. Valentine had so won the prince's con- 
 fidence that he resolved to make him his private physi- 
 cian. To induce him to accept the post he appointed 
 him Director of Public Instruction, and gave him full 
 liberty to preach in the city. 
 
 Eleven years later Dr. Shepherd unlocked the gates of 
 Udaipur. Cholera had broken out in the lovely city 
 among the hills, and the people gladly welcomed him. 
 The only opposition came from the Maharana's favourite 
 counsellor. When, however, this courtier's own little 
 daughter fell sick, he forgot his prejudice in anxiety 
 about his child, and the missionary doctor was called 
 in. By the time the little patient was well again her 
 father was singing his praises, and, soon after, the site 
 for a mission hospital was granted by the prince. 
 
 Last, but not least romantic, is the story of how the 
 door was opened in Jodhpur. That city lies to the west 
 of the Aravallies, on the edge of the wide plain that 
 stretches out into the desert, and the Rahtors of Jodhpur 
 are among the proudest and bravest of the Rajputs. 
 When Dr. Somerville went there in 1885, he was told 
 by the prince that he was not wanted, and it seemed as 
 if the door was closed. But an English engineer, a 
 friend of the Maharaja, died, and his widow, being asked 
 what she would like for a memorial of her husband, 
 replied, " A mission bungalow." So the prince, not to go 
 back on his word, was constrained to build it. 
 
 No doubt the gift was given with a grudge, but in a 
 short time the heart of the prince and of his people was
 
 74 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 completely won. To-day there stands in the city a 
 splendidly equipped hospital, built for Dr. Somerville 
 entirely by his friends in Jodhpur, the Maharaja himself 
 contributing two-thirds of the cost. About the time the 
 hospital was opened, the Durbar, or Council of State, 
 presented Dr. Somerville with a silver salver in recogni- 
 tion of his distinguished services. Yet an English 
 traveller, who visited Jodhpur, seems to have heard 
 nothing of this work, and devotes two chapters of his 
 book to creating the impression that, in Jodhpur, prince 
 and councillors and people have no other interest in life 
 but the breeding and racing of horses. 
 
 Our mission doctors in Rajputana give medical aid 
 to nearly a quarter of a million sufferers every year. 
 What that means in the relief of pain and hopeless 
 misery, only those can imagine who know the super- 
 stitious folly and cruelty of native methods of healing. 
 But it must not be supposed that this work among the 
 Rajputs is unique. Medical missions achieve the same 
 results everywhere, breaking down prejudice, giving an 
 object-lesson in Christian love, and unlocking the door 
 of many a heart which would otherwise be shut, bolted 
 and barred against the Gospel.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE CITY OF HOPE 
 
 FOUR miles north of Nasirabad, in the Ajmer district 
 of Rajputana, lies the City of Hope. Such is the meaning 
 of Ashapura, and never was name more fitly given. 
 Those who come expecting to find a city will be disap- 
 pointed. A dormitory, a few workshops, a plainly 
 built church, and, beyond it, a tiny village that 
 is all. 
 
 No, not all ! Look at the massive embankment, three 
 hundred yards long, that runs across the valley, and 
 holds up a little lake, a mile long and half as wide. It 
 is that talao, or reservoir, which has made the City of 
 Hope worthy of a place in the brightest annals of mis- 
 sionary enterprise. 
 
 The most important event of all the year in India is 
 the coming of the monsoon, which brings the annual 
 rain. If the monsoon fails famine is the result, and in 
 years of famine, Rajputana, lying on the border of the 
 Great Desert, suffers worst of all. 
 
 A disaster of this kind befell Rajputana in 1869, and 
 brought upon the people unspeakable suffering. The 
 rain failed. Week after week the heavens were as brass 
 and the earth as iron. The grass withered up and the 
 cattle died. The peasant's little store of grain gave out, 
 and he had to leave home and wander with his family 
 in search of food. Thousands and tens of thousands 
 thronged the roads leading to the south, but the famine 
 was sore in the lands of the south, and back they came, 
 weary and emaciated remnants, seeking only to reach 
 the old home and die. 
 
 The land was filled with starving men and women and 
 
 75
 
 76 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 children. They stripped every leaf from the trees, and 
 gnawed the bark. They tracked the ants to their nests 
 and plundered their winter store of seeds. They sifted 
 the dust of the road to see if, perchance, some passing 
 waggon had dropped a few grains. 
 
 Round the doors of every mission bungalow pitiable 
 creatures flocked for help, some so weak they could 
 only crawl. It was 'impossible to stand still and see 
 them perish, so everything was laid aside for the work 
 of famine relief. Doles of food were given out, barely 
 sufficient to keep body and soul together, the sick were 
 nursed, and hundreds of destitute orphans were taken in 
 charge. 
 
 Thus passed a year, and the season of the monsoon 
 came again. Again it failed, and the condition of the 
 famine-stricken people was worse than ever. Utter 
 despair settled upon them, and hundreds of thousands 
 simply lay down and died. 
 
 Among our missionaries were two brothers, William 
 and Gavin Martin. By their enterprise the City of 
 Hope was built. They secured a grant of land on which 
 to plant a Christian village, on condition that they 
 should construct the great embankment across the valley 
 that holds up the talao. Thousands of famine-stricken 
 people were employed upon the work. Their wages 
 varied from threepence a day for a strong man to a 
 halfpenny a day for a child, yet it sufficed to keep them 
 in life. William Martin, fondly remembered among 
 the Rajputs as the " Talao Sahib," lived among the 
 people in a mud hut thatched with grass. He super- 
 intended the work, nursed the sick, cheered the de- 
 spairing, was the ruler and father and saviour of all. 
 When the Sabbath day came round work ceased, but, 
 to the surprise of the hungry multitude, food was given 
 as usual, and many for the first time had experience of 
 the blessings of the Christian day of rest. 
 
 The famine passed, but it left two notable legacies, 
 a legacy of gratitude and goodwill to the missionaries on 
 the part of those whose lives they had preserved, and a
 
 THE CITY OF HOPE 77 
 
 legacy of orphans. Said a Government official to one 
 of our missionaries, " There are six hundred orphans in 
 my district, and I do not know what to do with them. 
 Will you take some ? " "I will take them all," was the 
 reply. In that spirit a vast number of boys and girls, 
 whom the famine had left destitute, were adopted and 
 brought up under the care of the mission. 
 
 Thirty years went by and another famine came in 
 1900, more widespread and disastrous than the first. 
 It was severely felt all over India, and our missionaries 
 at Poona, at Nagpur, in Santalia and elsewhere did 
 a vast amount of relief work, for which they received 
 cordial thanks, and in some cases marks of distinction, 
 from the Indian Government. 
 
 In Rajputana the Government did everything pos- 
 sible, as did also some of the native princes, notably 
 the Maharaja of Jaipur, but other princes simply sat 
 still and let their people die. Scenes were witnessed too 
 awful to describe. The dead lay strewn along the roads 
 and by the well-sides with none to bury them. It will 
 never be known how many perished, but the number 
 goes into millions. 
 
 As in the first famine, our missionaries had thousands 
 of orphans thrown upon their hands. When, as often 
 happened, they found a little naked baby lying on the 
 road, what could they do but take it home ? Or when 
 a mother with her dying breath committed her children 
 to their care, how could they refuse the charge ? Many 
 parents laid down their children at night on the veranda 
 of the mission bungalow, and went away, probably 
 to die. By the end of the famine the mission family 
 had grown to thousands. Of these, in the first months, 
 hundreds died from the after effects of the famine, but 
 the greater part speedily recovered. 
 
 More than a thousand boys were sent to Ashapura, 
 and a true City of Hope it became to them, in which 
 they began a new life of industry and happiness. To 
 see them at work, some carpenters, some blacksmiths, 
 some weavers, healthy, sturdy lads, one could scarcely
 
 78 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 believe that a few years ago they were wasted little 
 skeletons, at the point of death. 
 
 With health and work came zest for play. It is Satur- 
 day afternoon, and the first eleven have gone to Nasira- 
 bad to play a cricket match with the soldiers in the 
 cantonment. The missionary is captain, and three 
 hundred supporters of the team are there to cheer them 
 on to victory. It is a keen match and a great finish. 
 The soldiers are all out for sixty-one and Ashapura's 
 last man is in with five runs to make. The excitement 
 is intense, and all hope centres in the captain, who is 
 still at the wickets. Well hit, captain, right into the 
 middle of the cheering crowd of orphans ! Two soldiers 
 dash after the ball, but what can they do, with six 
 hundred little brown feet dancing like mad on the top 
 of it. Lost ball ! The match is won, and Ashapura 
 goes home triumphant. 
 
 Next day is the Sabbath. The merry din of the work- 
 shops is silent and the peace of God broods gently over the 
 City of Hope. As the bell stops ringing, the long column 
 of boys files into the church, packing it to the door. 
 The captain of the eleven enters the pulpit, and perhaps 
 the minds of some of his audience wander to the glories 
 of yesterday. But if so, it only imparts an added vigour 
 to the singing. Then they settle into stillness, to hear 
 afresh the story of the love of Christ, which, ere they are 
 aware, has made its impress, deep and sure, upon their 
 hearts. 
 
 Life to-day in the City of Hope is reduced once more 
 to its old dimensions. The orphans are mostly gone, 
 each one to fend for himself in the big world. Some are 
 farmers in the Christian settlement of Piploda, some 
 are in the printing-press at Ajmer, some are far away in 
 Nagpur. 
 
 And what return is there for all the expense and 
 care bestowed upon them ? What profit is there 
 from the work ? Much every way. To have saved so 
 many precious lives, to have trained so many boys and 
 girls in habits of industry and usefulness, and, above all,
 
 THE CITY OF HOPE 79 
 
 to have implanted in their minds principles of truth and 
 honesty and Christian love, surely is a work that brings 
 its own reward. 
 
 But more than that, the saving and rearing of these 
 famine orphans has brought a rich blessing to the 
 mission. Although the missionaries had no thought of 
 that when they rescued the perishing, yet it has paid 
 better, perhaps, than any other part of their work. 
 One of the orphans rescued in the famine of 1869 is the 
 Rev. Devi Ram, the well-known pastor of the Church 
 in Ajmer. Others of the orphans are pastors, teachers, 
 and elders, while many more are among the choicest 
 and most intelligent of the church members. 
 
 Of the orphans rescued in the famine of 1900 it is 
 almost too soon to speak, although some have begun to 
 make their mark. The older among them are just 
 settling down. Some are happily married to orphans from 
 the girls' orphanage, and have established for them- 
 selves Christian homes. Judging from the experience 
 of the past, it may safely be predicted that these orphans 
 will live to be the strength of the next generation of 
 Rajput Christians.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE TAJ MAHAL AND THE WHITE ANGEL 
 
 LEAVING Rajputana, to pass across the north of India, 
 we travel through a country of old renown. Here the 
 Great Mogul reigned in splendour, and here, in more 
 recent times, was enacted that awful mingling of tragedy 
 and glory we call the Indian Mutiny. Delhi and Agra, 
 Lucknow and Cawnpore, are names that can never die, 
 and no traveller passes them without a visit. 
 
 From Jaipur a short railway journey brings us to 
 Agra, the ancient capital of the Mogul Empire. Its 
 massive red fort on the bank of the Jumna was built 
 by Akbar the Great, a contemporary of Queen Eliza- 
 beth. To him Elizabeth wrote letters of commendation 
 in behalf of certain English merchants who purposed 
 trading in his dominions. Little did they dream that 
 the next great queen of England would be proclaimed 
 Empress of India, and would wield a wider dominion 
 there than Akbar himself. 
 
 Agra is immortal because of the Taj Mahal. It was 
 built by Shah Jehan, the grandson of Akbar, to mark 
 the resting-place of his young wife, whom he dearly 
 loved, and whose memory he would not willingly let die. 
 Twenty-two thousand men laboured for twenty years 
 to finish it, and it claims to be the one perfect building 
 in all the world. We pass through the deep, dark gate- 
 way, and it bursts upon our view, a miracle of purest 
 marble that glistens like the driven snow. It stands at 
 the end of an avenue of crystal water, on which it seems 
 to float as on a liquid mirror. Even so did 
 
 "The swaii on still St. Mary's Lake 
 Float double, swan and shadow." 
 
 80
 
 TAJ MAHAL AND THE WHITE ANGEL 81 
 
 The traceries on the marble are as delicate as the 
 finest lace, save where the plain towers stand at the 
 four corners, like giant sentinels on guard. Often has 
 the Taj Mahal been described, and as often pronounced 
 indescribable. 
 
 Now look away back, across the dusty plain and the 
 bend of the Jumna, to the great red fort of Akbar. 
 You see the fairy palace of white marble which crowns 
 its summit. It also was built by Shah Jehan, and 
 there the lady who sleeps beneath the Taj reigned for 
 one brief year a queen. There, too, her husband, now 
 grown old, wore out his days in slow captivity. Often 
 must he have gazed wistfully from the window of his 
 lonely turret, towards the snowy dome beneath which 
 his love lay sleeping, and longed for the day when he 
 would be laid beside her. 
 
 A hundred miles up the Jumna this same Shah Jehan 
 founded a new capital at Delhi, and built there a wonder- 
 ful palace which boasts the proud inscription, " If 
 there be a heaven on earth, it is this, it is this." But 
 Delhi proved no heaven on earth, either to him or to 
 his race. There in the days of the Mutiny the tottering 
 throne of the last of the Moguls went down in a sea of 
 blood. Miles upon miles of massive ruins attest the 
 magnificence of the ancient capital. Now, at the 
 bidding of our King, a new Delhi is rising, to become 
 again the Imperial city of India. 
 
 A hundred miles east of Agra we pause to visit another 
 tomb, to us a more touching sight than the Taj Mahal. 
 Who has not heard of the White Angel of Cawnpore, 
 that stands in the memorial garden by the Ganges' bank ? 
 It is the best known and saddest spot in all India. 
 
 Down by the side of the garden flows the great 
 Ganges canal, which, after wandering through many 
 branches for thousands of miles and scattering its waters 
 over a thirsty land, is returning to the parent stream. 
 Yonder, below the canal mouth, is the railway bridge 
 that carries the line across the Ganges to Lucknow, 
 forty miles away.
 
 82 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 The mind goes back to the awful summer of '57. We 
 picture the Residency at Lucknow, lifting its head above 
 a raging sea of rebellion, the walls battered and pierced 
 with shot, and, proudly waving above the tower, the 
 flag that never was taken down. Oh, the long weeks 
 of heat and thirst, of carnage and fever, while every 
 day the watchman climbed the tower, and gazed down 
 the Cawnpore road for some sign of the relieving force. 
 Will they never come ? They were to have come in 
 fifteen days, now it is more than eighty. Can the shat- 
 tered walls be held for another day ? 
 
 Look ! a dust cloud, far down the Cawnpore road. 
 Hark ! the booming of distant guns. They are coming 
 Havelock and his Highlanders ! The scream of the bag- 
 pipes rises on the quivering air. They are hewing their 
 way through streets swarming with rebels, they reach 
 the Residency, they pour in over the breach. The long- 
 imprisoned women rush out to welcome them, and the 
 bearded soldiers, snatching the babies from their mothers' 
 arms, kiss them with the big tears rolling down their 
 cheeks, and thank God they have been saved from the 
 fate of Cawnpore. 
 
 Ah ! Cawnpore, was ever so pitiful a tragedy ? This 
 memorial garden was the scene of a deed of fiendish 
 cruelty, and the angel yonder, so white and still, marks 
 the grave of the slaughtered innocent. 
 
 When the Mutiny broke, it found eight hundred 
 British in Cawnpore, half of them women and children. 
 To them came no relief, but bitterest death. Nana 
 Sahib, the rebel leader, was the son of the last Peshwa 
 of Poona, and, though a pensioner of the Government, he 
 plotted to restore the ancient glory of his house. Hatred 
 was in his heart, but smooth words of treachery upon his 
 tongue. Professing concern for the safety of the 
 British, he provided boats to take them down the 
 Ganges, he escorted them to the river's bank, and then, 
 in a moment, let loose his bloodthirsty followers upon 
 them. After the massacre, the miserable remnant of 
 two hundred women and children were imprisoned in
 
 TAJ MAHAL AND THE WHITE ANGEL 83 
 
 a shed, till, on the very day before Havelock entered 
 Cawnpore, they were hewn in pieces and flung into a deep 
 well. 
 
 It was a bare, ghastly spot, the circular well -mouth 
 surrounded by a parapet the height of a man's knee, and, 
 behind it, three naked, twisted trees that seemed to 
 turn away in agony from the horror below. Here 
 Havelock's men stood, and vowed eternal vengeance 
 with hearts in which pity was dead. 
 
 For us the scene is changed. Every trace of the tragedy 
 has been wiped away. Over the well broods the white 
 angel with folded wings. The day of vengeance is past, 
 and holier thoughts come gently stealing to our minds. 
 Look again at that angel form, and think what it means 
 that we can put the white angel of the Resurrection 
 above our mangled dead. It is the emblem of some- 
 thing that sword and bullet cannot destroy the peace 
 of those who sleep in Jesus. 
 
 There is no white angel in the Taj Mahal.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ASHES AND TRAMPLED FLOWERS 
 
 ON the Ganges, two hundred miles below Cawnpore, 
 we pass through Benares, the holy city of India. Here, 
 as nowhere else, the religion of the Hindus can be seen 
 in all its glory and mystery, in all its pathos and re- 
 pulsiveness. 
 
 The city itself is a type of this. How grand and im- 
 posing it looks, piled high up on the north bank of the 
 river, which sweeps round its feet in a broad, majestic 
 bend. For three miles the city stretches along the river- 
 side, and, throughout the whole distance, immense 
 flights of steps lead down to the water. They are the 
 world-famous ghats of Benares, and the imposing array 
 of domes and minarets, rising above them, makes one 
 of the most striking scenes in existence. 
 
 The religious glories of Benares are beyond all telling. 
 The city contains fifteen hundred Hindu temples, and 
 nearly two hundred Mohammedan mosques. Every 
 corner has its shrine. Holiest of all is the Golden Temple 
 of Siva, with its Well of Salvation, believed to be filled 
 with the sweat of Vishnu, the Preserver. Here, too, is 
 the Well of Wisdom, the chosen abode of Siva, the 
 Destroyer. All India looks to Benares with reverence 
 and longing, as the city of salvation and the place of 
 holiness. Every year thousands upon thousands of 
 devout pilgrims come to visit it, and millions more would 
 fain come if they could. To visit Benares is the life 
 dream of every Hindu, and to die there is sure salva- 
 tion. 
 
 But Benares, at close quarters, is a sad and dismal 
 
 84
 
 ASHES AND TRAMPLED FLOWERS 85 
 
 place. The streets are but narrow lanes, filthy and 
 stifling. They swarm with religious beggars, who batten 
 on the charity of the pilgrims. The antics and self- 
 tortures of the fakirs are a ghastly sight. Here is one 
 who has fallen in a swoon after whirling round and 
 round with incredible rapidity. Here is another lying 
 on a bed of iron spikes which cruelly pierce the flesh. 
 Look at that man whose right arm is uplifted. It has 
 remained like that for years, and probably is now so 
 stiff that he could not take it down, even if he tried. 
 These are the holy men of Benares, and by such antics 
 they seek to win salvation. 
 
 Still more repulsive are the great fat bulls that push 
 lazily through the crowd. The pilgrims deferentially 
 make way for them. If you laid a finger on one of them 
 you would be in danger of being torn in pieces by the 
 mob, for these brutes are sacred beyond anything 
 human. 
 
 As we approach the Well of Wisdom, the crowd grows 
 denser, till it is impossible to move. Most of the pil- 
 grims carry flowers which they mean to fling into the 
 well as an offering, others have jars of water drawn from 
 the Ganges. They struggle together and jostle each 
 other in frantic efforts to get near the holy place. The 
 flowers are crushed and broken and trampled under 
 foot, till the narrow lane is littered with them. Many, 
 in despair of getting any nearer, fling their flowers and 
 splash their water over the heads of those in front. 
 Out of the well itself there rises a horrible stench beyond 
 all the odours of this filthy city, for the well is choked 
 with the dead flowers of centuries, lying there in one 
 putrid pulp. 
 
 How sordid and pitiable it all is ! To think that these 
 pilgrims have come from all the ends of India, have 
 spent, perhaps, the earnings of a lifetime in this pil- 
 grimage, have trudged hundreds of miles on foot, 
 begging their bread along the way, and all for this 
 to struggle in a stinking lane, jostled and crushed and 
 splashed, to fling their poor offering of flowers to be
 
 86 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 trampled in the dust, and perhaps never so much as see 
 the sacred well. 
 
 We push through the crowd and make our way down 
 to the ghats to see the great sight of Benares. Viewed 
 from a distance, how majestic was the sweep of the 
 broad stairs round the river bend, but a nearer inspection 
 brings other sights and other thoughts. Men and women 
 are down in the river in thousands, standing up to the 
 waist in the water, dipping down, bathing, drinking. 
 No matter though the great sewer of the city is dis- 
 charging its filth in the middle of them. It is the holy 
 Ganges whose waters can cleanse away sin. Not a 
 voice is heard among the bathers, nor a laugh. There 
 is none of the merry sport that bathers delight to in- 
 dulge in. The scene before us is not pleasure, it is 
 religion. This is the purging away of sins, this is the 
 way to heaven. So the bathers think. 
 
 All round about us on the stairs are laid the sick and 
 the dying. It was their dearest wish to be brought here 
 to die. This is the best that can be done for them in 
 preparation for another world. A poor woman, with 
 death written upon her face, is lifted up by her friends 
 and carried down to the water's edge. They lay her 
 down with her feet in the water. She has reached her 
 journey's end, and she breathes her last, poor soul, 
 with a sigh of content. Three hundred million Hindus 
 would choose to die as that woman died. 
 
