Pioneers and Founders

The tender sweetness of Mackenzie told greatly in dealing with these poor creatures.  He did not think it waste of time to spend an hour a day trying to teach the little ones their letters; and Mr. Rowley draws a beautiful picture of him feeding, with a bottle, a black babe, whose mother had not nutriment enough to sustain it,—the little naked thing nestling up to his big beard, and going to sleep against his broad chest.

Work followed.  One whith man drilled the boys, one command being for them all to leap into the river at the same moment to bathe; one bargained with the vendors of mealies, beer, goats, fowls, yams, &c., who came in numbers from the villages round, and received payment in beads, and a blue cotton manufacture, called selampore, which is the current coin of Central Africa.  Others worked, and showed how to work, at the buildings till one o’clock, when the dinner was served, only differing from breakfast in the drink being native beer instead of coffee.  Rest followed till five, when there were two hours’ more work, nearly till sunset, which, even on the longest day, was before half-past six; then tea, evensong, and bed.

The great need was of some female element, to train and deal with the women and girls; and there was an earnest desire for the arrival of the sisters.  But, in the meantime, the occupation of Magomero proved far from peaceful.  The Ajawa were always coming down upon the Man-gnaja to burn their villages and steal slaves, and the Man-gnaja called upon the whites as invincible allies.

The Bishop and his clergy (Livingstone had now left them, and gone on to Lake Nyassa) thought that to present a resolute front to the Ajawa would drive them back for good and all; and that the Man-gnaja could be bound over henceforth to give up slave-dealing, and, on this condition, they did not refuse their assistance.  Subsequent events have led to the belief that this warfare of the Ajawa was really the advance of one of those great tides of nations that take place from time to time, and that they were a much finer people than the cowardly and false Man-gnaja; but, of course, a small company of strangers, almost ignorant of the language, and communicating with the natives through a released and educated negro, could not enter into the state of things, and could only struggle against the immediate acts of oppression that came before them.

There were thus about three expeditions to drive back the Ajawa and deliver the rescued slaves—bloodless expeditions, for the sight of the white men and their guns was quite enough to produce a general flight, and a large colony of the rescued had gathered at Magomero in the course of a few months.  Meantime another clergyman, the Rev. H. De Wint Burrup, with his newly-married wife and three lay members of the mission, had arrived at Capetown, and, leaving Mrs. Burrup there with Miss Mackenzie, had come on to join the others.  Mr. Burrup and Mr. Dickinson (a surgeon) actually made their way in canoes and river boats from Quillinane up to Chibisa’s, where the Pioneer was lying, Dr. Livingstone having just returned from his three months’ expedition.

It was an absolute exploit in travelling, but a very perilous one, since these open boats, in the rain and on the low level of the river, exposed them to the greatest danger of fever; and there can be no doubt that their constitutions were injured, although, no serious symptoms appearing, the mission party were still further induced to underrate the necessity of precaution.

The Bishop coming down to visit Livingstone (seventy miles in thirty hours on foot), gladly hailed the new-comers, and returned rapidly with Mr. Burrup, both a good deal over-fatigued; and, indeed, the Bishop never thoroughly recovered this reckless expenditure of strength.  He considered that things were now forward enough for a summons to the ladies at Capetown.  Communication was very difficult, and the arrangements had therefore to be made somewhat blindly; but his plan was, that his sisters and Mrs. Burrup should try to obtain a passage to Kongone, where the Pioneer should meet them, and bring them up the rivers to the landing-place at Chibisa’s.  He did not know of his sister Alice’s marriage at Natal, though he would have rejoiced at it if he had known.  He himself intended to come down to the spot where the rivers Shire and Ruo meet, and there greet the sister and the wife on board the Pioneer, and return with them to Magomero.

The way by the river and by Chibisa’s was a great circuit, and it was thought that a more direct way might be found by exploration.  Mr. Procter and Mr. Scudamore, with the black interpreter, Charles Thomas, and some of the negroes, started to pioneer a way.  After five days Charles appeared at Magomero, exhausted, foot-sore, ragged, and famished, having had no food for forty-eight hours, and just able to say “the Man-gnaja attacked us; I am the only one who