 Look yonder at the gap in the stairs where, on the 
 bare bank, boats are unloading wood, and smoke of 
 fires is rising steadily. It is there the bodies of the dead 
 are burned, and, when consumed, the ashes are thrown 
 into the river. A hideous black streak of sooty water, 
 mingled with cinders and rotting flowers, comes trailing 
 down among the bathers. Still they dip and drink. 
 Nor is that the worst. It costs money to purchase a 
 funeral pyre of sufficient size to consume the body laid 
 upon it. So the charred limbs and half -burnt bodies of 
 the poor are, without ceremony, sent adrift, and float 
 sullenly down the crowded river.
 
 ASHES AND TRAMPLED FLOWERS 87 
 
 It is an unforgettable sight India's children seeking 
 salvation down in that putrid water, amid the bones and 
 ashes of the dead. What is it we sing ? 
 
 ' ' A river is whose streams do glad 
 The city of our God." 
 
 Oh that these benighted multitudes might hear that 
 song and come for cleansing to the one true river of the 
 water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne 
 of God and of the Lamb !
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF PARASNATH 
 
 THE Grand Trunk Road, issuing out of Calcutta, crosses 
 the whole of the north of India, through Benares and 
 Cawnpore, through the North-West Provinces and the 
 Punjab, till it climbs into the Kyber Pass above Pesha- 
 war. Between Calcutta and Benares it cuts through 
 the corner of the Mountain Triangle, and passes close to 
 the south of the sacred hill of Parasnath. 
 
 Life to-day on the Grand Trunk Road is shorn of 
 its glory. In days before the railway it was the main 
 artery of commerce and the great highway in peace 
 and war. Many a glittering cavalcade of native prince 
 and British Raj has swept along it, many a weary 
 regiment has trudged its dusty length, hurrying to the 
 front or coming home victorious. Up this road came 
 Havelock and his Highlanders to the relief of Lucknow. 
 
 Now all are gone, with all the stir and the romance, 
 and only the road remains. Yet it is beautiful, much 
 of it, and travelling on it is pleasant. Indeed it has the 
 reputation, perhaps not wholly deserved, of being the 
 world's finest cycling track. 
 
 Two hundred miles down the road from Benares 
 brings us into the heart of the hills. Parasnath appears, 
 towering up on the left, a little higher than our own Ben 
 Nevis. On the summit, standing out clear against the 
 sky, is a famous Jain temple, to which pilgrims come 
 from every part of India. Within the temple are shown 
 thirty giant footprints, deep in the marble floor, off 
 which thirty saints of the olden time stepped into 
 Paradise. 
 
 But, from the hill-top, scenes are visible which to us 
 
 88
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF PARASNATH 89 
 
 have a deeper interest. All the country to the north 
 and east is the home of the Santals, and the field of 
 our Church's mission. Below our feet, nestling under 
 the shadow of Parasnath, is the little Christian village 
 of Baritand. Twenty miles due north is Pachamba, the 
 oldest of the mission stations, from which, in a clear day, 
 one can see the temple on the hill. Pokhuria is as far 
 to the east, and all the country-side is dotted with out- 
 stations. 
 
 It is a lovely country of hills and woods and streams, 
 reminding one of the scenery in Perthshire. Only, 
 instead of the oak and beech and pine, there are the 
 stately semel, the wide -spreading banyan, and the 
 graceful tamarind. 
 
 The story of how the Santals came to settle here 
 is an interesting one, and belongs to comparatively 
 recent history. The Santals are of an entirely different 
 race from the Hindus. Originally they were rude tribes 
 of wandering hunters, without cities and without 
 civilisation, but strong, fearless, and truthful. The 
 Hindu scorns the Santal as a barbarian, and the Santal 
 scorns the Hindu as a poor weakling. The Santals have 
 a story that, in the beginning of the world, there was a 
 footrace, the prizes consisting of different kinds of food. 
 The ancestor of the Santals won the race and carried 
 off the prize of beef strong meat for strong men ; the 
 Brahmin came in last, and got a little rice and milk ! 
 
 Less than a century ago, when the British Government 
 was establishing law and order throughout India, the 
 Santals were induced to settle down in what is now 
 known as the Santal Parganas, a tract of country which 
 had long lain desolate because so exposed to the raids 
 of the hillmen from the south. The Santals soon 
 taught these Peharias to keep a respectful distance. 
 
 But there are worse foes than Highland rievers. The 
 Santals would have done well on their little farms, but 
 they fell into the hands of the Bengal moneylender. 
 Knowing nothing about mortgages, it seemed to them 
 so easy to get ready money by simply putting a mark
 
 90 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 on a bit of paper. But it opened the door to a long train 
 of calamities. Things went from bad to worse, till, in 
 1855, they rose in desperation, and marched, twenty 
 thousand strong, to lay their grievances before the Vice- 
 roy in Calcutta. Nobody knew what they wanted, 
 for not a single European could then speak the Santal 
 language. British troops were moved against them 
 and they were cut to pieces. 
 
 After the rebellion their grievances came to light. 
 One man, who had borrowed a few shillings, had toiled 
 all his life to pay it back, his son spent his life at the same 
 task, and now the debt had descended to the grandson 
 and was no whit smaller than at the beginning. As a 
 result of these revelations their rights have been safe- 
 guarded, and they are now as loyal and happy as any 
 race in India. 
 
 Another result of the rebellion was the starting of 
 Christian missions among the Santals, a work in which 
 our Church has borne an honourable part. There is no 
 time to traverse the whole district and see all the work, 
 but we cannot pass without at least a brief visit to the 
 haunted village, where the man who broke the spell 
 lives like a prince among the Santals. 
 
 Twenty miles down the Grand Trunk Road from 
 Parasnath a side road branches off to the north-west 
 through the jungle, a road made by famine labour under 
 the supervision of the missionary. Ten miles up this 
 road we come to the haunted village. 
 
 Half a century ago Pokhuria lay, dark and deserted, 
 in the heart of the jungle. Of the Santals who dwelt 
 there, many had died and the rest had fled. A colony 
 of Mohammedans then took possession, and they died 
 to a man. Henceforth the place was shunned as the 
 haunt of demons. But in 1879 there came to the place 
 Dr. Campbell, one of our great missionary heroes, 
 and he broke the spell. Having decided that here was 
 the most suitable centre for his work, he camped on 
 the spot, sang the Hundredth Psalm, and the demon- 
 possession was at an end.
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF PARASNATH 91 
 
 As we approach the village he comes out to meet us, 
 a big, burly man with the kindliest eyes. His speech is 
 slow, for he has more than half forgotten his English. 
 Here is his home, here he has toiled and grown grey, 
 here he would fain die and be laid to rest among the 
 people whom he loves. What a happy, busy place it is, 
 with its flocks of wheeling pigeons and its friendly 
 family of dogs and cats. It is a paradise for children, 
 and many a Santal boy, left destitute by the famine, 
 thinks of it as his only home. 
 
 Dr. Campbell might be called the missionary that can 
 do everything. He is a magistrate and sits on his 
 veranda dispensing justice. He has written books and 
 made dictionaries. He runs a printing-press and pub- 
 lishes the " Darwak." He is a botanist, a doctor, a 
 farmer, a builder, and a road-maker. He instructs the 
 boys in carpentry, and the girls in silk weaving. He 
 leaves nothing untried in his effort to make his beloved 
 Santals a civilised and prosperous people. 
 
 But, amid all his work, he gives supreme place to 
 the Gospel, and all his heart goes into his preaching. 
 The story he loves best to tell is of a little Santal girl 
 who came to school in Pokhuria, and while there was 
 touched with the love of Christ. Returning to her 
 native village, she read to the people from St. Luke's 
 Gospel, till their hearts also were stirred. On Dr. 
 Campbell's first visit he found thirty-five men and women 
 ready for baptism. This was but the beginning of the 
 movement, which spread through the whole country- 
 side. On his second visit he baptised nearly a hundred 
 people in the presence of thousands of interested on- 
 lookers. In the village of Kolhor to-day there is a 
 Christian community of three or four hundred, all led 
 to Christ through the devotion of one Santal girl. 
 
 A single other fact must be mentioned. In this corner 
 of India lie the great tea-gardens in which most of our 
 tea is grown, and thousands of the Santals go to work 
 as coolies in the gardens. " They are the very finest 
 of my coolies," said a planter, and he drew the prettiest
 
 92 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 picture of them at their work, the girls with clusters of 
 bright flowers in their dark hair, singing from morn 
 till night, while their nimble ringers nip off the two 
 leaves and a bud, and toss them in handfuls into the 
 great baskets on their backs. 
 
 Some years ago our Santal mission was extended by 
 the sending of a missionary to work among the coolies 
 in the gardens of South Sylhet. So, when we sit at the 
 tea-table, it is fitting we should bestow a kindly thought 
 upon the Santals, and perhaps a prayer.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 ON THE BANKS OF THE HUGLI 
 
 FOURTEEN miles east of Pokhuria we strike the East 
 Indian Railway, 130 miles from Calcutta, and soon 
 we are speeding through the rich rice-fields of Bengal. 
 The mighty Ganges finds its way to the ocean through 
 a hundred mouths, the most important of which, 
 though not the largest, is the Hugli, on whose banks 
 Calcutta stands. All this well- watered region swarms 
 with people, who, amid chronic poverty and malaria, 
 patiently cultivate their patches of mud. 
 
 Thirty miles above Calcutta the railway strikes the 
 Hugli, and swings round to run down the river-side. A 
 few miles below this point we arrive at Chinsurah, a 
 busy town of thirty thousand inhabitants, and the centre 
 of our Bengal rural mission. In the town itself there is 
 a high school, while in the district round, colporteurs 
 visit among the people, and out-stations are dotted here 
 and there, like little lamps twinkling in the dark. 
 Thirty miles farther up the Hugli lies Kalna, where our 
 medical mission brings relief to thousands of sufferers, 
 who carry back to their homes in all the villages some 
 knowledge of the Gospel and some experience of Chris- 
 tian love. 
 
 From Chinsurah a short run brings us to Calcutta, or 
 at least to Howrah, the part of the city that stands 
 on the west bank of the river. Pause for a moment as 
 we cross the Hugli bridge. See, in front the vast city, 
 belching smoke from scores of factory chimneys, on 
 our right down the river miles of wharves and a forest 
 of masts and funnels, on our left up the river the bathing 
 ghats, for the Hugli is a daughter of the Ganges and 
 
 93
 
 94 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 partakes of her sanctity. On the bridge itself are two 
 ceaseless streams of brown people, one going into the 
 city, another coming out. A million human beings are 
 packed in these crowded tenements, and hundreds of 
 thousands more flock into the city every day from the 
 densely populated country round. 
 
 Calcutta has many sights to show worthy of an im- 
 perial city Government House, the Fort, the Maidan 
 but to us it is the city of Dr. Duff, and the place to 
 which our steps turn most eagerly is the historic Chris- 
 tian College in Cornwallis Square. 
 
 In Calcutta, before the days of Duff, there was little 
 regard for the Gospel and less for the missionary. The 
 half-century following the Battle of Plassey had seen a 
 vast increase of wealth and expansion of territory. 
 Traders had become rulers and Calcutta the seat of 
 empire. Hundreds of our fellow-countrymen went out 
 there and made fortunes. Their faded mansions may 
 still be seen in the older parts of the city. But, alas ! 
 most of them, in leaving their fatherland, had forsaken 
 their fathers' God. No Sabbath was kept in those days 
 in Calcutta. 
 
 The Government, as long as it could, shut the door 
 against missions, through a mistaken and most unworthy 
 fear that Christian teaching would cause trouble among 
 the natives. In the closing years of the eighteenth 
 century, William Carey had to enter India under the 
 protection of the Danish flag, and commence his im- 
 mortal work in the Danish settlement of Serampore. 
 Other missionaries followed, but their presence was 
 viewed with suspicion and they thought it best to keep 
 clear of Calcutta. Any success they had met with was 
 among low-caste people, the ranks of the Brahmins 
 were unbroken, and few believed they could be con- 
 verted. 
 
 Whatever education the Government gave the natives 
 was given in the ancient languages of the East, and was 
 Hindu in its spirit, or, worse still, atheistic. Clever 
 young Bengalees were taught in the Government schools
 
 ON THE BANKS OF THE HUGLI 95 
 
 to despise the name of God and laugh at the Ten Com- 
 mandments. 
 
 Then came the man who did more than any other to 
 turn this fearful tide of godlessness and folly. His name 
 is immortal Alexander Duff. 
 
 On the 27th of May, 1830, he arrived in the city, 
 drenched with mud, for he had been shipwrecked at the 
 mouth of the Hugli. All his books, save only his Bible, 
 lay at the bottom of the Atlantic, for he had been 
 wrecked on the coast of Africa. Still, there was the 
 man, and there was the book that gave him power. 
 Picture him, a young man twenty-four, a splendidly 
 built Highlander of tall, commanding presence, with 
 flashing eye and thrilling voice destined to move three 
 continents. The sole injunction he had received from 
 the home Church was, not to settle in Calcutta, but, 
 after looking round and examining the work of previous 
 missionaries, he decided that Calcutta was the place 
 for him. 
 
 Dr. Duff originated a new thing in missions. He said, 
 " I will take the boys and clever young men of India, 
 and teach them English. Through the medium of 
 English I will pour into their minds Western knowledge, 
 truths of science, of philosophy, of literature, hinging 
 all upon the supreme truths of Scripture. Thus I shall 
 undermine their false notions, explode their supersti- 
 tions, and burst up, as with gunpowder, their heathen 
 systems." Everybody pronounced it a mad dream. 
 All the missionaries shared this opinion, with the ex- 
 ception of one whose judgment outweighed all the rest. 
 Duff went to visit the immortal Carey, and "the little, 
 yellow old man in the white jacket " approved his plan, 
 and with outstretched hands solemnly blessed him. 
 
 The school was commenced. On the opening day 
 there was present the noblest of all the Hindus, Rajah 
 Rammohun Roy, a man who had spent a long life in 
 the search for truth and was now not far from the 
 kingdom of God. When the students showed some hesi- 
 tation about taking the Bible into their hands, he rose
 
 96 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 and exhorted them to study it as a priceless manual of 
 the highest teaching. 
 
 The school rapidly grew till it began to take on the 
 appearance of a college, and was becoming a centre of 
 light to hundreds of eager young Brahmins. Then came 
 the explosion. Some of the students renounced Hindu- 
 ism and professed their faith in Christ. Instantly 
 Calcutta was in an uproar. One morning only six 
 students appeared, the rest had been withdrawn. But 
 Dr. Duff held on his way, and by and by the college was 
 more crowded than before. 
 
 The work of education was far from exhausting the 
 energies of this extraordinary man. He fought for 
 every noble cause in India, he inspired the churches 
 with a zeal for missions formerly unknown, he thrilled 
 with his golden eloquence the Old World and the New. 
 To recount all his labours would, however, lead us too 
 far away from Calcutta and its Christian College. 
 
 Duff's work, as may be imagined, met with much 
 opposition from Europeans as well as Hindus. Many 
 disliked the idea of natives learning English. " You will 
 deluge Calcutta with rogues and villains," they said. 
 The Government had no love for converts, and refused 
 to give them countenance. Incredible as it must now 
 appear, every baptised sepoy was in those days actually 
 drummed out of the army. 
 
 At last men's eyes were opened in the awful days of 
 the Mutiny. The fanatical Brahmins, whom the Govern- 
 ment had pampered, repaid the favours bestowed upon 
 them with rebellion and fiendish cruelty. The despised 
 and neglected converts were loyal to a man, and pressed 
 forward with offers of service to the Government that 
 had despised and neglected them. When the crisis was 
 past, Lord Palmerston rose in his place in Parliament 
 and said, " We seem to be all agreed. It is not only 
 our duty but our interest to promote the diffusion of 
 Christianity, as far as possible, throughout the length 
 and breadth of India." It had been proved, and all 
 the world should know, that Christianity in India means
 
 ON THE BANKS OF THE HUGLI 97 
 
 civic righteousness and active loyalty to the British 
 throne. 
 
 To-day there is unrest in India, and education, many 
 say, has caused it. Rather it should be said, education 
 without the Gospel. Seventy years ago, Dr. Duff fore- 
 told with the utmost precision what is now happening. 
 Education without religion, he said, given to the Hindus, 
 would destroy their faith and send them adrift on blind 
 night seas of discontent, disloyalty, and crime. All these 
 years the Government colleges have been giving educa- 
 tion without religion, and it has come to pass as Dr. 
 Duff predicted. But, wherever the youth of India have 
 studied in our Christian colleges, and, with their learn- 
 ing, have drunk in some of the spirit of the Gospel, they 
 are loyal, peaceful, and law-abiding. It is, not less 
 education, but more religion, that will allay the unrest 
 of India. 
 
 A generation has passed since the days of Dr. Duff, but 
 his work still lives and grows. In the year of the Dis- 
 ruption he was evicted from the college he had built 
 in Cornwallis Square, because the law decreed that it 
 belonged to the Established Church of Scotland, while 
 Duff, like every other missionary of that time, adhered 
 to the Free Church. It was a cruel and unrighteous act, 
 for every stone of the college belonged, in equity, to 
 Dr. Duff. With the help of many generous friends he 
 erected another building in a different quarter of the 
 city, and for sixty years the Scottish Churches had 
 each their separate college in Calcutta. 
 
 In 1907, however, the two were united under the name 
 of the Calcutta Christian College, which occupies the 
 historic site in Cornwallis Square. Thus began a new 
 era of expansion and increased efficiency, and it is a 
 pleasing thought that in the city of Dr. Duff such a 
 monument of his work should stand, and continue to 
 bring to future generations of Bengalees the blessings 
 of true wisdom and righteousness.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 BUILDERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 HAVING seen something of India, west, north, and east, 
 we turn our faces to the far south. Eighty miles of 
 careful piloting through the changeful sandbanks of 
 the Hugli, eight hundred miles of swift steaming down 
 the Coromandel coast, brings us to Madras, the metro- 
 polis of the south. The coast runs in one unbroken line, 
 with no sheltering headland or quiet bay, and the angry 
 surf which beats ceaselessly upon it makes landing at 
 all times hazardous, and often impossible. But Madras, 
 in recent years, has stretched out two long arms of 
 breakwaters through the surf, and in the calm water be- 
 tween them we come ashore in safety and comfort. 
 
 Now at last we are in the India of our dreams, the 
 India we pictured to ourselves when we sang of the 
 spicy breezes and the coral strand ; the India of the 
 cocoanut palm and the weird pagoda. Here the proud 
 Brahmin holds undisputed sway, especially in the re- 
 moter towns and villages, where the pariah must turn 
 aside out of the highway to let him pass. Forty miles 
 south-west of Madras is Conjee veram, second only to 
 Benares in sanctity, and attracting to its festivals, in 
 thousands, the pilgrims of the south. 
 
 Madras is the cradle of our Indian Empire. Here, 
 on the surf-beaten shore, a few English traders settled 
 and built a fort, more than two and a half centuries 
 ago. Soon they were opposed by French rivals, who 
 established themselves at Pondicherry, eighty miles 
 down the coast. At one time it appeared as if the 
 Empire of the East was destined to be won by the French. 
 Fort St. George was captured, and the traders of Madras 
 
 98
 
 BUILDERS OF EMPIRE 99 
 
 were led in triumph through the streets of Pondicherry. 
 Dupleix, the French leader, held in his hand the supreme 
 power of Southern India. 
 
 Then Clive appeared, the man of Britain's destiny. 
 A young clerk in the Company's warehouse at Madras, he 
 transformed a handful of ragged troops into an invin- 
 cible army, scattered the forces of the enemy at Arcot, 
 at Conjeeveram, at Chingleput, and quenched for ever 
 French dreams of dominion in India. A few years 
 later he avenged the Black Hole of Calcutta on the 
 plains of Plassey, and laid, broad and deep, the founda- 
 tions of our Indian Empire. 
 
 A century after the days of Clive, there landed in 
 Madras, in December, 1862, another young man, then 
 unknown, who is worthy to be called an empire builder. 
 His name, William Miller. No apology is needed for 
 naming him as a man of destiny. One of the noblest 
 of India's viceroys has said, " Notwithstanding all that 
 the English people have done to benefit India, the 
 missionaries have done more than all other agencies 
 combined," and of missionaries who have laboured for 
 India, William Miller is among the very greatest. To 
 him alone has been given the rare honour of having 
 his statue erected in his lifetime. It stands on the 
 Esplanade, and inscribed on the pedestal are these 
 words, uttered by Lord Napier in the House of Lords, 
 " A missionary teacher whose services in the cause of 
 higher education are probably unsurpassed in India." 
 
 From the harbour we turn south along the shore, 
 and in a few minutes arrive at the Esplanade, a fine 
 open space in the heart of the city. Yonder, at the 
 far side, is Fort St. George, in the angle between the 
 river and the sea. On the ground where we stand the 
 French planted a battery when they besieged the fort. 
 The magnificent line of buildings immediately on our 
 right is the Madras Christian College, perhaps the 
 finest in all India, and a noble monument to the liberality 
 and genius of William Miller. 
 
 Dr. Miller was not the actual founder of the college.
 
 100 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 That honour belongs to John Anderson, who laboured 
 here about the middle of last century. But Dr. Miller 
 may well be called the second founder, for at the time 
 of his arrival in Madras, the school had fallen into decay 
 and he raised it up to its present position of eminence and 
 efficiency. 
 
 The ten o'clock bell is ringing, and dense masses of 
 students are trooping in at the gateway. There are 
 nine hundred boys in the school department, and eight 
 hundred students in the college seventeen hundred in 
 all. From every district of Southern India they have 
 come, and some even from Ceylon and the distant north. 
 Many wear English dress, but most retain the picturesque 
 costumes of the East. Only a fraction of them are 
 Christians. Brahmins are there, and must, perforce, 
 sit on the same benches with men of every caste and of 
 none, for caste distinctions must be left outside the 
 college gate. 
 
 The bell ceases, and in five minutes the classes have 
 settled down to work. We enter, and are at once struck 
 with the singular fact that half the students have bare 
 heads, the other half bare feet. Those in English cloth- 
 ing have removed their hats, those in Eastern dress, 
 while keeping on their turbans, have taken off their 
 shoes. Each acts in accordance with his own law of 
 good manners. On the whole, the long white tunic of 
 the East is the prevailing fashion. 
 
 Now comes the glorious first hour of the college day, 
 the hour of Bible study. No student may attend the 
 college and miss the Bible hour from ten to eleven 
 o'clock. But indeed compulsion is unnecessary, for it 
 is the most popular hour of the day with the students. 
 This is due to two facts. The Hindu student is natur- 
 ally interested in religious study, and his teachers 
 regard the Bible hour as the supreme hour of the day. 
 
 Think of it ! Seventeen hundred of the choicest youth 
 of Southern India studying the Scriptures for an hour 
 daily, under the guidance of professors whom they are 
 accustomed to regard with respect as their instructors
 
 O
 
 BUILDERS OF EMPIRE 101 
 
 in all branches of secular knowledge. What a field is 
 here for the sowing of the good seed of the Kingdom. 
 
 Beyond the Scripture hour we do not venture to 
 follow the classes, else we should immediately be in- 
 volved in the mysteries of Telegu and Tamil, Sanscrit 
 and Kanarese, with science and philosophy to follow. 
 Instead, we make a tour of the buildings, passing through 
 a maze of halls and corridors, libraries and classrooms, 
 every one of which is fully occupied, up to the topmost 
 room in the square tower, where the advanced students 
 have their consulting library. Next we visit the hostels, 
 built by the magnificent liberality of Dr. Miller, and 
 each providing accommodation for forty to fifty students. 
 Two hostels are for Brahmins, one for non-Brahmins, 
 and one for Christian students. 
 
 It must not be imagined that all this immense college 
 is maintained, and all these hundreds of students 
 educated, at the expense of the home Church. Far from 
 it ! The students pay five thousand pounds a year in 
 fees, and earn in Government grants nearly as much 
 again. The home Church pays less than a seventh of 
 the total cost. 
 
 Surely never was money better spent. At the end of the 
 long line of college buildings stands a beautiful little 
 church, as if to complete and crown the whole. Here, 
 from time to time, some of the brightest of the youth of 
 Southern India have stood forth at the baptismal font, 
 confessing Christ before their fellow-students. 
 
 But the work of the college is not to be measured by 
 the number of converts. If that were so, then other 
 branches of the work in Southern India might be counted 
 of more importance. In the lovely district of Chingle- 
 put, thirty-five miles south-west of Madras, many 
 converts have been gathered in from among the down- 
 trodden pariahs, and Christian villages are springing 
 up. Our medical missions also, and our zenana workers 
 in Madras, in Conjeeveram, and elsewhere, are busily 
 sowing and reaping. Yet all would acknowledge that 
 the importance of the college is supreme.
 
 102 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Try for a single moment to conceive what the college 
 has done. Thousands of its old students have gone 
 to take their place among the natural leaders of their 
 people. They are to be found in the service of the 
 Government and in the councils of the native princes, 
 many are professors and teachers, editors, lawyers, 
 bankers, and doctors. Some hundreds of them are 
 Christians, but the great majority have made no such 
 profession. What of them ? A certain number are 
 secret disciples, who order their conduct by the laws of 
 the Gospel ; but of all of them it can be said that they 
 carry with them in heart and mind the imperishable 
 seeds of divine truth. Their teachers lose sight of them, 
 but the loving and patient spirit of Jesus follows them 
 in all their wanderings. They have been in friendly 
 touch with the Saviour, and, be sure, He will not 
 willingly let them go.
 
 PART III 
 EAST OF THE BARRIER 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 BEYOND THE STEAITS OF MALACCA 
 
 SLOWLY the Coromandel coast sinks down into the west 
 as we steer south-east across the Bay of Bengal, a bay 
 in name, but in reality wide as an ocean. In four or 
 five days we enter the long strait of Malacca and turn 
 south to round the Malay Peninsula. We plough 
 through a glassy sea, thickly studded with fairy islands, 
 rich in all the verdure of the tropics. The heat grows 
 oppressive, wrapping us in its breathless, clammy folds, 
 drenching and soaking everything. 
 
 At the end of the Peninsula, just on the Equator, we 
 come to the great city of Singapore, built on a lovely 
 island, its spacious and beautiful harbour filled with 
 the craft of all nations. The square-shaped form of the 
 Chinese junk is easily recognised. Little sampans swarm 
 about, rocked along by the movement of a single oar 
 projecting from the stern. We have seen nothing like 
 these before, and they are a sign that we are drawing 
 into the region of China. In Canton, on the Pearl 
 River, nearly half a million people make their home in 
 such junks and sampans. 
 
 Now the ship is heading north, and the breeze blows 
 fresh and begins to have a nip. We have left the tropics 
 behind and are far up the China Sea. Three days from 
 Hong-kong to Shanghai, three days more from Shanghai 
 to New-chwang, the port to which we are bound, and 
 
 103
 
 104- ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 all the time we are sailing along the vast seaboard of 
 China. 
 
 No country in the world is more difficult to speak 
 about than China. It would hardly be an exaggeration 
 to say that what is true of China to-day may not be 
 true to-morrow. The once forbidden land has suddenly 
 thrown open all her gates to the inrush of the West. 
 The sleeping giant has wakened from the long slumber 
 of centuries. " Changeless China " is now a ridiculous 
 misnomer. Changes so sudden and sweeping have never 
 been known before in history, not even the history of 
 Japan. 
 
 The sphere of our Church's mission is Manchuria, 
 three provinces of China lying in the extreme north- 
 east, and touching Siberia on the north and Korea on 
 the east. Manchuria lies outside the great wall of 
 China, and hence its name, " East of the Barrier." 
 Formerly it was an independent kingdom and the an- 
 cestral home of the Manchu dynasty. Near Mukden 
 are the splendid and once jealously guarded tombs 
 of the Emperors, embowered in shady groves. Rather 
 more than two and a half centuries ago, when Cromwell 
 was fighting King Charles, the Manchus conquered 
 China and ruled it till the revolution of 1911. 
 
 Two laws they imposed upon the vanquished the 
 men must wear a pigtail, and the ladies must cease to 
 bind their feet. The men obeyed, and thus the pigtail 
 became the badge of a loyal Chinaman. Only when- 
 ever there was a rebellion against the Government, off 
 went the pigtails. But it was not so easy to change the 
 fashion of the ladies, and to this day multitudes, in 
 spite of royal edicts, have continued to bind the feet of 
 their little girls. But no lady with bound feet was ad- 
 mitted to the Palace, and none were to be found among 
 the Manchus. 
 
 Since the Revolution everything is changed or chang- 
 ing. The pigtail, so characteristic of the Chinese, is 
 becoming a thing of the past. The custom of foot- 
 binding shows signs of dying out, and ladies whose feet
 
 BEYOND THE STRAITS OF MALACCA 105 
 
 have been crushed and crippled are now fain to conceal 
 the deformity in boots of natural size. Opium smoking 
 is on the verge of extinction. The dens have been 
 closed, the pipes gathered in heaps and burned. Only 
 the hopeless victims over sixty years of age are allowed 
 a slight indulgence. Schools and colleges for Western 
 learning have sprung up like mushrooms. Scott and 
 Dickens, Spencer and Huxley are household names 
 among the students. Conan Doyle brightens their 
 leisure hours. Daily newspapers have come into exist- 
 ence by the hundred, a network of railways, telegraphs, 
 and telephones is rapidly spreading over the country, 
 mines have been opened, furnaces are in full blast, 
 factories and workshops fitted with the most modern 
 types of machinery employ thousands of hands. A new 
 China has been born. 
 
 Upon this swirling tide the China of the past is being 
 swept away, bewildered by it, hating it probably, but 
 helplessly borne along. The wonderful elaborations of 
 Chinese etiquette become impossible under the new 
 conditions. The stately courtesies and graceful circum- 
 locutions, which seem so ridiculous to us when rendered 
 in a rough translation, were the finished product of 
 centuries on centuries of quaint old-world culture. 
 Never to say, or do, or even hint at, anything disagree- 
 able, never to make a man lose his ' face,' is the Chinese 
 ideal of good manners. The outspoken, straightfor- 
 ward ways of the foreigner appear boorish and brutal. 
 You arrive at a dirty little wayside inn and the sign 
 above the door informs you it is the " home of heavenly 
 repose." Mine host is to be addressed as " the honour- 
 able Number One." Strangers greet one another with 
 the question, " What is your honourable name ? " and 
 there is a contention which shall most profoundly abase 
 himself. 
 
 A formal call is a matter that requires the most 
 delicate handling. You go to the front gate to meet 
 your visitor, otherwise he would not venture to come in. 
 On no account shake hands with him. That would
 
 106 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 be most vulgar. Clasp your own hands and bow, while 
 he does the same. After a pressing invitation he will be 
 constrained to enter. At every door he comes to, he 
 will stop and entreat you to go in first. You assure 
 him you would never dream of such a thing and again 
 you get him on the move. When at last he is reluctantly 
 persuaded to enter, do not fail to give him the chair 
 farthest from the door, which is the most honourable 
 in the room. You implore him to sit down, he implores 
 you to be seated first. In the heat of the argument a 
 compromise is reached. You begin to sit down slowly 
 and so does he. By skilful manoeuvring you reach your 
 chairs at the same moment and politeness is satisfied. 
 
 With all this the Chinaman at his best is a capital 
 fellow, a man of solid sense and generally of good 
 morals, industrious and sober, contented and peaceable. 
 He is grave in manner, deliberate and trustworthy, and 
 of a character altogether opposite to the smart, fussy, 
 little Jap. He honours his parents while they live, 
 and may be almost said to worship them when they 
 die. He erects a tablet in his house to their memory, 
 and often goes to bow before it. 
 
 Religion, like everything else in China, presents a 
 strange mingling of the old and the new. All the Chinese 
 reverence Confucius, a wise and noble sage, who was a 
 boy in his teens when the Jewish exiles were returning 
 home from Babylon. Much of his teaching is pure and 
 good, but he professed no knowledge of God nor any 
 hope of heaven. Many of the Chinese are Buddhists 
 nominally, but Buddhism in China as a religious force 
 is dead. Among the common people there is a strong 
 belief in magic and many superstitious notions regarding 
 the power of spirits. The great Fox Temple in Mukden 
 is dedicated to the Father of all the foxes, doubtless 
 a very sly old gentleman, and it became a sort of Man- 
 churian Lourdes, to which multitudes flocked to be 
 healed of all diseases. 
 
 Walk down some narrow lane in one of China's 
 crowded cities, and you may see a sad-eyed woman at
 
 BEYOND THE STRAITS OF MALACCA 107 
 
 her door waving a little coat in the air and looking 
 wistfully about. Her child is dead and she thinks its 
 wandering spirit may not be very far away, and perhaps 
 if it should see the little coat it might come home again. 
 She has no other hope in her sorrow. She has never 
 heard the sweet strains of " Safe in the Arms of Jesus." 
 
 Meantime the new learning has brought to China 
 the irreligious books of the West. The students are 
 greedily devouring them and many have cast every 
 form of faith aside as superstitious. Multitudes more, 
 in the confusion between the old and the new, are be- 
 wildered, not knowing what to believe or think. The 
 ancient landmarks are gone and they have no sure word 
 of truth. 
 
 And so this vast country, where four hundred millions 
 of the human race have their home, is a land that 
 sorely needs the light of Christ. No hand but His 
 can lead through the dimness of the uncertain dawn to 
 the broad, clear day.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 ABOUT THE BOXERS 
 
 " IF a horrible stag beetle of the tropics were to crawl 
 on to the white hand of an English child it could scarcely 
 cause more alarm and uneasiness than does the foreigner 
 who drops down into an unsophisticated part of China 
 with an eye to business. The child's instinct would be 
 to knock the awful thing off, and that is the impulse of 
 the Chinaman." So wrote a distinguished traveller 
 some years ago, and his words explain the Boxer Rising. 
 
 To the ' man in the street ' in China all the rest of 
 the world was just Foreigndom, and all its peoples 
 Foreign Devils. Fearsome things these Foreign Devils 
 could do by their magic. They could make little paper 
 men to go out at night and rob the Chinaman's house. 
 Every wise housewife should have a basin of water set 
 on the window-sill, so that when the tiny burglar flew 
 in through the window he might fall into the basin 
 and be drowned. Nothing was too absurd to be believed. 
 
 No wonder, then, when the Foreign Devils began to 
 overrun the country, build railways, claim concessions, 
 and do all sorts of unheard-of things, the Chinese felt 
 that something desperate must be done to save the 
 Flowery Land. " Let us sweep the Foreign Devils 
 into the sea," they said, " and the good old times will 
 come back again." 
 
 Such was the motive that prompted the Boxer Rising 
 of 1900. The actual Boxers were comparatively few in 
 numbers, and were quite distinct from the lawless 
 mobs that followed them. Each man had passed through 
 a ceremony of initiation. Mysterious words had been 
 spoken into his ear, at the sound of which he had fallen 
 
 108
 
 ABOUT THE BOXERS 109 
 
 down in a hypnotic trance. Those who did not fall 
 down were dismissed as not having the gift or calling 
 of a Boxer. On waking from the trance the man was 
 asked, " Who are you ? " to which he replied in a 
 sepulchral voice, giving the name of some god or spirit 
 by whom he believed himself to be possessed. Hence- 
 forth he was safe from sword and bullet, and commis- 
 sioned to purge the land of the foreigner. He led the 
 multitude through the streets, entered the shops and 
 threw out every foreign article to be burned, stopped the 
 passers-by and if they were found wearing a bit of 
 Lancashire cotton or a Birmingham button he stripped 
 them of it. 
 
 To the Boxer this was a solemn, religious work of 
 purification, but the mob followed to riot and plunder. 
 The whole country was in a flame. Nothing, it was 
 believed, could withstand the mystic power of the Boxer. 
 The ambassadors in Pekin were besieged in the British 
 Embassy, and all Europe was in an agony of suspense 
 till a combined army fought its way up from the coast 
 and rescued them. But away in the interior of China, 
 hundreds of missionaries and thousands of native 
 Christians were cruelly done to death. 
 
 Why did the fury of the Boxers fall on the mis- 
 sionaries, and why did they kill the native Christians ? 
 The explanation is easy. Jesus was the King of Foreign- 
 dom, according to the Boxers. These missionaries were 
 His agents, sent to steal away the hearts of Chinese 
 people, so that when their King came with His army He 
 might more easily subdue the land. The missionary 
 was slain as an enemy, and his converts as traitors, to 
 China. 
 
 In Manchuria our missionaries were warned of the 
 coming storm and succeeded in escaping, some down to 
 the coast, some north to the Russians. But churches, 
 hospitals, and schools were all burnt down. Many of the 
 native Christians were put to death, while others were 
 cruelly abused and robbed of everything. All had to 
 flee for their lives and lurk in the woods or among the
 
 110 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 tall millet, where they lay, cold and hungry, and at 
 times hardly daring to breathe while they could hear 
 their persecutors ranging about in search of them. 
 Those who survived that awful time came back to find 
 their homes in blackened ruins. 
 
 Perhaps the most notable martyr was Blind Chang. 
 Some years before, he had come to the mission hospital 
 in Mukden to see if anything could be done for his eyes. 
 It was found that nothing could be done, so, after a few 
 weeks, he was sent home, with sightless eyes but with 
 the light of God's love shining in his soul. As he groped 
 his way along, he sang the one hymn he had learned, and 
 to everyone he met he spoke of Jesus. He was a born 
 evangelist. Hearing that the blind could be taught to 
 read, he made his way, with the help of friends, to Peking, 
 returning by and by wonder of wonders ! a blind 
 man reading a book with his finger. It was the Book of 
 books, and by his reading of it many were brought to 
 Christ. When the persecution broke out he was a 
 marked man. It was impossible for him to escape, and 
 as he steadily refused to renounce his faith he was be- 
 headed. Thus Blind Chang won the martyr's crown. 
 
 There were many others, some of them mere chil- 
 dren. " Are you not afraid to die ? " they asked a 
 young girl whom they had caught among the millet 
 with her Bible under her arm. Her friends had refused 
 to shelter her unless she would throw away the book. 
 " Are you not afraid to die ? " " No," replied the brave 
 little maid, and smiled brightly as the sword flashed out 
 to cut her down. All were not so steadfast. Many re- 
 canted to save their lives, some of whom afterwards, like 
 Peter, were filled with shame and penitence. These we 
 shall not judge too harshly, remembering the dreadful 
 alternative that was before them. 
 
 When the tide of persecution had turned, one of our 
 missionaries took a noble revenge on those who had 
 driven him out. The story was first told by a war 
 correspondent, who called it, " The bravest deed I ever 
 saw." When the Russian forces advanced from Port
 
 ABOUT THE BOXERS 111 
 
 Arthur to drive out the Boxers, Dr. Westwater of 
 Liaoyang accompanied them to tend the wounded and 
 gather together the scattered remnants of the native 
 church. On approaching Liaoyang the Russians de- 
 manded its surrender, but the city gates were closed 
 and the Boxers fired upon the envoys from the wall. 
 The Russian general ordered an instant bombardment. 
 Dr. Westwater interposed and asked leave to go and 
 speak to the men on the wall. Leave being granted, 
 he walked out from the Russian lines, a solitary unarmed 
 man, and approached the city. By and by the gate 
 was seen to open and he entered. After a long and 
 anxious time of waiting the gate reopened and the 
 brave man appeared, bearing the welcome tidings that 
 he had persuaded the town to surrender. 
 
 Historic truth compels the remark that the incident 
 was not so dramatic and spectacular as the journalist, 
 with his brilliant imagination, depicted it. There was 
 no question of a bombardment as the garrison had fled 
 on the approach of the Russians, but Dr. Westwater, 
 at considerable personal risk, entered the city the day 
 before the Russians and succeeded in allaying the fears 
 of the panic-stricken inhabitants, who expected nothing 
 less than the destruction of their city. When peace was 
 restored and the people of Liaoyang had time to reflect 
 on the service Dr. Westwater had rendered, they sent 
 a deputation of leading citizens to present him, accord- 
 ing to Chinese custom, with an illuminated umbrella. 
 The Russian officer was not without some sense of the 
 fitness of things who quaintly said, " Scotland has 
 produced two men for whom I have the highest admira- 
 tion, Sir Walter Scott and Dr. Westwater ! " 
 
 How strangely, in God's providence, good comes out 
 of evil ! The Boxer Rising did more than almost any- 
 thing to make possible the new China of to-day. When 
 the Boxers fell beneath sword and bullet it shattered 
 the faith of the people who believed in them. Millions 
 of quiet, thoughtful Chinese saw that they had trusted 
 in vanity, and they were filled with silent shame. The
 
 112 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 courage and triumphant bearing of the Christian 
 martyrs also made an immense impression, and the 
 wakening of China was quickened by a generation. 
 
 From this time begins a new era in the history of the 
 Church in China. Realising the hopelessness of the old 
 ways, many turned to the missionaries for guidance, 
 and to the Gospel as their only hope. Native Chris- 
 tians increased in numbers and activity. When the 
 Revolution came it found its leader in the son of a 
 native evangelist. The first President of the Republic 
 is a warm friend of missions and has made liberal gifts 
 to the missionary college in Tientsin, where his boys are 
 being educated. 
 
 This is the hour of China's destiny. A golden oppor- 
 tunity has arisen of making her a Christian nation if 
 the Churches of Christ have but the courage and faith 
 and energy to grasp it. May Heaven avert the tragedy 
 of a Christless China !
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 A LAND OF FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 
 
 MANCHURIA is the home of twenty millions of the Chinese. 
 It is a land of mountain and forest, of square, walled 
 towns, of fertile plains and rivers swarming with fish ; 
 a land where the wind blows chill in winter and the 
 ground is iron-bound with frost, for it borders on Siberia. 
 In recent times it has become a land of famous battle- 
 fields. 
 
 The rocky headland, rising on the right as we enter the 
 Gulf of Pe-chi-li, is the world-renowned Port Arthur, 
 once the great arsenal of the Russians on the Pacific, 
 but wrested from them by the Japanese after a desperate 
 siege. Around us are the scenes of the great Russo- 
 Japanese war. Away to the east is Korea, where the 
 Japs landed and drove the Russians back across the 
 Yalu River into Manchuria. Ten years before, they had 
 driven the Chinese over the same ground. On that 
 occasion Mr. Wylie, one of our missionaries, was mur- 
 dered in a street of Liaoyang by some Manchu 
 soldiers, who were passing through the city on their 
 way to the front. Back the Russians were pushed to 
 Liaoyang, where they fought desperately, back to 
 Mukden, where again they joined battle, the most tre- 
 mendous battles, perhaps, the world had ever seen. 
 And our missions, scarcely recovered from the Boxer 
 persecution, had to pass through the fire again. 
 
 We land at New-chwang, where the pioneer of our 
 mission, William C. Burns, found an early grave after 
 only a few months' labour in the field. He was followed in 
 1872 by Dr. Ross, the father of the Manchurian Church. 
 How great a change has taken place since these early 
 
 I 113
 
 114 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 days ! Now there are over fifty missionaries in the 
 field, with several hundreds of native helpers, while 
 up from the coast, for six hundred miles and more, 
 there stretches a line of churches and preaching stations, 
 schools and hospitals, in which the Gospel is preached to 
 tens of thousands. 
 
 Old Wang, the first convert, was a remarkable man 
 and set a high type of Christian character for the infant 
 Church. He was a confirmed opium smoker, but, when 
 he found Christ, he resolved to break the habit or die 
 in the attempt. Locking the door of his house, he threw 
 himself, face downwards, upon his bed and prayed with 
 all the intensity of his nature for deliverance. Thus 
 he lay motionless through three days and nights of 
 mortal agony, during which he neither ate nor drank. 
 At the end he rose up a free man, and full of the Spirit 
 of God. He became the first evangelist, as he had 
 been the first convert, and many were won to the faith 
 by his patient reasoning and earnest pleadings. 
 
 We travel up-country to Haicheng, " the city by the 
 sea," once entitled to the name but now forty miles 
 inland. Then on to Liaoyang, the city saved by Dr. 
 Westwater. The immense plain of the Liao stretches 
 on every side to the horizon, flat and uninteresting but 
 richly fertile. The approach to Liaoyang is heralded 
 by a lofty pagoda, the finest in Manchuria, which lifts 
 its graceful head to the sky and is visible for miles around. 
 It marks the site of a " self-come Buddha." According 
 to the legend, a statue of Buddha, neither made nor 
 brought by human hands, was suddenly discovered 
 here, and the pagoda was built over it. But Buddha 
 no longer draws the credulous crowd, his shrine is a 
 vacant and lifeless place. The only faith in Liaoyang 
 that is living is the Christian. Besides the missionaries 
 who superintend, two native pastors with twenty 
 evangelists and as many teachers are at work there, 
 and a Christian community exists of more than two 
 thousand souls. 
 
 Everywhere we meet with people who went through
 
 A LAND OF FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 115 
 
 the great war. It was a dreadful experience. Ruin 
 and desolation was on every side. First the Russians 
 and then the Japs passed through the land like locusts, 
 devouring everything. They stabled their horses in 
 the churches, broke up doors and windows for firewood, 
 and made thousands destitute. Then came the battle. 
 For five days it raged around the city, and the shells, 
 bursting in the streets, wrecked peaceful homes and 
 smashed babies at their mothers' breasts. 
 
 From Liaoyang the war passed north to Mukden, 
 and there too the havoc and suffering was indescribable. 
 Our missionaries toiled day and night, nursing the 
 wounded and feeding the hungry. At one time they 
 had no fewer than ten thousand homeless and starving 
 people on their hands. Many who before had given little 
 heed to their preaching were touched by the gentle 
 power of Christian love. 
 
 The black war cloud rolled away, and brighter days 
 have dawned for the sorely tried Manchurian Church. 
 
 It is Sabbath morning in Mukden, and we enter the 
 stately church, the St. George's Edinburgh of Manchuria. 
 A great congregation of nearly a thousand people is 
 assembled. Pastor Liu enters the pulpit and the service 
 begins. We cannot understand a word of it, but we 
 feel the thrill of its power. What impressiveness in the 
 preacher, what earnestness in the hearers, what manifest 
 signs of devotion and holy joy ! 
 
 This is the fruit of the Revival of 1908. It passed over 
 the land like a mighty rushing wind from heaven, or 
 like the sweet breath of spring which fills the air with 
 the fragrance of flowers and the music of birds. Men 
 saw what sinners they were, and they broke down with 
 strong crying and tears. They saw what a Saviour 
 Jesus is, and they sang for joy. Now life is a new thing 
 for them. " Do not venture into the Christians' meet- 
 ing," said the heathen in awestruck whispers. " Their 
 God has come down among them in power." 
 
 The Revival came from Korea. One is reminded of 
 Solomon's words, " Cast thy bread upon the waters : for
 
 116 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 thou shalt find it after many days." Thirty years ago, 
 when Korea was a forbidden land and no foreigner 
 might enter it, Dr. Ross, our pioneer in Manchuria, 
 translated the Gospel into Korean and succeeded in 
 smuggling copies of it across the Yalu. To-day Korea 
 is open, missions are established throughout the country, 
 and the Koreans are flocking in multitudes to the feet 
 of Christ. Probably in no other land is the Kingdom of 
 God advancing so rapidly. 
 
 It was a spark from this fire that kindled the flame 
 in Manchuria. Two Chinese evangelists went from 
 Liaoyang to see the work of God in Korea. They re- 
 turned filled with the spirit of it. At the same time a 
 Canadian missionary from Honan, Mr. Goforth by name, 
 came to conduct special meetings. The Revival broke 
 out and spread from town to town, as in former times 
 the fiery cross flew from glen to glen of our Scottish 
 Highlands. The whole Church in Manchuria was 
 moved to its deepest depths and literally born again. 
 Those who passed through it will never forget the ex- 
 perience as long as they live. They tell us they felt 
 like the returning exiles of Babylon who sang, 
 
 " When Zion's bondage God turned back, 
 
 As men that dreamed were we ; 
 Then filled with laughter was our mouth, 
 Our tongue with melody." 
 
 The first tumultuous tide of joy is past, but the river 
 flows steadily on. It has been said, " Convert a heathen 
 and a soul is saved, but convert a Chinaman and a 
 power is gained." Because a converted Chinaman 
 works so zealously for Christ. This has been found true 
 in Manchuria. On one occasion, out of 110 converts 
 baptised in Mukden, at least a hundred confessed that 
 they had been led to Christ by their. Chinese friends. 
 Now, by the Revival, a fresh impulse has been given to 
 Christian service. " The whole Church," says Dr. Ross, 
 " is animated by missionary zeal and the spirit of Chris- 
 tian endeavour."
 
 A LAND OF FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 117 
 
 The fruit of this is already apparent in the wide- 
 spread influence of Christian ideas among the people. 
 Heathen China knew nothing of a day of rest. Now the 
 new Government schools in Manchuria are closed on the 
 Sabbath, and many shopkeepers have begun to follow 
 the Christian custom. Everywhere men have lost 
 confidence in the old faiths, and heathenism has begun 
 to hide its diminished head. Worshippers on their way 
 to the village temple have been seen to turn aside shame- 
 facedly if a Christian appeared on the scene. Even at 
 the great Fox Temple in Mukden there are not twenty 
 worshippers where a few years ago there were a thou- 
 sand. The future of Manchuria lies with the Christian 
 Church. The past has been troubled and stormy. 
 But now, over this vexed land, where battles and perse- 
 cutions raged, there dawns the promise of a glorious 
 victory of the Cross.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS 
 
 LEAVING China, we pass, with a long, swift southward 
 run, across the Equator and into the South Pacific. 
 Who has not heard of the South Sea Islands, sprinkled 
 in bunches upon the ocean and woven round with coral 
 reefs, beautiful as fairyland but, alas, the home of 
 hideous cannibals ? 
 
 Our Church's mission is in the New Hebrides, a group 
 of thirty islands, extending in a long line of four hundred 
 miles from north to south. They are, in reality, a gigantic 
 chain of mountains standing up to the neck in water. 
 They are situated a thousand miles east of Australia, 
 and about the same distance north of New Zealand. 
 The Presbyterian Churches of Australia, New Zealand, 
 and Canada, unite with our own in carrying on the work 
 among the islands. Our Church is directly responsible 
 for the missions in Santo and Aneityum, the north- 
 most and southmost islands of the group, but a number 
 of the missionaries on the other islands are sons of our 
 Church. 
 
 Landing on Santo, we are at once confronted with strik- 
 ing evidence of what the Gospel has done for the natives. 
 There is a central institution here, in which about 
 eighty young men, gathered from all the islands of the 
 group, are undergoing a four years' course of training. 
 Smart fellows they look, and one can hardly believe 
 
 118
 
 ROMANCE OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS 119 
 
 them to be the sons of cannibals. They are the leaders 
 of a new age, and a living proof that the backbone of 
 heathenism has been broken. Yet one might still find, 
 at some inland village, the degraded savage glutting 
 himself at the inhuman feast. 
 
 The voyage through the islands is a dream of beauty 
 and delight. The islands are lofty, and their steeply 
 sloping sides are richly decked in green, down to the 
 water's edge. Cocoanut palms and tree ferns, massive 
 flowering shrubs and luxuriant creepers display their 
 exquisite foliage. Changeful lights shimmer on sea and 
 sky, from the pearly dawn to the last deep tints of sunset. 
 There is an indescribable charm and softness in the 
 atmosphere. The sea, held in check by the barrier reef, 
 hardly makes a ripple on the pebbly shore, and, deep 
 down in the pale green water of the still lagoon, fantastic 
 forms of coral can be seen. Yet these fairy islands, at 
 times, are shaken by earthquakes or stripped bare by 
 the raging tornado. 
 
 There, in front, is the mighty peak of Ambrim, 
 peaceful to-day and floating double on a sea of glass, 
 but mark that grim scar on the mountain-side from its 
 summit to the sea. Down that track, in the eruption 
 of 1894, Ambrim poured a red-hot stream of lava, 
 which, as it plunged into the ocean, sent the scorched 
 water hissing in clouds of vapour to the sky. On Am- 
 brim is the mission hospital, where native and white 
 trader alike receive the benefit of Christian care and 
 skill. 
 
 As we touch at the various islands, missionaries join 
 us on their way south to the Annual Synod. Each 
 lonely worker gets a royal welcome from his comrades 
 as he steps aboard. This is their annual reunion and 
 there is much to hear and tell after a year's separation. 
 To us how fascinating is the talk, especially of the older 
 men, some of whom, sons of missionaries, were born in 
 the islands. What tales they can tell of the bad old 
 days, when bloodthirsty savages, cooped up within 
 the narrow limits of the same little island, tore and de-
 
 120 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 voured each other like wild cats in a cage. Some of 
 these men have seen the cannibal's living victim, slung 
 on a pole between two carriers, and hurried along, 
 writhing and shrieking, to the horrid feast. They 
 could tell of the living burial of the sick and the aged, 
 while the covering earth heaved with their feeble 
 struggles. But they speak rather of the wonders of the 
 new dawn, before whose brightness these accursed 
 practices are vanishing away like hideous nightmares. 
 
 Of their own trials they speak but little the wasting 
 fever and ague, the terrible loneliness, years of separation 
 from children, graves of loved ones, some of them so 
 pitifully small, dread of murder by brutal savages. 
 How did flesh and blood endure it all, especially in the 
 old days when letters and supplies came but once a year ? 
 Then it was that the Dayspring, the children's ship, be- 
 came an angel of mercy, as she flitted in and out among 
 the islands. After weary months of waiting, what a 
 thrill when, at last, " Sail O ! " sounded from the hill- 
 top, and was echoed by every voice about the mission 
 house. Then the rush to the beach and the agony of 
 suspense till it should be known what tidings of good and 
 ill a year was bringing ! 
 
 When we have traversed more than half the length of the 
 group, the bold heights of Erromanga come in view. Half- 
 way down the western side of the island we cast anchor in 
 Dillon's Bay. How exquisite is the scene the bay, the 
 beach, the thickly wooded hills, and the river winding 
 down between them to the sea. But the hideous mem- 
 ories of the past go trooping by, like sheeted ghosts. 
 On that lovely beach, on the 20th of November, 1839, 
 John Williams, the apostle of the South Seas, and his 
 young friend Harris were clubbed to death within three 
 minutes of landing, and their bodies devoured by the 
 cannibals of the island. A hundred yards beyond, on 
 the south bank of the stream, is the grave of the martyred 
 Gordons, husband and wife butchered in one day, after 
 nearly four years of patient Christian ministry among 
 these ruthless savages. Gordon's heroic brother stepped
 
 '"
 
 ROMANCE OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS 121 
 
 into the breach, and his murdered body sleeps beyond 
 these hills, by the eastern shore of the island. 
 
 Even then Christian devotion refused to be baffled. It 
 was one of the most calmly heroic deeds recorded in his- 
 tory, when, three months after Gordon's death, Henry A. 
 Robertson came ashore at Dillon's Bay, with his tremb- 
 ling but dauntless bride, and confronted a ring of dark, 
 inscrutable faces, while the white sails of the Day spring 
 grew smaller and disappeared across the vacant sea. 
 At evening they knelt together in the martyr's house, 
 to utter the faltering prayer, " Erromanga for Christ." 
 Who shall tell the gloomy solitude, the alarms, the 
 haunting dread of those first days, and the agony of 
 that night when the stricken father crept out, under 
 cover of the darkness, to lay his firstborn in a tiny grave 
 at the feet of the martyrs, and crept home again, hardly 
 daring to hope that the mother's life would be spared. 
 
 But the turn of the tide had come, and brighter days 
 for the Martyr Isle. Look how sweetly the sunshine 
 falls on the cosy mission house, with its fronting veranda, 
 and pleasant garden stretching down to the river. The 
 pretty white church, the Martyrs' Memorial, breathes 
 on the scene an air of heavenly peace. Its foundation- 
 stone was laid by the son of John Williams's murderer. 
 A joyous clamour of eager, friendly voices greets us as 
 we step ashore, and the hideous past is forgotten. 
 
 Next morning as we are leaving, just as the missionary 
 steps into the boat, a strapping fellow rushes down and 
 asks for a dose of medicine ! "I cannot return and 
 give it you," says the missionary ; " besides, you are 
 not ill, are you, Uluhoi ? " " No, Missi," is the reply, 
 " but I may be before you come back." With laughter 
 and cheers we pull away, and then we hear the strains 
 of " God be with you till we meet again," borne across 
 the bay from the children of cannibals, standing on 
 the spot where their fathers murdered the messengers 
 of Christ. 
 
 Continuing southward, we approach the sublimest 
 sight of the islands, the volcano of Tanna. Every two
 
 122 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 or three minutes this gigantic lighthouse of the southern 
 seas bursts into greater brilliance, while, at times, the 
 white-hot lava plays in the sky like a fountain of fire. 
 It is a sight never to be forgotten. 
 
 And this is " dark Tanna," memorable as the scene 
 of the early labours and sufferings of John G. Paton. 
 There he slid down the rock in the dark, there he spent 
 the night in the tree while the savages ranged about 
 seeking his blood, there he laid his young wife and her 
 baby in a common grave. That tiny island, away to 
 the east, is Aniwa, where he settled when he was forced 
 to flee from Tanna, and which he won for Christ. " I 
 claimed Aniwa for Jesus, and by the grace of God Aniwa 
 now worships at the Saviour's feet." All the world 
 has read of the digging of the well on Aniwa, of Namakei 
 and Naswai, of the Litsis and the strange, sad fate of 
 Mungaw. Then, to crown all, the tender pathos of the 
 closing days upon the island, while the simple islanders, 
 his children in the faith, hover round the old man as if 
 they could not bear him to be out of sight, run to 
 anticipate his slightest wish, and then, as he stands at the 
 tiny graves beside the mission house, utter their gentle 
 reproach, " Why do you leave us ? But the little ones 
 lying there will never leave us. They will rise with the 
 people of Aniwa at the Resurrection." It was a great 
 and Christ-like life. 
 
 At length we reach Aneityum, the southmost island 
 of the group and the first to be Christianised. Here 
 Geddie and Inglis laboured, and native evangelists from 
 Aneityum became the Apostles of the New Hebrides. 
 The harbour of Aneityum has one pathetic memory. 
 It was here that the first Dayspring went down in one 
 of the wildest hurricanes that ever swept the islands. 
 
 Above the harbour stands Dr. Geddie's church. A 
 new generation has grown up, to whom heathen and 
 savage customs are unknown, save by tradition. Lest 
 they should forget what once they were, they have 
 erected a memorial tablet to Dr. Geddie above the pulpit, 
 and inscribed on it these words, in the language of
 
 ROMANCE OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS 123 
 
 Aneityum, " When he came here in 1848 there was not 
 one man of light, when he left in 1872 there was not 
 a man of darkness." Perhaps it would be impossible 
 to find in all Christendom the record of a ministry 
 greater or more complete.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE SORROWS OF THE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 THE coming of the white man to the South Seas has 
 proved but a mixed blessing. Dark deeds have been 
 done among the islands which fill the mind with horror 
 and loathing. A multitude of scattered islands, peopled 
 by savages speaking a babel of tongues, remote, out- 
 landish, unvisited, presented a paradise for the scoun- 
 drels of the earth, who might, if well armed, range 
 about with impunity, and commit deeds of lust and 
 bloodshed, never to be heard of till God's great judg- 
 ment day. 
 
 First there were the wild doings of the sandal wooders. 
 Picture the Hover's Bride on a trading cruise through 
 the islands. She is a brigantine, mounting several 
 swivel guns on her bulwarks. No greater crew of cut- 
 throats ever trod the deck of a pirate. It is the early 
 days of the trade, and the islanders have not yet learned 
 the value of the sandal wood. At the first island the 
 offer of a cat is sufficient to secure a number of fine logs. 
 But the price, paltry as it is, is not paid. As soon as 
 the logs are on board the ship sails away. The chief 
 on the next island, made wary by experience, demands 
 prepayment. But the poor fellow pays dearly for his 
 wisdom. When the timber is secured he is suddenly 
 seized and thrown into the boat. Next day he is sold 
 for sandalwood to the cannibals of a neighbour island. 
 
 The Rover's Bride continues her remorseless cruise till 
 she comes to anchor in Cook's Bay. Here the natives 
 seem eager to trade. See, they are already swimming 
 out with a great log. A boat is lowered, and rows to 
 meet them. It had been well if the captain had reflected 
 that the frowning headland above the bay bears the 
 
 124
 
 THE SORROWS OF THE SOUTH SEAS 125 
 
 ominous name of Traitor's Head. In a moment the 
 islanders dive below the boat and upset it. Every 
 savage has his tomahawk, and every trader's head, as 
 it rises above the water, is cleft. Before the ship's 
 company realise what has happened the murderers are 
 swimming fiercely to the shore. Muskets and swivel guns 
 rain bullets on them, and the waves are dyed crimson. 
 
 Thus the bloody feud went on, and though later the 
 trade fell into better hands, yet it was no loss when the 
 islands were stripped of the fragrant wood. In these 
 circumstances the wonder is that missionaries ever got 
 a footing on the islands, where every white man was 
 hated as a member of the sandalwooder's tribe. The 
 murder of Williams and Harris at Dillon's Bay was not 
 due to the innate savagery of the people, but was an act 
 of revenge for atrocities inflicted on them by traders not 
 long before. 
 
 Next came the days of the Kanaka traffic. Not in 
 trees this time was the trade, but in human beings. 
 Labour was needed for Queensland and New Caledonia, 
 and, to secure this, ships went " blackbirding " among 
 the islands. By deceitful promises natives were in- 
 duced to indenture themselves under conditions of which 
 they knew nothing. Touching the pen was equivalent 
 to signing on. Three fingers held up indicated the term 
 of service as three years, not three moons as the poor 
 fellows imagined. 
 
 As time passed and few returned the islanders grew 
 warier. Then other arts were tried. Surely the gramo- 
 phone was never put to baser use than when it sang out 
 in familiar tones to an astonished crowd upon the beach, 
 " Come along Queensland. Plenty eat, plenty money." 
 Often a boat's load would respond to what they took 
 for the call of a friend. 
 
 Force was used as well as fraud, and many were 
 simply kidnapped. 
 
 Numpunavos (Bonny Head) had lived fourteen happy 
 years on the braes of Unepang. She had played with 
 the manse children, for her father, Nelat, was an elder
 
 126 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 of the Kirk. One day a boat put in shore from a ship 
 lying out in the bay, and Bonny Head ran down with 
 the rest to the beach. The Tanna man tried all his arts 
 of persuasion, but in vain. He could get no recruits. 
 In an evil moment his eye fell on Bonny Head. Making 
 a sudden dart, he seized her hand and began dragging 
 her to the boat. " Name, name (father, father)," 
 screamed Bonny Head. Nelat rushed forward and fell, 
 shot through the heart. The girl was flung into the 
 boat, and ere her friends could secure their muskets and 
 run down to the beach, the boat was out of range. Yet, 
 because some futile shots were fired after it, the un- 
 scrupulous Kanaka men published in all the Australian 
 papers that they were attacked and fired upon below the 
 mission house while peacefully pursuing their trade. 
 Little Bonny Head was never seen or heard of more. 
 
 The horrors of the Kanaka traffic became so clamant 
 that the Australian Government, after vainly trying 
 to regulate, finally abolished it. Unhappily it still 
 goes on under the French flag. Recently the High 
 Commissioner for the Western Pacific called at Santo. 
 Speaking of the bad old days, he remarked that of course 
 kidnapping was a thing of the past. " Come up to my 
 station," said our missionary, " and I will show you a 
 boy and girl who were rescued only last night from a 
 French vessel." The Commissioner went, saw the chil- 
 dren, and heard the little fellow tell his graphic story, 
 how the Kanaka man grabbed his wrist, how he fixed 
 his teeth in the man's hand and got a smashing blow in 
 the face, of which his black and swollen eye remained a 
 witness. " This is worth the evidence of six men," 
 said the Commissioner, when the story was finished. 
 
 It would be far from the truth to say or imply that 
 all recruiters practised such atrocities, or that every 
 trader in the islands was a rogue and an evil liver. 
 Some were honest, sober, and humane. Yet the sad 
 fact remains that, since the coming of the white man, 
 two-thirds of the population of the islands have been 
 swept away. The cannibalism and savage wars of the
 
 THE SORROWS OF THE SOUTH SEAS 127 
 
 old heathen days were not so destructive of human life 
 as the kidnapping and bloodshed of the sandalwood and 
 Kanaka traffic, together with the curse of strong drink 
 and the introduction of strange diseases. 
 
 Under such depressing conditions the work of the 
 mission has been carried on for three-quarters of a cen- 
 tury. The missionary has borne the burden of his 
 own and his people's sorrows. He has incurred the 
 bitter enmity of those who looked on the islanders 
 as their lawful prey. Traders have cursed him because 
 he taught the men their rights and the women the 
 sanctity of Christian marriage. Diabolical lies have been 
 sent the round of the newspapers, to blast his character 
 and ruin his influence at home. 
 
 Hard as it is to bear all that, yet harder far has it 
 been to see his beloved islanders dwindle and perish, to 
 find, perhaps, a village where he had established a 
 little school, stripped of all its young men and only 
 a dying remnant left. It cannot be counted less than 
 a tragedy that, just when a new era had begun to dawn, 
 when those who had sat at cannibal feasts were now 
 found sitting at the Lord's table, this awful blight should 
 fall upon the islands. 
 
 Should the islanders be still further diminished, and 
 perhaps, like the natives of New Zealand, in time become 
 extinct, what fruit will remain of the mission ? Will 
 all have been in vain the years of lonely exile, the 
 labours and sufferings and prayers, the martyr graves 
 that consecrate the island ? Has it all been wasted 
 sacrifice ? Not for a single moment can the thought 
 be entertained. The mission is an unparalleled monu- 
 ment of Christian heroism. It has also given to the 
 world such a proof as could not elsewhere be found, of 
 the power of the Gospel to reach the lowest of mankind. 
 If it should ever again be said, as it often has been said, 
 that some races are too degraded to receive the truth, 
 then, for answer, Christians will point to Gospel triumphs 
 in the South Seas, and will tell the story of how cannibals 
 were won for Christ.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE OLD SLAVE DAYS IN JAMAICA 
 
 IT is a far cry from the New Hebrides to the West 
 Indies. Even if we steer straight for the Isthmus of 
 Panama, the voyage is immense across the whole 
 breadth of the Pacific and round the back of the world. 
 Strange things happen at the back of the world, and this 
 is one of the strangest. We go to bed on Saturday night, 
 and waken with the feeling of Sunday morning upon 
 us. But the captain says no, it is Saturday morning. 
 We protest that yesterday was Saturday. True, he 
 replies, but to-day is also Saturday. 
 
 We have crossed the invisible line where the remotest 
 East meets the remotest West. Last night we were 
 in the far East, this morning we are in the far West. 
 Last night Scotland lay many a league behind us, this 
 morning Scotland lies ahead and we are homeward 
 bound. But the extra day ? Simple enough. All the 
 time of the eastward voyage, we have been putting our 
 watches forward to suit the times of the countries to 
 which we came, till we have actually cheated Father 
 Time to the extent of twelve hours. Now we give him 
 a day in compensation and he owes us twelve hours. 
 But we shall continue putting our watches forward, 
 and by the time we reach home, the account will be 
 square. 
 
 The narrow strip of land that unites the two Americas, 
 separates the Pacific from the Caribbean Sea, which on 
 its other side is girt round by the curving chain of the 
 West Indies. Through the winding channels that divide 
 these islands the waters of the Atlantic rush in fierce 
 and variable currents, that drive many a gallant ship 
 
 128
 
 THE OLD SLAVE DAYS IN JAMAICA 129 
 
 to her grave on the jagged coral reefs. Inside the 
 barrier of the islands, like the jealously guarded jewel of 
 the sea, lies Jamaica, " the land of woods and waters." 
 
 The island is oval in shape, and about a seventh of 
 the size of Scotland. A range of mountains, running 
 east and west, forms the backbone of the island, from 
 which side spurs jut out like ribs, dividing the land to 
 north and south into a series of glens. Streams pour 
 down these glens, often with the music of cascades, 
 sometimes plunging underground, to reappear as sud- 
 denly in the valley below. 
 
 This sunny island, so fertile and beautiful, has been 
 the scene of two of the darkest episodes in human his- 
 tory. First there was the tragedy of the gentle Caribs. 
 When Columbus discovered the island on his second 
 voyage to America, he found it peopled by a peaceful 
 and friendly race, who flocked to the shore to welcome 
 him, little dreaming that the coming of the white man 
 sounded the death-knell of their race. The story can 
 be told in a single brief but terrible sentence. The 
 Spaniards took possession of the island, enslaved its 
 miserable inhabitants, and worked them to death. 
 
 When the Caribs were exterminated the haughty 
 Spaniards must needs find other slaves. Then com- 
 menced the long-drawn tragedy of the negro, which, 
 begun by the Spaniard, was carried to its height by our 
 own countrymen, when Jamaica became a British colony. 
 Men and women, boys and girls were torn from their 
 homes in West Africa, driven in chains down to the 
 coast, and shipped across the Atlantic to work in the 
 sugar plantations. No tongue can tell the horrors of 
 that inhuman traffic, in which hundreds of thousands 
 perished. 
 
 A sugar estate in good order was a fine sight, with 
 its luxuriant fields of cane, its factory buildings gleaming 
 white in the sun, the workers' village half buried in a 
 grove, while, overlooking all, the stately mansion of the 
 proprietor stood in the middle of a noble park. 
 
 But the sugar planter's paradise became the black
 
 130 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 man's hell. At earliest dawn the crack of the driver's 
 whip roused the slaves to their work. With half an 
 hour for breakfast and an hour and a half in the heat 
 of the day they toiled on as long as they had light. 
 Besides that they had to work half of every second night 
 in the mill. Only at Christmas were they allowed three 
 days of revelry, which, it was hoped, would put them 
 in humour for another year. 
 
 Christian morality was unknown among the slaves, 
 and wholly disregarded by their masters. A black man 
 or woman might be abused, outraged, worked to death, 
 flogged to death, but nobody cared and the victim had 
 no remedy. From the house of bondage there was no 
 escape. Seven-and-twenty times did the slaves rise in 
 rebellion, only to suffer each time the ruthless vengeance 
 of their tyrant masters. 
 
 By the beginning of last century the conscience of 
 Britain began to be aroused to the iniquity of the slave 
 trade. The exportation from Africa was stopped, and 
 Wilberforce was pleading for emancipation. 
 
 Meantime, in Jamaica, the glory of the " great 
 house " had gone for ever. Most of the owners lived at 
 home, and left the management of their estates to plant- 
 ing attorneys, who, as might be expected, proved more 
 tyrannical than their masters. The lot of the unhappy 
 slave grew worse. 
 
 Yet in the end good came of it. Some of the estates 
 passed into the hands of owners who, not being brutalised 
 by daily contact with the slaves, began to take thought 
 of their welfare as human beings, and agreed, in some 
 cases, to have the slaves taught on their estates. 
 
 Such work roused the deadly opposition of the 
 attorneys, who deemed it essential that the negroes 
 should be kept in darkness. The early preachers had 
 much to contend with. In 1802 an Act was passed by 
 the Parliament of the island, making it illegal to preach 
 to the slaves, and some Wesleyan missionaries were 
 thrown into prison. When our first missionary landed 
 in 1824, the authorities were urged to send him back
 
 THE OLD SLAVE DAYS IN JAMAICA 131 
 
 by the boat in which he came, else there would soon be 
 bloodshed and assassination. 
 
 The field was hard. Not that the slaves were hostile, 
 but many were too weary to care for anything. " Minis- 
 ter," said one, " the living we live here is too bad. Our 
 hearts are broken with work and punishment." The 
 overseers also, like Pharaoh's taskmasters, increased 
 the work to keep the people from the meetings. " Time 
 for meetings," shouted the attorney of Blue Hole, " I 
 would not give five minutes for any such purpose." 
 
 Meetings and classes had to be held at night. Who 
 can read, without emotion, the story of the weary 
 slaves in the night school, reading and sleeping by 
 turns, one half with their books round the table, the 
 rest asleep on the floor. " Whoever moved out of his 
 place had to pick his steps among the prostrate scholars. 
 When their turn came, the sleepers jumped up, rubbing 
 their eyes, while the others took their places and were 
 fast asleep in a moment." The work thus begun 
 grew and prospered. Sites were secured and churches 
 built, each of them a centre of light and hope to a 
 despairing people. At the end of eight years there were 
 six missionaries at work in the north-west of the island. 
 
 Meantime the slaves were growing impatient for their 
 liberty. They had heard rumours of emancipation, and 
 they came to believe that the King had already granted 
 it but their masters were unjustly withholding it from 
 them. At the Christmas of 1831 many of them rose in 
 rebellion and set fire to the sugar factories. About a 
 dozen whites lost their lives, but in the swift vengeance 
 which followed, hundreds of slaves were put to death. 
 After the rebellion there was an outcry, "The mis- 
 sionaries are to blame for this," and a union was formed 
 among the planters to expel them from the island. Yet 
 it was afterwards proved that the Christian negroes, 
 acting on the advice of their ministers, had taken no 
 part in the mad outburst, but continued peacefully at 
 their work. 
 
 At length the cause of emancipation triumphed.
 
 132 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 The soul of Christian Britain could no longer tolerate 
 the ancient wrong of slavery, and, at a cost to herself 
 of 20,000,000, she gave liberty to every slave within 
 the bounds of the Empire. Of the ransom price, nearly 
 six millions went to Jamaica, and more than 300,000 
 slaves in the island were set free. 
 
 Dismal were the predictions of what would happen 
 when the day of emancipation came. Riot, bloodshed, 
 pandemonium, the total ruin of the island, was the 
 least the planters expected. The missionaries, on their 
 part, toiled to instruct and restrain the slaves, whose 
 excitement was rising to fever heat as the fateful day 
 approached. Some fall sick with impatience. They can 
 neither eat nor sleep nor work. Overseers and magis- 
 trates say they are shamming. The minister stirs 
 them on with ringing words of cheer and rebuke. Up 
 and to work ! The weary race is almost over. Let 
 them finish like men and Christians. 
 
 At last the creeping hours bring round the evening 
 before Emancipation Day. The panting slave finishes 
 his task, and throws down his hoe, never again to be 
 lifted save in free and honest labour. Whither are 
 they hastening away in crowds ? To riot and plunder ? 
 No, but to praise and pray. As midnight chimes the 
 hour of freedom, all the churches are filled with kneeling 
 worshippers, who bless God for their redemption and 
 pledge their new-born selves to His service. Prayer 
 ended, they spring to their feet with shouts of Halle- 
 lujah ! They laugh, they weep, they dance, they sing, 
 they embrace each other in a delirium of joy. 
 
 They pour out of the church with freedom tingling 
 like new wine in their veins. Many climb the hills and, 
 standing on the loftiest summits, hail the rising sun 
 with shouts and songs of jubilee. Returning to the 
 village, they organise a great thanksgiving service. 
 Over the church floats an ensign, bearing a figure of the 
 Cross, and the motto " By this we conquer." Over 
 the school is another, with an open Bible and the words 
 4 Christian Education." Every company as it marches
 
 THE OLD SLAVE DAYS IN JAMAICA 133 
 
 in, bears aloft a banner suitably inscribed. The various 
 mottoes are hailed with acclamation. " This is the 
 Lord's doing " ; another, " No bond but the Law " ; and 
 yet another, homelier but no less Christian, "We will 
 work for our wives and children." 
 
 Never was such holy rejoicing since that glorious 
 day on the shore of the Red Sea, when Moses sang and 
 Miriam with her timbrel led the dance. Well might they 
 sing: 
 
 " The race that long in darkness pined 
 
 Have seen a glorious light, 
 The people dwell in day, who dwelt 
 In death's surrounding light." 
 
 And that day the blessing of him that was ready to 
 perish came upon Christian Britain.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE STORM-VEXED QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 
 
 EMANCIPATION did not bring the millennium, as per- 
 haps some of the slaves expected. On the contrary, 
 there followed a period of great depression and misery 
 in the island. It has been usual to lay the blame of 
 this at the door of the negroes, who refused, it is said, 
 to work any more for their old masters. Well, if many 
 of them did refuse, who could blame them ? After all 
 they had endured, what more natural than to say, 
 " Let me never see the old plantation more, nor hear 
 again the tyrant voice of the overseer." A little cabin 
 all his own, a tiny strip of garden, whose fruits would 
 suffice for the simple wants of his family, and where he 
 might enjoy to the full the sweets of liberty, that seemed 
 to every slave the ideal life. 
 
 Many of their old masters did nothing to smooth the 
 way, but, on the contrary, to quote the words of a Royal 
 Commission, " having prophesied the ruin of the island, 
 did their best to fulfil their own prophecy." Wherever 
 the slaves got the offer of fair wages and fair treatment 
 the bulk of them continued steady at their work, and 
 to-day the Jamaica negro has the reputation of being 
 the finest workman in the tropics. 
 
 From the north-west corner of the island, where our 
 mission was first planted, we take our way eastward 
 through the hills and down to the city of Kingston. 
 The loveliness of the country and the luxuriance of its 
 trees and flowers and fruits, is truly wonderful. " Santa 
 Gloria," Columbus christened it, and later travellers 
 have been moved to equal admiration by the beauteous 
 " Queen of the Antilles." Here dwells perpetual 
 
 134
 
 STORM- VEXED QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 135 
 
 summer. At every season of the year fruits of some sort 
 are ripe, and flowers are in perpetual bloom. Yet, 
 in this earthly paradise, no voice of singing birds is 
 heard, nor is there any flutter of little wings among 
 the branches. The redoubtable mongoose, introduced 
 into the island to wage war on snakes and rats, has 
 not only destroyed these, but exterminated the little 
 birds as well, and is now the pest of the island. A hidden 
 danger, too, lurks in the grass. Minute red creatures 
 hang in clusters under the spikes and scatter themselves 
 like soot upon every living thing that brushes past. 
 Then they burrow under the skin, causing endless 
 torment. 
 
 Night, when it falls, is more vocal than the day. 
 Then begins the serenade of the insect world, a tre- 
 mendous murmur of innumerable myriads of tiny 
 voices, rising and falling on the burdened air. Fire- 
 flies dart about or sail in stately procession to and fro, 
 lending brilliance to the scene. Jamaica might stand 
 for a picture of the Promised Land. It is such a land 
 as Christian saw from the battlements of the Palace 
 Beautiful, " a most pleasant mountainous country, 
 beautified with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, 
 flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable 
 to behold." 
 
 There are two terrors from which this lovely island is 
 never safe, the cyclone and the earthquake. They may 
 come in a moment without warning, and leave behind 
 them universal ruin. When the cyclone rages over sea 
 and land, trees are uprooted, sugar plantations laid 
 flat, houses unroofed, and the people, who in the morn- 
 ing had enjoyed the prospect of a bountiful harvest, are 
 in the evening homeless and destitute. The great 
 cyclone of 1880 was said to have destroyed five-sevenths 
 of the produce of the island. 
 
 More dreadful than the cyclone is the earthquake 
 when it smites the foundations of towns and cities. 
 Kingston is proudly seated above her magnificent har- 
 bour. Electric cars clang along her crowded streets.
 
 136 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Everywhere, from her richly laden wharves to the pala- 
 tial villas in her suburbs, there are signs of enterprise 
 and prosperity. Yet in a single moment it may all be 
 brought to ruin. It has happened before and it will 
 happen again. 
 
 Look across the bay to the long, low spit of land which 
 forms the breakwater of the harbour. There, on the 
 Palisades, stood Port Royal, which, two centuries ago, 
 was reputed the wealthiest and wickedest city in the 
 world. Its warehouses were filled with the treasures 
 of the Indies, in its streets swaggered bold buccaneers, 
 enriched with Spanish gold. At the height of its pride 
 and luxury the earthquake fell upon it. Whole streets 
 sunk into the ground, three thousand of the inhabitants 
 perished, and Port Royal was no more. 
 
 Kingston took its place, and inherited its wealth and 
 wickedness. Atrocious scenes have been enacted here. 
 Slaves have been crucified on the Parade, and languished 
 in mortal agony for days in full face of the gaiety of the 
 city. 
 
 On the 14th of January, 1907, the earthquake came. 
 " The morning of the fateful day," wrote an eyewitness, 
 " broke full of promise and hope for Kingston and 
 Jamaica. It was the day of the opening of the great 
 Agricultural Conference of the West Indies, and such 
 an assemblage was gathered as Kingston had never seen. 
 The town was unusually gay, the moment one of the 
 proudest in the history of the colony. Ere sundown 
 our joy was turned into sorrow, our pride humbled in 
 the dust, for over two thousand of our brave citizens lay 
 sleeping in the arms of death or frightfully wounded, 
 and such a wail as Jamaica had never heard broke 
 from sixty thousand bleeding hearts." 
 
 At half -past three in the afternoon, with a horrible 
 subterranean growl, the earthquake leapt on the city 
 and laid it in ruins. After the earthquake came the 
 fire, which swept the ruins, and lit with its lurid glare 
 the horrors of the ensuing night. Every church was 
 wrecked and most of their members rendered destitute.
 
 STORM-VEXED QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 137 
 
 Those were counted happy who, though they had lost 
 their earthly all, had their family circle still unbroken. 
 Throughout the island the damage done by the earth- 
 quake was enormous, houses and churches being every- 
 where overthrown. Relief poured in from the home 
 country, distress was alleviated, and Kingston began 
 to rise from her ruins. 
 
 In time the disaster will be forgotten, as others have 
 been before. Life will glide on placidly under sunny 
 skies in that queenly island, Nature will lavish all her 
 gifts, till suddenly, as if wearied of her fairest work, 
 she will leap up with tiger roar and rend it in pieces. 
 
 Through storm and earthquake the work of the mission 
 goes steadily on. Faithful servants of Christ labour to 
 gather imperishable fruits and to build the city that 
 cannot be moved. Their labours have been crowned 
 with a large measure of success, and there is now, under 
 their charge, a Christian community of forty thousand. 
 Poor they mostly are, for a man's wage in Jamaica is 
 no more than five shillings a week, a frugal, industrious 
 folk, to whom the Sabbath day brings a welcome rest. 
 The little village church is the centre of their life and 
 interest. A fervour pervades the service unknown in 
 our colder clime. 
 
 Jamaica to-day is reckoned a Christian country, but 
 the work of our missionaries is still far from complete. 
 These dusky children of the slaves have much to learn. 
 Their grandfathers were devil-worshippers, and super- 
 stition is in their blood. They are easily swept away 
 by their emotions. Sometimes a great revival comes, 
 at other times an uncontrollable religious outburst, 
 when Christian hymns and prayers are strangely mingled 
 with heathen incantations. Long time will be needed 
 ere the spirit of love and of a sound mind prevails and 
 casts out heathenish fears. 
 
 Meantime the work must be continued in patience, 
 for we have a debt to pay. Our country, at a great 
 price, purchased for the slaves their liberty, that liberty 
 which belongs by right to all the sons of men. Now
 
 138 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 we, as Christians, must help them to attain the enjoy- 
 ment of a diviner liberty, the liberty of the sons of God. 
 Shall not the reward be great when many children of 
 plantation slaves join in the triumph song of Christ's 
 redeemed ?
 
 PART V 
 THE DARK CONTINENT 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 IN THE HOMELAND OF THE NEGRO 
 
 THE next stage of our journey takes us across the broad 
 Atlantic to the West Coast of Africa. In the inmost 
 recesses of the Gulf of Guinea, a hundred miles east of 
 the Niger, the Cross River rolls its waters to the sea. 
 There, in what is now part of Southern Nigeria, lies 
 Calabar, the scene of one of our oldest and most roman- 
 tic missions. 
 
 In sailing from Jamaica to Calabar, we are following 
 in the wake of the pioneers of the mission. Calabar is 
 the offspring of the Jamaica mission. When the planta- 
 tion slaves were emancipated, many of them turned 
 their thoughts to the ancestral home of their people in 
 West Africa, and longed to carry thither the story of 
 the Cross. In this desire their missionaries warmly 
 sympathised, and one of them, Mr. Hope Waddell, came 
 to Scotland to arouse the interest of the home Church. 
 Having secured the necessary help, he sailed for Calabar 
 in 1845, in his little brigantine the Warree. After some 
 months there, spent in laying the foundations of the 
 mission, he took the Warree over to Jamaica, and brought 
 thence an additional band of helpers. 
 
 The Cross River cannot compare in volume with 
 those giants of Africa, the Nile, the Niger, the Congo or 
 the Zambesi, yet, as we sail up its noble estuary, it 
 gives a surprising impression of magnitude. For the 
 
 139
 
 140 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 first thirty miles it maintains a breadth of ten miles. 
 Above that point, though the breadth is not diminished, 
 the channel is filled with a labyrinth of islands. Beyond 
 these islands the Calabar River comes in from the east, 
 rinding its way by various channels to the main stream. 
 Near its mouth, on opposite banks and with an island 
 between them, lie Duke Town and Creek Town, where 
 the mission was commenced. 
 
 How vastly changed is the scene from that which 
 met the gaze of the heroic little band of pioneers on 
 board the Warree. The broad river is unchanged, with 
 its low islands and swampy shores, where the mangroves 
 thrust their tangled roots into the water. But, as we 
 come in sight of Duke Town, we see rising conspicuously 
 above the town a noble building with tower and clock. 
 It is a Christian church, built by the natives themselves 
 at a cost of five thousand pounds, a church where every 
 Sabbath day a thousand worshippers assemble. Could 
 the pioneers of the mission have foreseen this they 
 would surely have danced on the deck for joy. 
 
 That church is an index of the changes that have 
 passed over the face of the country. Sixty years ago, 
 when the Warree cast anchor here, a few trading ships 
 lay in the river for barter with the natives. No white 
 trader was allowed to settle on shore, and few had any 
 desire to do so, for the country was regarded as a 
 white man's grave. Kings were plentiful in Calabar. 
 Every town of any size had its king, some of whom were 
 prosperous traders and men of influence, especially 
 King Eyo Honesty of Creek Town. But mostly they 
 were raw savages who sustained their kingship with 
 ridiculous solemnity, robed in a strip of yellow cotton 
 and crowned with a battered pot-hat. The wealthier 
 chiefs and traders had their houses packed full of sofas 
 and mirrors and every variety of English furniture which 
 they knew not how to use. King Eyamba of Duke 
 Town had even two lumbering carriages standing in the 
 corner of his yard, in a land where no roads existed and 
 a horse had never been seen. These "cow houses"
 
 IN THE HOMELAND OF THE NEGRO 141 
 
 his Majesty was never known to enter, except on one 
 historic occasion when he was dragged and hoisted at 
 the risk of his neck on a state visit to the mission-house 
 on the hill. 
 
 This slight contact with the civilised world had done 
 nothing to banish the superstitions or mitigate the savage 
 cruelties of heathenism. Belief in evil spirits was 
 universal. They were supposed to have their abode in 
 trees and houses and all conspicuous places. Once a 
 year in every village an attempt was made to clear 
 out the spirits by a carnival of frightful noises. The 
 towns on the river-bank offered human sacrifices to 
 the spirit of the river for the success of the fishing. 
 When anyone fell sick, all who might possibly have 
 caused the sickness by witchcraft were forced to eat the 
 poison bean to prove their innocence. By this inhuman 
 ordeal sometimes a village or even a tribe would be 
 poisoned wholesale. The miserable people had no refuge 
 from the tyranny of the witch-doctor. 
 
 Home life as we understand it was utterly unknown. 
 When a young lady of quality was to be married she 
 was sent to a farm and fattened to an enormous size. 
 Thereafter she was put on exhibition in the market- 
 place ere she was sent home to her husband, to be shut 
 in with the rest of his wives. When twin children were 
 born they were, as quickly as possible, buried alive, and 
 the unhappy mother killed or driven into the bush. At 
 the death of the chief or any man of importance there 
 was a cruel slaughter among the people. A huge 
 cavern was dug for a grave, into which the body of the 
 chief was placed, resting on the bodies of four of his wives, 
 bound hand and foot but living. Slaves were then 
 brought to the grave-side, their heads struck off, and 
 their bodies tumbled in till the pit was full, when all 
 was covered over with earth and trampled down. 
 
 To such hideous customs add the horrors of tribal 
 wars, of slavery and slave raiding, and there rises before 
 us the picture of a land covered with gross darkness and 
 full of the habitations of cruelty.
 
 142 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 The history of the mission in its early days is an 
 agonising record of perils and conflicts, of labour and 
 weariness, of the ravages of a deadly climate, of noble 
 lives laid down. Eager as the natives were to learn 
 English and the secret of the white man's magic, they 
 were loth to change the cruel customs of their race. 
 With a devotion above all praise, Christian men and 
 women lived in the midst of all this savagery and wit- 
 nessed against it, while daily their ears were assailed 
 with shrieks of victims and their souls were sick of blood. 
 
 Slowly and by degrees the powers of superstition and 
 wickedness were broken down. Sunday markets were 
 abolished and the people began to assemble to the 
 " God-palaver." King Eyo was the first to hoist a 
 Union Jack over his town, to signify no trading on the 
 Lord's Day. New-born twins were rescued and nursed 
 at the mission-house, and the native women, when at 
 last they were induced to look at them, learned with 
 amazement that twins were not the monsters they had 
 imagined, but were just like other babies. The poison 
 ordeal and the slaughter of slaves for the dead lingered 
 long and died hard. 
 
 The old order of things has passed away, at least in 
 the district round Duke Town and Creek Town. British 
 law is extending up-country, and Duke Town is the 
 seat of Government. The nouses are mere mud huts, 
 but many of them are happy Christian homes. It was a 
 great event when Eyo Onsa was married in " God-man 
 fashion," in 1855, and led his bride home amid the ridi- 
 cule of the whole town. Now the young people love 
 to be married in church, with all the happy ongoings 
 we are familiar with at home. 
 
 In time of sickness and when death enters the home, 
 there is no longer witchcraft and bloodshed, but tender 
 ministries and the comfort of the Christian hope. The 
 Word of God is known and loved. Many even of the 
 old folks are eager to learn to read it for themselves. 
 The children go to school and are taught Christian 
 hymns and Bible stories. In many homes a new genera-
 
 IN THE HOMELAND OF THE NEGRO 143 
 
 tion has grown up who from infancy have known of the 
 love of Christ. Old Eshen Ukpabio was the first convert 
 of the mission, and now his son William occupies his 
 father's pulpit at Adiabo. 
 
 Perhaps the spot where we can best realise the changes 
 that have been wrought in Calabar is on Institution 
 Hill at Duke Town. It is a steep climb up from the 
 landing-stage, and we pause for a moment on the brow 
 of the hill and turn to enjoy the fine view of the town 
 and the river at our feet. Creek Town is visible three 
 miles distant beyond the islands, its lofty church tower 
 and clock rivalling that of Duke Town. 
 
 Now look at the magnificent range of buildings with 
 which the hill is crowned. Sixty years ago, when this 
 hill-top was granted to the mission by King Eyamba, it 
 was thickly strewn with decaying bodies of the un- 
 buried dead, flung down there by friends who could not 
 be troubled to find them a grave. The natives employed 
 to clear the ground could not face the loathsome work 
 till the bush was burned down and the bodies consumed, 
 after which the bones were gathered and interred. 
 Now, on the same ground, stands the finest educational 
 institution in West Africa, and the pride of our mission. 
 
 The buildings are in the form of a huge square. There 
 are classrooms and dormitories for two hundred boys, 
 with schools for carpentry, tailoring, printing, and book- 
 binding, besides houses for the teachers. The open space 
 in the centre is the playground, and many a keen game 
 has been fought out between these goalposts. 
 
 To the institution are sent sons of chiefs and Christian 
 lads of promise from the village schools. On them 
 depends the hope of the country. Some become minis- 
 ters, some teachers, others enter Government service, 
 others again follow some useful trade. But all leave 
 the institution with some knowledge of Scripture and 
 some impression of what it means to be a Christian, 
 and many of them, returning to their homes in the 
 various districts, are becoming the apostles of their 
 people.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE GATEWAY OF THE ENYON CREEK 
 
 AT Duke Town we stand, as it were, on the edge of an 
 impenetrable forest, peering into its gloomy depths. 
 Little footpaths have been made into the forest here 
 and there, venturous travellers have plunged farther 
 in, some never to return, but vast tracts are still un- 
 trodden and unknown to the white man. Nowhere is 
 the darkness of darkest Africa more dense than in the 
 hinterland of the West Coast. 
 
 Into this darkness our mission seeks to penetrate, 
 bearing the light of life. The Cross River forms the 
 natural line of advance to the interior, and, step by 
 step, we have planted stations along its banks at 
 Ikorofiong, at Ikorama, at Unwana, and at Itigidi, a 
 hundred and forty miles up. From each of these central 
 points a circle of light radiates to the villages round, and 
 so the darkness is slowly pushed back. As the natives 
 come to understand the blessings of Christian education 
 they welcome the teacher among them, and many 
 earnest petitions come from villages for which no teacher 
 is available. Some even go the length of building a 
 little church and then come, saying, " The house is 
 ready. Will you not give us a teacher, even a boy? " 
 Could any plea be more touching ? The situation is 
 perhaps without parallel in the world houses for 
 Christian worship built by heathen hands, and standing 
 empty in dark African villages waiting the coming 
 of the messengers of the Cross. 
 
 The story of Itigidi reads like a romance. A boy 
 from that place, Ejemut by name, was brought down 
 and trained at the Institution in Duke Town. Return - 
 
 144
 
 GATEWAY OF THE EN YON CREEK 145 
 
 ing home, he commenced to teach his people the truth 
 of God, but soon had to leave the place to take up the 
 work of a Government interpreter. One Sunday morn- 
 ing the people of Itigidi came down the river in their 
 canoes to Unwana, and asked the missionary there if a 
 teacher could not be sent up to their town. They offered 
 to build a church and teacher's house, and contribute 
 nine pounds a year to his support. The church was 
 built, but no suitable teacher could be found. Ejemut 
 heard of it and, immediately resigning his post under 
 Government, he returned, at little more than half the 
 salary, to be the teacher of his people. To-day there is 
 a congregation of four hundred at Itigidi, who worship 
 in a new church which stands on the ground where 
 formerly the village idol stood. 
 
 Half-way up the river to Itigidi we reach the town 
 of Itu, where the Enyon Creek branches off to the north- 
 west. In recent years it has become a wide, open gate- 
 way for the Gospel. 
 
 Until lately our mission was confined to the east 
 bank of the Cross River. The country lying to the west 
 was closed to the white man. Strong, clever, cannibal 
 tribes occupied the whole of the Ibo country, right 
 across to the Niger. In the depths of their impenetrable 
 forests they perpetrated every form of savagery. Little 
 was known of them save the ominous fact that they 
 poured down the Enyon Creek a continuous stream of 
 slaves to the great slave market at Itu. A renowned 
 centre of their barbarous worship was at Arochuku, 
 near the head of the Creek, where stood a famous idol 
 known as the Long Ju-Ju. Pilgrims to this shrine were 
 often seized and offered in sacrifice, while the bloody 
 slave raids of these fierce tribes kept the whole country 
 in terror. 
 
 In 1902 a British army marched to Arochuku, sub- 
 dued the tribes, and demolished the Long Ju-Ju. Thus 
 a vast and densely populated country was thrown open 
 to the Gospel. Five or six million people, all speaking 
 the same language, occupy the region between the
 
 146 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Niger and the Cross River. Missionaries from England 
 are working eastward from the Niger, and our mission 
 must push to the west, till we join hands and stretch a 
 chain of mission stations right across the country. 
 
 The pioneer of the Enyofi Creek is Mary Slessor. She 
 has been longer in Calabar, and knows its customs and 
 its people better than any other, whether missionary or 
 Government official. Some day the story of her life 
 will be written, and her name will live in history with 
 the names of Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale. 
 She has ever been in the forefront of the battle, living 
 in mud huts, trudging through the forests, toiling with 
 hands and brain, nursing families of orphans and 
 rescued twins, recklessly regardless of health and com- 
 fort. Her life has been an utter abandon of devotion 
 such as our age has rarely seen. 
 
 When the Ibo country was opened up, Miss Slessor 
 came to the Enyofi Creek and built a little church in 
 Itu, while at the same time she journeyed with tireless 
 energy among the villages up and down the Creek. 
 Now Itu has its dispensary and hospital fitly named 
 the " Slessor Hospital," in charge of a medical mission- 
 ary, and the indomitable pioneer has carried the flag 
 farther on. 
 
 A few miles up the Creek we reach Akani Obio, where 
 the chief Onoyom, a fine fellow and a tower of strength 
 to the Christian cause, has built a new church costing 
 three hundred pounds. Every Sabbath morning he 
 runs up the Union Jack, as an intimation to all passers- 
 by on the Creek that it is the Lord's Day, and no trading 
 is to be done in his town. Would that our country's 
 flag might ever wave in the breeze as the symbol of 
 holy peace ! 
 
 We push on up the Creek, with its swarms of villages, 
 into a country where, ten years ago, no white man could 
 venture. We receive a friendly welcome from men 
 who have eaten human flesh. We reach Arochuku itself, 
 the once renowned shrine of the Long Ju-Ju. There, 
 on the very spot where devilish wickedness reigned,
 
 GATEWAY OF THE EN YON CREEK 147 
 
 we find a Christian church, and, to crown all, we listen 
 to the high priest of the Ju-Ju leading the congregation 
 in prayer. 
 
 It is a land of the strangest contradictions. Here are 
 some of the old warriors, who hurled themselves against 
 the British troops, now sitting among the children in 
 school and wrestling with the ABC. Here is the great 
 pioneer herself, presiding over a jury of natives for 
 she holds a judge's commission under Government 
 trying a case of assault. On the ground at her feet is a 
 human skull, over which the witnesses take their oath 
 in native fashion, and she patiently labours to bring 
 out the truth, while the jury, no less than the prisoner, 
 have to be instructed in the first principles of humanity 
 and justice. 
 
 The progress achieved is wonderful, and on every side 
 the fields are white unto the harvest. We are yet only 
 entering the gateway of the Ibo country, and the bulk 
 of its millions lie beyond. One thing makes the situation 
 intensely critical. Nigeria lies on the fringe of the 
 Mohammedan world which dominates North Africa 
 throughout its whole extent. The emissaries of the False 
 Prophet are pushing southward, and whole nations, 
 which a few years ago were heathen, now own allegiance 
 to Mohammed. It is a vast and imminent peril, threat- 
 ening the whole of Central Africa. The issue trembles 
 in the balance. Shall the Crescent or the Cross pre- 
 vail ? 
 
 So an urgent call has come to us to press in and win 
 this land for Christ. Here, perhaps, is the hottest part 
 of all our far-flung battle line. Here is the place for 
 those who seek for glory and honour and immortality. 
 Here, if we fail not, the victory of the Cross will be as 
 decisive as the peril now is great.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 BESIDE THE GREAT KEI RIVER 
 
 THE imposing spectacle of Table Mountain, with its 
 white ' tablecloth ' streaming from the summit, 
 assures us that we have reached the great portal of 
 South Africa. A few hours ashore in Cape Town make 
 a welcome break after our long voyage down the west 
 coast, but we speedily re-embark and sail along past 
 Port Elizabeth to East London, which is the port for 
 Kaffraria and our numerous mission stations among 
 the Kaffirs. 
 
 The big liner cannot cross the bar of the Buffalo 
 River, so she lies out in the roadstead till the fussy 
 little tender comes alongside, down to the heaving 
 deck of which we are lowered in a basket an eerie 
 moment. Soon we are ashore in East London, and 
 aboard of the train that is to take us up-country. 
 
 We begin to gather our first impressions of the land. 
 The scenery is not to boast of. The bare, brown veldt 
 stretches on and on, with here a rocky krantz and 
 there a hollow kloof sheltering a few scrubby trees and 
 bushes. An occasional farm-house, with corrugated iron 
 roof, marks the lonely home of some Dutch or Scottish 
 settler. Every now and then there appear along the 
 ridges clusters of big beehives. These are the round 
 huts of Kaffir kraals, walls of mud and wattle, low 
 thatched roofs, with neither window nor chimney. 
 When you have seen one you have seen all. Monoto- 
 nous like the dreary veldt itself is the architecture of the 
 kraal. 
 
 The veldt rolls steadily upward in broad terraces till 
 it breaks at the foot of the Drakensberg, a hundred 
 
 148
 
 BESIDE THE GREAT KEI RIVER 149 
 
 miles inland. The country that stretches along between 
 the Drakensberg and the sea is the home of the various 
 Kaffir tribes the Gaikas, Galekas, Fingoes, and the rest. 
 Less than a century ago they roamed with their cattle 
 over the veldt and the land was all their own, now they 
 are hustled by the white settler and penned in locations. 
 
 This change did not take place without many a 
 desperate struggle and many a deed of blood. A few 
 miles to the north, the Great Kei River flows down from 
 the Stormberg to the sea. Once it was the boundary 
 of Cape Colony, and the country through which we are 
 passing was the scene of the nine Kaffir wars. The 
 fierce and warlike tribes beside the Great Kei broke 
 again and again like an avalanche upon the Colony, 
 murdered families of isolated settlers, drove off cattle, 
 spread panic far and wide, and even inflicted reverses 
 on British troops. 
 
 In these lawless times it was not to be expected that 
 the raiders would distinguish between the land-grabbing 
 colonist and the peaceful missionary. In the war of 
 1835, the first Lovedale was burned. The second was 
 for a time held by British troops as a fort. Many were 
 the dangers and discouragements that befell the pioneers. 
 Yet their presence in the country was not without its 
 effect. " For the preservation of peace between the 
 colonists and the natives," said Sir Charles Warren when 
 Governor of Natal, " one missionary is worth a battalion 
 of soldiers." 
 
 In the more peaceful times that followed the Kaffir 
 wars, the mission steadily pushed to the north-east, 
 crossed the Great Kei, and gradually extended through 
 Fingoland, Tembuland, Pondoland, and Griqualand 
 East, up to Natal and the Tugela. Scattered over this 
 wide field there are now 130 missionaries of our Church, 
 who with their native helpers preach the Gospel at 
 450 stations, where they have gathered round them a 
 Christian community which numbers nearly 30,000. 
 
 We leave the train at the little wayside station of 
 Dohne, from which a ten-mile drive across the veldt
 
 150 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 will bring us to Emgwali. Lovedale lies forty miles 
 to the south-west. The springs of our spider rock and 
 heave as we jolt along over the frightful ruts that 
 go by the name of a road. Kaffirs pass with a cheery 
 salute, walking, as always, in single file. Here comes a 
 family, apparently on the move, the man stalking 
 in front, knobkerry in hand, his wife toiling on 
 behind with the baby strapped on her back, and 
 burdened with the household furniture, consisting 
 mainly of a three-legged pot and a grass mat. A waggon 
 rumbles along, drawn by twelve oxen yoked in pairs. 
 " Hollaand ! Scotlaand ! " shouts the driver as he urges 
 on the leading pair. He has geographical names for 
 all his team, and is as proud as Punch about it. 
 
 The road climbs over a low hill, from the crest of 
 which we see before us a shallow valley surrounded 
 by bare ridges. Two Kaffir kraals lie on opposite sides 
 of the valley, and the road winds like a thread between 
 them. The scrubby mimosa bushes, straggling thinly 
 about, seem to emphasise the dreariness and poverty 
 of the land. 
 
 In the foreground is a more pleasing scene. A sub- 
 stantial clump of school buildings, with a refreshing 
 avenue of young pines and gum trees running down to 
 the white gate on the road, behind the school a manse, 
 and beyond that again a church. This is Emgwali, a 
 little garden of God in the immense solitude of the veldt. 
 
 We are heartily glad to jump out of the spider with 
 bones still unbroken after the terrible jolting. So 
 here is the home of the Kaffir missionary " um- 
 fundisi " the natives call him. The house stands in the 
 middle of a large garden. Behind are several outhouses 
 and sheds, for umfundisi is thrown upon his own re- 
 sources and must do a bit of farming and carpentry 
 in fact, must be ready to put his hand to anything. 
 
 Emgwali will ever cherish the memory of Tiyo Soga, 
 the first Christian minister of the Kaffir race, who 
 laboured here for ten years. He came to Lovedale, a 
 keen-eyed Kaffir boy, clad in a sheepskin and grasping
 
 BESIDE THE GREAT KEI RIVER 151 
 
 his knobkerry. Soon he outstripped all competitors 
 and was sent to Scotland to complete a university 
 education. Thereafter he returned to Kaffraria to 
 become the apostle of his people " such a man," 
 says the historian of South Africa, " as any nation in 
 the world might be proud of." To him the Kaffirs owe 
 their translation of the " Pilgrim's Progress." 
 
 The centre of life at Emgwali is the girls' school. 
 It has been in existence for over seventy years, and 
 provides accommodation for a hundred boarders and a 
 hundred day pupils. The girls come from all the 
 districts about the Great Kei and beyond it. Some 
 are daughters of chiefs or wealthy tribesmen who have 
 learned to value education, others are the more promising 
 pupils from the schools in the kraals. They come here 
 to be trained for teachers, or to carry back to their 
 homes some knowledge of housekeeping and needle- 
 work. 
 
 Simple fare and strenuous work is the rule of the 
 place. In school the girls wrestle with the three R's 
 and various other subjects till their woolly heads ache. 
 How convenient these woolly heads are to be sure ! 
 No end of pencils and pen-nibs, needles and pins can be 
 stowed away among the spiral twists, not always to 
 be found again when wanted. They are excellent pen- 
 wipers too, and a swift stroke across the wool cleans 
 the inkiest ruler. The girls sing exquisitely, in all the 
 four parts, especially bass. They would not be Kaffirs 
 if they could not sing. Every Kaffir is born with music 
 in his soul. Out of school hours there is house work and 
 garden work to be done. On Sunday they go out in 
 bands, armed with Bible pictures, and teach the children 
 in the neighbouring kraals. 
 
 It is a busy, happy life, and the influence of the place 
 is incalculable. Raw Kaffir girls, full of their native 
 superstitions and tribal enmities, are brought into 
 contact with Christian womanhood, and taught to be 
 gentle and wise and pure. " The beauty of this world," 
 said one of them, " is the good character of the girls.
 
 152 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Therefore we girls must keep ourselves pure." But it 
 is not easy, when they leave the shelter of the school, 
 and go to some isolated kraal to teach, or, in some cases 
 worse still, go back to their own people, where the power 
 of the old life is strong, and Christian help and com- 
 panionship are far away. It is a terrible battle they have 
 to fight, and only the spirit of the living Christ can give 
 them the victory and keep them pure. 
 
 The missionary, too, has his battle. He, too, is 
 isolated, weighed down by the surrounding heathenism, 
 worn with long journeys, for his parish is as big as a 
 Scottish county, and at times thoroughly disheartened 
 and spent. 
 
 Far away on the veldt, beyond the Great Kei, a mis- 
 sionary is riding slowly home, with his head sunk low 
 upon his breast. He is returning from one of his out- 
 stations where he has found his people in open revolt. 
 Crafty men have been among them and seduced their 
 minds with the cry, " Africa for the Africans ! Why 
 should we be children any longer ? Why submit to the 
 control of the white man ? Let us have a church that 
 is all our own." The poison of race prejudice is in- 
 stilled into many hearts, and there is now no welcome 
 for umfundisi when he comes to visit them. Some of 
 his most trusted helpers have failed. They avoid his 
 presence or regard him with sullen, averted looks. He 
 returns home baffled and dispirited. To these people 
 he has given the best twenty years of his life, for their 
 sakes he made his home on the lonely veldt, for them 
 he toiled and prayed. 
 
 It all comes back to him, from the day he first preached 
 in the kraal, and the old chief Matwa rose and said, 
 " Umfundisi 's message from God is an egg, let us wait 
 till it is hatched." They had waited, he had toiled 
 and prayed ! How he had toiled ! What arts he had 
 used to win their confidence ! How often had he sat 
 with the men, on the lee side of the cattle-pen, holding 
 a friendly indaba, telling them of the great lands be- 
 yond the sea, of the wonders of nature, of science, of
 
 BESIDE THE GREAT KEI RIVER 153 
 
 industry, of the benefits of education, of the folly of 
 clinging to the old ways in face of the white man's 
 coming, of the need of cultivating their land, and a 
 hundred other things. He had watched the barriers of 
 indolence and superstition slowly breaking down. 
 Ah ! the joy of the first convert, when Mduba was 
 baptised before them all, confessing his faith in Christ. 
 Others followed, one by one, then in twoes and threes, 
 till one could speak of a Christian congregation, though 
 but small. 
 
 Then came the opening of the little church, on which 
 months of labour had been spent. Surely that was the 
 crowning day. Everybody was there from all the country 
 round, with such singing and such feasting as never 
 had been. And the collection ! At the remembrance a 
 smile lights up the weary man's face. He can see it 
 all as plain as yesterday, the table set out on the veldt, 
 the wide circling crowd, the keen rivalry among the 
 givers. Matwa leads the way, and lays a sovereign 
 on the table. Others follow, every man gracing his gift 
 with more or less of a speech. When the stream slackens 
 Matwa lays a second sovereign on the table for en- 
 couragement, and they go at it again. " I give a shilling 
 to open Mnyanda's mouth," says one. Mnyanda re- 
 sponds with half a sovereign. " I give a shilling to open 
 Mnyanda's mouth wider." There is a laugh, for Mnyanda 
 is reputed as close as he is wealthy, and the victim reluc- 
 tantly doubles his subscription. Now begins the collection 
 in kind. " I give an ox because I am the same age as 
 Queen Victoria." " I give a shilling to tie up the ox." 
 " I give two oxen." " I give a sheep." Poultry follow, 
 and mealies, and other useful things. It all comes to 
 the best part of one hundred pounds, and the church 
 is opened free of debt. Ah, that was a day worth living ! 
 
 And now, to think it should all end in this. Um- 
 fundisi had long known that the restless Ethiopian 
 movement was sowing seeds of discord and ill-will 
 among the native churches, but never once did he dream 
 that the evil spirit would lay hold on his beloved chil-
 
 154 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 dren. Yet, now that it has come, he remembers to have 
 noticed looks of suspicion and dark mutterings at other 
 stations. How far will the spirit spread ? One never 
 knows. He seems to see his whole life work slipping 
 through his hands. 
 
 As he rides on, a low mound appears beside the track. 
 How well he knows the spot. There he built his first 
 home on the veldt a mere mud hut, but to him a very 
 Bethel in the first months of ardour and glowing hope. 
 Now nothing remains but this shapeless mud heap, 
 which will soon be indistinguishable from the veldt. 
 " Perhaps it is an emblem of my life's work. All sinks 
 back to the old level." 
 
 He draws nearer, and now he sees, springing out of 
 the mud heap that was once his hut, an arum lily with 
 its perfect flower fit for the paradise of God. A new 
 strange light kindles in the weary man's eyes, and he 
 hears the voice of ancient prophecy making music in his 
 soul : " The wilderness and the solitary place shall be 
 glad for them ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom 
 as the rose." Thank God ! It has not been in vain. 
 He lifts his head and rides on with courage and hope 
 renewed.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 SOMGXADA, THE SWIFT STRIDER 
 
 His waggon had broken down on the veldt, and he was 
 far from home. He went to the nearest kraal for help. 
 The men were sitting by the cattle-pen. " Who are 
 you ? " they asked, not in the least disposed to trouble 
 about a stranger. " I am Dr. Stewart." Not a man 
 stirred. " I am Somgxada." Instantly every face lit 
 up and every man was upon his feet. To the world at 
 large he was known as Stewart of Lovedale, but the 
 Kaffirs, who watched his long, quick, tiger step, and 
 fierce, resistless energy, spread his fame among their 
 people as Somgxada, the Swift Strider. 
 
 Lovedale is the glory of South African missions, and 
 a rock that splinters the shafts of the missionary critic. 
 All who would know what can be made of the native 
 must visit it, and the visitor will carry away an inspiring 
 memory. 
 
 From the railway station of Alice one has a pleasant 
 view of a well-wooded valley, with many roofs of 
 scattered buildings rising over the trees. Then follows 
 a mile of a drive between hedgerows of quince, and 
 along a stately avenue. The spreading oaks and lofty 
 pines, the flower and shrub plots, the trim turf, 
 the well-kept gravel paths, are a refreshing .sight in 
 this land of dreary veldt. At the head of the avenue 
 stands the main building of the Institution, which con- 
 tains a central hall with classrooms, library, and book- 
 store. To the right are the boys' dormitory and dining- 
 hall, the workshops and technical buildings, and, in 
 the distance, the Victoria Hospital. To the left, along 
 a shady avenue, are the buildings of the girls' school. 
 
 155
 
 156 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Scattered through the grounds are the teachers' houses, 
 and, in the bottom of the valley, the Tyumie murmurs 
 along within deep banks. 
 
 At Lovedale are gathered in hundreds the brightest 
 of the native youth of South Africa. They belong to 
 every tribe from the Cape to the Zambesi. Fingoes, 
 Gaikas, Basutos, Zulus, Barolongs, Bechuanas, Mata- 
 bele, are all mingled in friendly rivalry of work and 
 sport. The six o'clock morning bell rings out over the 
 valley, and soon the whole community is astir. A busy 
 hum resounds through the classrooms and workshops 
 till three o'clock in the afternoon, when there is a general 
 parade for outdoor work which lasts till five. On 
 Saturday the centre of life and interest is the ' Oval,' 
 where many a keen game is contested, and when the 
 Primrose and the Flying Stars meet in the final, the 
 excitement is intense. Sunday brings its own activi- 
 ties. By 6.30 in the morning little mission bands are 
 on their way to preach the Gospel in neighbouring 
 kraals. In the evening, when the sacred labours of 
 the day are over, all assemble for worship in the great 
 central hall. 
 
 In January of the year 1867, while as yet this noble 
 institution was a thing of the future, and the Tyumie 
 flowed through the naked valley, there came to Love- 
 dale a stalwart Highlander of six feet two. In appear- 
 ance he was lean, even gaunt, but the well-knit frame, 
 the quick step, the keen eyes, showed a man of unusual 
 decision and abounding nervous energy. Already he 
 was an experienced African traveller. He had explored 
 the Zambesi and the Shire. He had stood with Living- 
 stone when Mary Moffat was laid to rest " on Shupanga 
 brae that beeks foment the sun." 
 
 His early ambition had been to follow in the steps of 
 Livingstone, and make the Zambesi a highway for the 
 Gospel into Central Africa. But the time was hardly 
 ripe, and so in God's Providence it came about that 
 Lovedale was the scene of his life's work. For forty 
 years before he came to the valley there had been a
 
 SOMGXADA, THE SWIFT STRIDER 157 
 
 mission station and a school there. But his coming 
 marked the beginning of a new era. 
 
 Somgxada was an imperial dreamer. He saw a great 
 future for the despised and down-trodden African, 
 when he should no longer be the white man's beast of 
 burden, but should take his place in the brotherhood of 
 nations ; when he should be raised up by the Gospel, 
 by education, by honest labour, to fulfil his duties as a 
 man, and enjoy his heritage as a son of God. With this 
 vision came another, of the bare Tyumie valley, beauti- 
 fied and enriched by cultivation, adorned with buildings 
 and every equipment of Christian civilisation, drawing 
 to itself the flower of South African youth, and sending 
 them forth again to uplift their people. 
 
 Not every dreamer is also a doer, but such was 
 Somgxada. He was fond of quoting the African proverb, 
 " The dawn does not come twice to waken a man," 
 and no dawn, when it came, found him a laggard. 
 With tireless energy he planned and toiled. No detail 
 was counted trivial, no task too humble. " Is Dr. 
 Stewart at home ? " inquired a party of visitors who had 
 come to see Lovedale when its fame was spread through 
 all the Colony. They had found a gang of Kaffir boys 
 busily digging, and they addressed the foreman of the 
 gang, who stood spade in hand. " Yes," was the reply, 
 " Dr. Stewart is at home." " Can you tell us where 
 to find him ? " " He is here. I am Dr. Stewart." 
 
 He had great faith in the Gospel of work to redeem 
 the native from his indolence. When a Kaffir is asked, 
 " What are you doing ? " the not infrequent answer is, 
 " I am just staying." It is his favourite occupation. But 
 no Kaffir boy about Lovedale ever spent his time "just 
 staying." Every pupil in the Institution must do some 
 manual labour daily. In the workshops the boys were 
 trained in carpentry and waggon-building, printing and 
 brickmaking, with other useful arts. Not all the hun- 
 dreds who came to Lovedale were fitted to become 
 preachers and teachers, but to master an honest trade 
 was no less needful for the elevation of the race.
 
 158 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 By example as well as precept, Somgxada inspired 
 the Kaffir with a new sense of the dignity of labour. 
 His is the day's work of a giant. All the needs of the 
 great community he has built up and gathered round 
 him are his constant burden. He is a teacher and must 
 meet his classes daily, a preacher and must prepare 
 for his Sabbath congregation, a physician and must 
 attend his patients. An endless stream of telegrams, 
 letters, and messages pours in upon him. His office is 
 the seat of authority and the universal court of appeal. 
 The door is continually on the swing, and a fine is im- 
 posed on such as enter by the window. Dawn often 
 steals upon Somgxada, toiling at the arrears of yester- 
 day's work. 
 
 Fresh fields continually open out before him. 
 Now he has planned some big extension and must plead 
 his cause before the churches and raise the necessary 
 thousands of pounds. Now he is across the Great Kei, 
 planting at Blythswood among the Fingoes, a daughter 
 of Lovedale. Anon he is guiding the counsels of a 
 Parliamentary Commission or presiding over a General 
 Assembly. A year is spent in laying the foundations 
 of Livingstonia, and exploring Lake Nyasa. At the age 
 of sixty-one he is again at the head of a missionary 
 caravan, toiling through the Taro Desert above Mombasa, 
 the only member of the expedition who had not an 
 hour's illness. 
 
 In all his multifarious labours the missionary aim was 
 ever supreme. To lead all these Kaffir lads and girls 
 into the Kingdom, to develop among them strong, pure 
 Christian character, was his constant endeavour. Nor 
 were his labours and prayers in vain. The record of 
 the old boys of Lovedale makes heartsome reading. 
 A thousand of them are ministers, evangelists, and 
 teachers, another thousand are farmers and tradesmen. 
 Several thousands more are in occupations too numerous 
 to mention. Kimberley, in .he old days, could never 
 find reliable telegraph messengers till Lovedale boys 
 were tried, and against them, said the Postmaster of
 
 SOMGXADA, THE SWIFT STRIDER 159 
 
 the Cape, there was " not so much as the shadow of a 
 complaint." Down along the east coast, shipmasters, 
 struck with fine cheery faces, and unusual marks of 
 intelligence among the men handling the cargo, have 
 inquired where they came from, and the answer was 
 almost sure to be, " Lovedale." Not that all have 
 turned out well, but at least 75 to 80 per cent are known 
 to be leading industrious and useful lives. Of the rest 
 only three per cent have been brought before the magis- 
 trate as lawbreakers. " Can Oxford do better than 
 that ? " asked Somgxada, with pardonable pride. 
 
 At last the time came when the step of the Swift 
 Strider grew slow, and the tireless worker went to his 
 rest. On Christmas Day, 1905, a vast procession of 
 natives and Europeans wended its slow and mournful 
 way through the Tyumie valley, and up to the summit 
 of Sandili's Kop. There, in a rock-hewn tomb, they 
 laid him with Christian prayer and praise. All knew 
 that a prince and a great man was fallen in Israel, 
 but the Kaffirs mourned as for a father, and thus they 
 spoke of him. " The friend of the natives is gone. 
 To-day we are orphans. Dried up is the fountain at 
 which we were wont to drink. The wings that were 
 spread over us are folded, the hands that were stretched 
 out to aid the native are resting. The eye that watched 
 all danger is sleeping to-day, the voice that was raised 
 in our behalf is still. We are left sorrowful, amazed, 
 and troubled, but in our sorrow we say, God is not 
 dead." 
 
 Three days later a great convention of natives from 
 all the races of South Africa gathered round the grave 
 on Sandili's Kop, and held a memorial service. They 
 had come together to plan the establishment of a College 
 for natives, and they honoured the memory of him who 
 had done more than any other to make this possible. 
 At the convention it was resolved to found an Inter- 
 state College for natives at Lovedale, and the delegates 
 pledged themselves to raise among the tribes the sum 
 of 50,000. Thus was the work of Somgxada crowned.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 REDS AND WHITES 
 
 THE ' red Kaffir ' is a picturesque figure, as he stalks 
 along, knobkerry in hand, his red blanket thrown round 
 him, and his skin shining like polished mahogany. 
 No doubt, at close quarters, he is found to be altogether 
 too red. His blanket is powdered with red ochre, 
 his skin is smeared with ochre and grease. He reddens 
 everything he handles, and nothing that has once 
 been in his hut will ever be clean again. Still he makes 
 a fine picture, and when you see the ridiculous attire 
 of some of his friends who have begun to ape the white 
 man's ways one clad in an old waterproof, another 
 radiant in a blazer out at elbows, a third balancing 
 on his woolly head a rimless hat, you are disposed to 
 look on the red Kaffir as nature's gentleman. 
 
 But the red blanket is doomed. Everywhere it is 
 disappearing before the face of the white man, and its 
 passing marks a new era for the Kaffir race. The native 
 sees his land overrun by a strange and masterful people, 
 the power of his chief broken, and tribal distinctions 
 swept away. Towns have sprung up, and shops to 
 supply and increase his needs. New spheres of labour 
 are open to him, on the railways, in the mines, and at 
 the wharves. No kraal escapes the attention of the 
 trader, the labour agent, and the tax-collector. So the 
 red blanket must be laid aside, and the Kaffir must 
 learn to live in a new world. 
 
 Many white settlers hold the Kaffir in supreme con- 
 tempt. According to them, he is a soulless nigger, " a 
 useless and dangerous brute," whose incurable laziness 
 can only be dealt with by frequent applications of the 
 
 160
 
 REDS AND WHITES 161 
 
 sjambok. But a patient study of the facts will not 
 bear out these sweeping statements. The Kaffir, like 
 the white man, will not work unless he has something 
 to work for. In the old days his wants were few and 
 easily supplied. Why should he work ? It was pleasanter 
 to sit in the sun beside the cattle-kraal. But to-day he 
 is taking his place in the world's great army of workers. 
 Practically all manual labour in South Africa is done 
 by him. He dislikes intensely to work in the mines. 
 " A man," he says, " should not be put under the 
 ground till he is dead." Yet thousands and tens of 
 thousands go to the mines every year. 
 
 The Kaffir also is not destitute of ambition and enter- 
 prise. He is more and more coming to see the value 
 of civilisation, and is bitten with the desire to get on 
 in the world. At Lovedale alone, natives have paid 
 fees amounting to 100,000 for the education of their 
 sons and daughters. 
 
 The story of Blythswood is another evidence of the 
 same spirit. The Fingoes beyond the Great Kei having 
 conceived the idea of building for themselves ' a daugh- 
 ter of Lovedale,' invited the co-operation of Dr. Stewart. 
 He replied, offering to raise pound for pound, but 
 stating that nothing could be done unless they could 
 subscribe 1000. Never before had such a proposal 
 been made to natives. After four or five months 
 there came a message, " Come up, the money is ready." 
 When Stewart arrived he found a table standing on 
 the veldt, heaped with silver coins to the amount of 
 1450. " There are the stones," said the spokesman of 
 the tribe, " now build." Nor was this all. To enlarge 
 the building the Fingoes subscribed another 1500, 
 and finally, in clearing off the debt, they increased their 
 gift to the grand total of 4500. In the old days the 
 Fingoes were the slaves of the Gaikas and Galekas, 
 to-day they are foremost among the tribes in intelli- 
 gence and material prosperity. 
 
 But education, it is said, only spoils the native. 
 " Lovedale boys are a bad lot. Give me the red Kaffir.
 
 162 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 He knows his place, and there are no airs about him." 
 A great volume of Colonial opinion is hostile to all 
 educational and missionary work among the natives. 
 The wildest misstatements are believed, and the most 
 dogmatic of the critics are often the least trustworthy. 
 At the Manufacturers' Association in Port Elizabeth, 
 the Grahamstown tinsmiths complained that their 
 trade was being ruined by the tinware made at Lovedale 
 with the aid of a Government subsidy. The Association 
 passed a unanimous resolution of protest. The reply of 
 Lovedale was to offer one thousand pounds for every 
 piece of tinware made at the Institution. None was 
 ever forthcoming. 
 
 In estimatingthe influence of missions upon the native, 
 this must be carefully borne in mind, that every native 
 who has been at a mission school is not a Christian. 
 To talk a little English, to wear English clothes, to 
 take on a veneer of civilisation does not make a Kaffir 
 a Christian. Are there no clever rogues at home who 
 turn their education to bad uses ? Are there no hypo- 
 crites who glibly profess a religion whose power they 
 do not feel ? Allowance must be made for such cases 
 among the Kaffirs. 
 
 Still, after all allowance is made, let it be frankly 
 admitted that missionary education does spoil the 
 native effectually and for ever spoil him for certain 
 purposes. Some years ago a trader passing through 
 Nyasaland committed a series of outrages upon native 
 women. The missionary reported the case to the Govern- 
 ment. The man was arrested, brought back to the 
 scene of his crimes, and punished. As he left the court 
 he cursed the missionary for " spoiling the country for 
 the white man." " Yes," was the reply, " and we will 
 go on spoiling it till there is no room in it for scoundrels 
 like you." 
 
 Many a white man would fain act the bully among 
 his Kaffir boys. His only argument is an oath and a 
 kick. Such tyrants find that the red Kaffir exactly 
 suits them. As a boy he was kicked about the kraal
 
 REDS AND WHITES 163 
 
 for an unclean dog. He belonged to nobody in particular. 
 He dared not sit down in front of a man, and was glad 
 to pick the bones and lick the dish which the men had 
 left. Not till he attained to the possession of a hut, some 
 cattle, and a wife could he hope to count for anything. 
 When such a boy enters a white man's service he will 
 stand any amount of abuse without complaint. But 
 a boy who has been at school has been accustomed to 
 just and kindly treatment. He knows his rights, a 
 spark of manhood has been kindled in his breast, and he 
 will not stand to be kicked or sjamboked like a beast. 
 To the bully this is cursed pride and impudence. The 
 missionary has spoiled him. 
 
 South Africa is face to face with an appalling problem. 
 From the Cape to the Zambesi, a million whites are 
 scattered among ten million natives, and the ten million 
 are increasing twice as rapidly as the one million. The 
 whites are determined that this shall be a white man's 
 land, and the blacks are raising the cry, " Africa for 
 the Africans." The problem is, what will it end in ? 
 
 One thing is certain. The native will claim the right 
 to fulfil his manhood. He will demand education, he 
 will insist on the opening of every avenue to success. 
 Only blindness and bigotry would seek to keep him 
 down. His progress hitherto has vindicated the work 
 of missions, and that policy must continue to be pur- 
 sued. The African Native Affairs Commission, after 
 collecting evidence all over South Africa, came to the 
 unanimous finding, " that the natives must be educated 
 and civilised, that the only people who have tried to 
 elevate them are the missionaries and some Christian 
 families, and that the hope of their elevation must 
 depend mainly on their acceptance of Christian faith 
 and morals." Some members of the Commission were 
 opponents of missionary work when these investigations 
 began, when they closed all were its ardent friends. 
 
 The native problem in South Africa perplexes and 
 dismays the statesman. He averts his eyes from the 
 future, for he sees no solution of it. But, as we believe
 
 164. ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 in the power of the Gospel, may we not dare to cherish a 
 hopeful picture of the Kaffir that is to be ? When the 
 red blanket is discarded, he will not don the filthy rags 
 of the white man's vices, to corrupt and pollute the land, 
 but will be found at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in 
 his right mind.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 UP THE ZAMBESI TO LAKE NYASA 
 
 A THRILL ran through all the Christian world when the 
 news came home that Livingstone was dead. The un- 
 paralleled journeys of the greatest of missionary travel- 
 lers had opened up the heart of Africa, and brought to 
 light vast countries and populous tribes hitherto un- 
 known. For years the world had been without news of 
 him, save for Stanley's visit. Now the remnant of his 
 faithful followers appeared on the coast, bearing his 
 lifeless body, which they had brought from the interior 
 after months of toil. On the 4th of May, 1873, they had 
 found him dead upon his knees at Chitambo's village 
 in Ilala. There they buried his heart, his body they 
 delivered to his countrymen, by whom it was brought 
 home and buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Scotland felt that the fittest memorial of David 
 Livingstone would be to send the Gospel to the people 
 among whom he died. In this undertaking it was 
 appropriate that the Free Church should take the lead, 
 for though Livingstone went to Africa as a missionary 
 of the L.M.S., he said that, had he been at home, he 
 would have cast in his lot with the Church of the Dis- 
 ruption. 
 
 Eleven years before, Stewart of Lovedale had been 
 with Livingstone on the Zambesi. Together they had 
 laid Mrs. Livingstone in her lonely grave at Shupanga, 
 and they had held much earnest conference about the 
 need of Central Africa. Livingstone pointed to Lake 
 Nyasa, as the best centre for mission work. He had dis- 
 covered the lake on one of his journeys, a great inland 
 sea as big as Scotland, from the south end of which the 
 
 165
 
 166 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 Shire River flows down to the Zambesi. Here, there- 
 fore, it was now resolved to establish the Livingstonia 
 Mission. 
 
 It was no light undertaking for the mission party 
 to reach the lake, and establish themselves upon its 
 shores. The leaders of the expedition were Lieutenant 
 Young of the Royal Navy, who had helped Livingstone 
 to explore the Zambesi, and Dr. Laws, who will ever be 
 revered as the apostle of Nyasaland. In July, 1875, 
 they disembarked with their stores at the mouth of the 
 Zambesi. Their destination lay four hundred miles 
 inland. They had brought out with them a little 
 steamer in sections, which they hoped to place on Lake 
 Nyasa. This they now proceeded to bolt together, 
 and after a fortnight of hard work the llala was gallantly 
 steaming up the Zambesi. 
 
 After considerable difficulty the mouth of the Shire 
 was discovered, and the llala headed north for Lake 
 Nyasa. But here a formidable barrier was encountered. 
 The course of the Shire is broken by seventy miles of 
 cataracts, where the river plunges through dark glens, 
 swirling among the rocks and leaping over precipices. 
 There was nothing for it but to take the llala to pieces, 
 carry it seventy miles through the hills, and rebuild 
 it again at the head of the cataracts. This might have 
 proved an impossible task had it not fortunately hap- 
 pened that the faithful Makololo were settled in the 
 neighbourhood. These people gave the mission party 
 an enthusiastic welcome as friends of Livingstone, and 
 readily volunteered their help. A thousand carriers 
 assembled, each man shouldered his load, and, threading 
 their way by narrow, precipitous mountain paths, in 
 five days they carried the llala beyond the cataracts. 
 To their honour be it said that when the loads were 
 delivered up, not a plate nor a bolt was missing. Soon 
 the llala was afloat on the upper Shire, and the last stage 
 of the journey begun. 
 
 At sunrise on the 12th of October, 1875, the lake was 
 reached. No steamer had yet appeared on any of the
 
 UP THE ZAMBESI TO LAKE NYASA 167 
 
 great inland seas of Central Africa. As the Ilala ploughed 
 the virgin waters, the throbbing of the engine was hushed 
 while the whole company assembled on the deck and 
 sang the Hundredth Psalm. 
 
 " All people that on earth do dwell 
 Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. 
 Him serve with mirth. His praise forthtell, 
 Come ye before Him and rejoice." 
 
 No such song of praise had been heard in these dark 
 regions since the beginning of the world. But Africa's 
 children have not been slow to respond to the summons, 
 and now a numerous company of dwellers around the 
 lake have learned to sing the songs of salvation. 
 
 Dr. Livingstone had supposed Lake Nyasa to be little 
 more than a hundred miles in length, but a more com- 
 plete survey of it revealed a length of 360 miles with a 
 breadth varying from fifteen to forty miles. It is the 
 third in size of the great African lakes. The mission party 
 came ashore on the sandy beach at Cape Maclear, a lovely 
 promontory at the southern end of the lake, and for some 
 time the work was carried on there. The place, however, 
 proved to be most unhealthy, and after several deaths 
 had occurred a move was made to Bandawe, half-way 
 up the western shore. This has continued ever since 
 to be the centre of the mission. 
 
 The condition of Nyasaland was found to be truly 
 pitiable. Dark superstitions oppressed the minds of 
 the people. In every village the witch-doctor held 
 cruel sway. All whom he suspected of evil were com- 
 pelled to drink the Muavi poison. Those who recovered 
 were innocent, those who died were guilty. Sometimes 
 all the inhabitants of a village would have to undergo 
 this frightful ordeal. 
 
 The land was distracted by savage wars. The fierce 
 Ngoni who dwelt in the hills would swoop down upon 
 the Atonga who dwelt by the lake shore, burn villages, 
 slaughter all who came in their way, and carry off the 
 plunder. The miserable people by the lake were re-
 
 168 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 duced to the last extremity. They built their huts in 
 secret and inaccessible places, and there they lived in 
 constant terror of their lives. Sir Harry Johnston, the 
 Governor of British Central Africa, expressed the 
 opinion that, but for the timely arrival of the mission, 
 the Atonga would have been wiped out. 
 
 But the most hideous evil of all was the slave trade. 
 Bands of Arabs, armed with guns, wandered through 
 the country, raiding villages, shooting down the men, 
 and carrying off the women and children. Bound to- 
 gether in long lines, these miserable victims were marched 
 down to the coast and shipped off to other lands. Many 
 fell down and died by the way, and these might well be 
 counted happier than the survivors. A mother, sinking 
 under the double weight of a load of ivory and her baby, 
 would have the little one torn from her arms, its head 
 dashed against a tree, the quivering body tossed into 
 the bush, and she herself urged forward by merciless 
 lashes of the whip. 
 
 It was a regular trade. As many as twenty thousand 
 slaves annually crossed the lake on their way to the 
 coast. This was what pierced the heart of Livingstone. 
 " Blood ! blood ! Everywhere blood ! " he groaned in 
 anguish. Almost his latest prayer was that Heaven's 
 blessing might descend on anyone, be he Englishman, 
 American, or Turk, who should help to heal this running 
 sore of Africa. Even after the arrival of the mission, this 
 awful traffic continued with almost no abatement, and 
 the lives of the missionaries themselves were at times 
 imperilled. At last the strong arm of the British Govern- 
 ment reached the slave-driver and brought his devilish 
 cruelties to an end. 
 
 The unhappy dwellers by the lake shore, oppressed 
 by the slave-raider and the Ngoni warrior, gave a ready 
 welcome to the mission party. The friendship and pro- 
 tection of white men was a new experience, and soon 
 they began to gather round Bandawe as a city of refuge. 
 But it was no easy task to teach them divine truth, or 
 indeed knowledge of any kind. So ignorant were they
 
 UP THE ZAMBESI TO LAKE NYASA 169 
 
 that they did not know what a straight line meant, 
 and they could not recognise a picture when they saw it. 
 " This is a cow," said Dr. Laws, holding up the picture. 
 Shouts of laughter greeted the idea that that thing was 
 a cow. " See its legs, its head, its tail," continued the 
 patient instructor, but none of them could see it. 
 Suddenly a precocious youth leaped body high and 
 shouted, " I see it. It is a cow." That was the dawn 
 of education in Nyasaland. 
 
 With infinite patience and energy the work was carried 
 on, but six long years were to elapse ere a single convert 
 was gained. The following extract from the Mission 
 Journal records that notable event : " Sabbath, March 
 27th, 1881. This is a red-letter day in the history of the 
 Livingstonia Mission. By the blessing of God the work 
 of the past years has not been for nought, nor has 
 He suffered His word to fail. . . . Albert Namalambe 
 was baptised to-day. The school was crowded, and the 
 attention throughout the whole service was intense. 
 Dr. Laws asked Albert to address the people. This he 
 did in a humble yet manly and true-hearted way. 
 He told them the reasons why he had sought baptism, 
 and his desire to obey God's laws. He had been living 
 among them, he said, and they knew if he were speaking 
 the truth. He pleaded earnestly with all to accept of 
 Christ's mercy. Prayer was offered, after which 
 Namalambe was baptised in the name of the three-one 
 God by the name of Albert." 
 
 Thirty thousand of his people are in the Christian 
 Church to-day. The seed of the Kingdom has sprung 
 up and borne fruit in Nyasaland beyond all human 
 expectation. 
 
 M 2
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 SPEARS AND PRUNING-HOOKS 
 
 A MISSIONARY blacksmith, on the eve of his departure 
 for Livingstonia, said, " The kind of blacksmith work 
 I am most anxious to do is to teach men to beat their 
 swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning- 
 hooks." On his return to Scotland some years after, 
 a friend recalled his words and asked what progress had 
 been made. " I had completely forgotten my words," 
 said the worthy blacksmith, " but the thing has come 
 to pass. Just before I left I saw the Ngoni reaping their 
 harvest with their long-headed assegais." 
 
 The story of the taming of the fierce Ngoni is one of 
 the romances of missionary history. They belong to 
 the race of the Zulus, and are cousins of those fearless 
 warriors who, armed with shield and assegai, hurled 
 themselves upon British armies and were only subdued 
 after a disastrous war and at a heavy cost in men and 
 money. 
 
 They came to Nyasaland in a curious way. About a 
 century ago a great king arose among the Zulus, Chaka 
 by name, who has been called the Napoleon of South 
 Africa. He organised his warriors and sent them on 
 expeditions in all directions till at length his dominions 
 extended from the Cape to the Zambesi. If any of his 
 armies came home defeated every tenth man in it was 
 put to death. The ancestors of the Ngoni formed one 
 of these armies, and, not meeting with success, they 
 feared to face the wrath of their great chief. Instead 
 of returning, therefore, they fought their way north- 
 wards, crossed the Zambesi, and settled among the hills 
 that look down on Lake Nyasa. Here they became the 
 
 170
 
 SPEARS AND PRUNING-HOOKS 171 
 
 terror of the whole country round. They retained all 
 the warlike habits of the Zulus, and their young warriors 
 did not think they had accomplished their manhood 
 till they had washed their spears in blood. By their 
 oppressions the Atonga were reduced to the greatest 
 misery and brought to the verge of extinction. 
 
 Dr. Laws tried every means to win the friendship of 
 this warlike people, but they rejected his advances 
 unless he would remove the whole mission to the hills 
 and leave the Atonga to their fate. This, of course, he 
 could not consent to do. After some years, however, 
 he persuaded the Ngoni to receive among them a native 
 preacher who came from Lovedale and was familiar 
 with the Zulu language. William Koyi was his name 
 and it deserves to be remembered, for through many 
 lonely and perilous days this heroic man kept the lamp 
 of God burning in Nyasaland. 
 
 In 1885 Dr. Elmslie settled among the Ngoni, and soon 
 his sagacity and courage, together with his medical skill, 
 began to make a powerful impression upon them. 
 Still there was fierce opposition to the Gospel of peace. 
 The younger warriors, foreseeing the end of their bloody 
 raids, plotted the destruction of the mission. At one 
 critical time Dr. Elmslie had his valuables buried under 
 the floor of his hut, ready at a moment's notice to flee 
 for his life. 
 
 The turn of the tide came in a most dramatic way. 
 A prolonged drought befell the land. Prayer was made 
 to the spirits in vain, and the witch-doctors exhausted 
 all their incantations. At last, in despair, the people 
 came to Dr. Elmslie and asked him to pray to his God 
 for rain. 
 
 Next day there was a great assemblage. Dr. Elmslie 
 disclaimed all magic power and tried to guide the people's 
 mind to truer thoughts of God's Providence. Earnest 
 prayer was then offered for rain. Ere the service closed 
 the first big drops were pattering down, and all over the 
 land there was the sound of abundance of rain. Who 
 will deny that it was the finger of God ? The Ngoni,
 
 172 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 at least, were sure of it, and they said, like Israel of 
 old, " The Lord, He is God." 
 
 It was the dawn of a new era in Ngoniland. From that 
 day the Gospel has spread far and wide over the hills, bring- 
 ing in its train the blessings of peace and of civilisation. 
 When Ngoniland was annexed as part of British Central 
 Africa, the High Commissioner, knowing the warlike 
 character and prowess of the Ngoni, hesitated to enter 
 the country till he had sufficient troops to support his 
 authority. On the assurance of the missionaries that 
 no military force was needed he at length ventured 
 among them with a simple escort and was received with 
 the greatest friendliness. To his amazement he found 
 that the once fierce warriors had become a nation of 
 peaceful farmers, industrious carriers, builders, printers, 
 who blessed the name of Britain, and were proud to 
 belong to the Empire. After a year's experience he 
 declared that, as the Ngoni had not cost the Government 
 a penny for police, it was only fair that no tax should 
 be imposed upon them. How different is the story of 
 Britain's dealings with the Zulus and the Matabele, men 
 of the same race as the Ngoni ! In their case, cruel and 
 costly wars have left behind them the smouldering 
 embers of distrust and hate. 
 
 It is the power of the Gospel that has wrought this 
 mighty change. It has rescued the Ngoni from, super- 
 stition and savagery, and filled their hearts with the 
 love of God. They have beaten their swords into plough- 
 shares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and they 
 study war no more. When the people thread their 
 mountain paths and come together in thousands, it is 
 for no bloody raid as of old, but for a communion season 
 at Ekwendeni or at Loudon. The songs they sing on 
 the march are the songs of Zion. From six hundred 
 village pulpits every Sabbath day the Word of God is 
 preached, and every year thousands are baptised in 
 the name of Christ. Schools are established everywhere. 
 At first the people could see little good in them, and 
 parents demanded payment for allowing their children
 
 SPEARS AND PRUNING-HOOKS 173 
 
 to "do the work of the book." Now the benefits of 
 education are understood and nearly fifty thousand boys 
 and girls are in the schools. On the shoulder of Mount 
 Waller, one of the noble heights that overlook the lake, 
 a second Lovedale is being built up, which has every 
 prospect of becoming in time the University of Central 
 Africa. 
 
 Not even Livingstone in the moment of his brightest 
 vision could have dreamed of so speedy and so vast a 
 change. Could his spirit revisit those regions where in 
 loneliness he agonised and died, regions whose tragic 
 sufferings wrung from his soul the anguished cry, "Blood! 
 blood! Everywhere blood!" how transfigured beyond 
 recognition he would find them. Now would he see of 
 the travail of his soul. Trim cottages and well-tilled 
 fields and gardens, people decently clothed and wearing 
 an aspect of intelligence, busy steamers plying on the 
 lake and telegraph wires thrilling with the news of all the 
 world, happy troops of children on their way to school, 
 pleasant chime of Sabbath bells and the grave, sweet 
 melody of Christian congregations all speaking of 
 settled peace, of advancing civilisation, of human 
 brotherhood, and the love of God. 
 
 Not in vain did that seed of an heroic life fall into 
 the ground and die, for now it abideth no more alone, but 
 bringeth forth much fruit.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF LIVINGSTONE 
 
 NEARLY three hundred miles west of Lake Nyasa is the 
 hallowed spot where the heart of David. Livingstone is 
 buried. At Chitambo's village in Ilala he reached the 
 end of his wanderings, and entered into rest. It has 
 fallen to our Livingstonia Mission to evangelise this 
 district, and the most sacred plot of ground in Africa 
 has been committed to our care. There, on the borders 
 of the Congo Free State, where the waters begin to flow 
 westward to the Atlantic, we have planted our farthest 
 outpost. 
 
 The journey from the lake is long and arduous, over 
 rugged hills and through stifling valleys. The inter- 
 minable forest is broken here and there by open glades 
 or dankoes, which in the rainy season become impassable 
 malarial swamps. It is an exciting experience to be 
 carried shoulder-high across rivers swarming with 
 crocodiles. But they are brave, strong hands that have 
 a grip of us. A missionary was crossing one of these 
 streams, borne on the shoulders of four carriers, when 
 they plunged suddenly into deep water. In the single 
 instant that elapsed before their heads went under, 
 each of the four gasped out, " Don't let him go." And 
 they didn't. When they gained the bank the missionary 
 said, " Why were you all so anxious about me ? " They 
 looked surprised at the question, and the leader replied, 
 " How could we ever show face again among our people 
 if we had lost our man ? " 
 
 After crossing the high plateau which is the home of 
 the Ngoni, we see stretching out before us the broad 
 valley of the Loangwa, and far away in the west the 
 
 174
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF LIVINGSTONE 175 
 
 dim blue of the Muchinga Mountains. Beyond these 
 distant hills lies Chitambo. We cross the valley well 
 to the north, for lower down is a deadly area where 
 sleeping-sickness has broken out, and all the roads are 
 closed. We toil along day after day as through a fiery 
 furnace. What must have been the sufferings of Living- 
 stone during his years of wandering, as he crossed and 
 recrossed the whole breadth of the continent. Nothing 
 but sinews of steel and his unconquerable heart 
 could have carried him through. 
 
 At length we reach Chimpondo, twenty miles from 
 Chitambo and the Monument. The principal station 
 has been planted here as being the healthiest and most 
 central spot in the district. Here the nephew of David 
 Livingstone has taken up the work where the great 
 pioneer laid it down. At twenty-two out -stations the 
 Gospel is preached, and the people are pathetically eager 
 for instruction. When the first native teachers came 
 from Bandawe the villages quarrelled for the possession 
 of them. The lads of one village actually ran off with 
 the baggage of a teacher, and then triumphantly said, 
 " Now you must come to us." 
 
 It is a land of grown-up children, simple-hearted 
 and willing to learn. " Why do you smoke, Chikweti ? " 
 said the missionary to a chief who had sat throughout 
 the service puffing a huge pipe. " When we are 
 worshipping the Great Spirit about whom we have 
 come to tell you, you should not smoke." Chikweti 
 looked very startled and said, " Sir, how do I know ? 
 We have waited and waited for teachers and no teachers 
 come." 
 
 From Chimpondo we set out for the Monument. The 
 last stage of the journey is through the solemn stillness 
 of the forest. It seems to deepen and become almost 
 oppressive as we approach the grave. There, gleaming 
 through the trees, is the white cross that surmounts the 
 Monument. It stands in the middle of an open glade 
 in the forest. The grave with three acres of land round 
 it has been committed by the British Government to the
 
 176 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 care of our mission. The ground is kept clear, and a 
 little rest-house has been built upon it. One could 
 have wished that the central station had been 
 here with a happy Christian community around the 
 grave, but that was impossible as the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood is infested with the tzetze fly, and Chitambo's 
 village has disappeared. 
 
 After all, it is perhaps most fitting that this sacred 
 spot should lie solitary in the heart of the forest, with 
 no sound to break the stillness. This is the grave he 
 would have chosen. " I have often wished," he wrote, 
 " that my own resting-place might be in some far-off, 
 still, deep forest, where I may sleep sweetly till the 
 resurrection morn." And again four years before his 
 death, on passing a solitary grave not far from here, 
 he wrote in his diary, " This is the sort of grave I should 
 prefer, to be in the still, still forest, and no hand disturb 
 my bones." 
 
 The monument, a massive pyramid of brick and ce- 
 ment, stands on the spot where the great mvula tree, 
 now fallen, overshadowed the grave. " He died here." 
 We stand with heads uncovered and read the simple 
 inscription copied from the tree. The mighty heart 
 that loved the African so well lies here. 
 
 To the village hard by he came, weary and sick unto 
 death. For weeks he has waded through the flooded 
 plains that surround Lake Bangweolo, drenched with 
 the pitiless, pelting rain, and perishing of hunger and 
 cold. This last journey has occupied seven years, 
 during which time he has seen no white man's face but 
 Stanley's, and it is more than a year since Stanley left. 
 Too ill to walk, he is carried on a litter to Chitambo's 
 village. Nearly thirty thousand miles of African travel 
 lie behind him. Now he is finishing the last weary mile. 
 
 In the grey dawn his faithful followers peer into the 
 rude hut and find him on his knees as if in prayer. 
 He has been dead for hours. Somewhere about 
 midnight his spirit had taken its homeward flight to 
 the bosom of God.
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF LIVINGSTONE 177 
 
 " He died here," and here, as was most fitting, they 
 buried his heart, that great loving heart which had 
 throbbed and bled for the sorrows of Africa's children. 
 The divine impulse that led him on may be found in 
 these words of his : " The great and terrible God, before 
 whom angels veil their faces, had an only Son, and He 
 was sent to the habitable parts of the earth as a mis- 
 sionary physician." Surely never had the Son of God 
 a more devoted follower than David Livingstone.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 FROM the lone grave in the depth of the forest, our 
 thoughts turn homeward to Westminster Abbey, where 
 the body of Livingstone was laid to rest. His devoted 
 followers were resolutely possessed with the conviction 
 that they should bear his body down to the coast and 
 deliver it into the hands of his countrymen. The chief 
 Chitambo bade them renounce the attempt as an im- 
 possibility, but they were immovable. 
 
 They set out, after carving the name on the tree and 
 preparing the body for the journey. Nine long months 
 of incredible toil lay before them, through unfriendly 
 and superstitious tribes, to whom the strange passing 
 of the dead was abhorrent. Doggedly they pushed on, 
 making their way now by force, now by stratagem. It 
 is little less than a miracle how these leaderless men 
 accomplished such a journey. At last they walked into 
 Bagamoio and laid their precious burden at the feet of 
 the British consul of Zanzibar. Of the long train that 
 set out with Livingstone eight years before, only 
 five remained to answer to the roll-call. They now 
 rendered back to his own people him whom, in life, they 
 had followed. He had loved and trusted them and 
 this was their response. 
 
 Reverently the body was carried on board a cruiser 
 and borne to Suez, thence, by the Malwa, to England. 
 On the 18th of April, 1874, it was laid to rest in West- 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 The burial was such as is given only to our country's 
 greatest sons. The vast concourse of onlookers, stand- 
 ing in reverent silence, showed the heart of the nation 
 
 178
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 179 
 
 moved beyond its wont. The procession passed to the 
 Abbey with every accompaniment of solemn pomp. 
 Around were the monuments of England's mightiest 
 dead. 
 
 " Open the Abbey doors and bear him in 
 To sleep with king and statesman, chief and sage, 
 The missionary come of weaver kin, 
 But great by work that brooks no lower wage." 
 
 Yet England's noble tribute to the mortal remains of 
 Livingstone was far surpassed by Africa's, when her 
 dusky sons, who had followed all his wanderings, 
 bore him through weary months down to the coast. 
 That little company of toil-worn, scarred, and weather- 
 beaten men, trudging into Bagamoio with the rude 
 bier upon their shoulders, has an essential sublimity 
 that makes all other honours to the dead appear, in 
 comparison, formal and lustreless. 
 
 Standing by the open grave, Dean Stanley reads the 
 burial service. Then loving hands gently lower the body 
 to its last resting-place. In the little circle round the 
 grave one face is black. His were the hands that carved 
 the name of Livingstone on the mvula tree above that 
 other grave, and as men look at him they feel as never 
 before the debt we owe to Africa for the love her 
 children bore to Livingstone. On the black marble 
 slab that lies upon his grave we read the record of their 
 love and of our debt. 
 
 ' ' Brought by faithful hands 
 over land and sea, 
 
 here rests 
 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, 
 
 Them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice." 
 
 To Livingstone was given a grave in Westminster 
 among England's mighty dead, and none more worthy 
 of such an honour than our greatest missionary pioneer. 
 But there have been others who gave their lives as freely
 
 180 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS 
 
 as he did, and who sleep in uncouth places and in name- 
 less graves. Beneath the sun-baked soil of India and 
 in fever-stricken Africa, in the Far East and in lonely 
 islands of the sea they lie, waiting the resurrection 
 morn. They reaped no earthly fame nor ever heard, per- 
 haps, the resounding praise of men, but not one of them 
 is forgotten before God. 
 
 Honour to all the noble dead ! True followers of Him 
 who came to seek and to save the lost ! They counted 
 not their lives dear, but gladly laid them down that 
 the dark lands and degraded races of the earth might 
 be redeemed. Each consecrated life was as an alabaster 
 box of ointment of spikenard, exceeding precious, 
 broken in love and poured upon the Saviour's feet, and 
 the fragrance will yet fill all the world. 
 
 WILLIAM BKKNUON AND SON, LTD 
 PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
 
 DC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 001 185 106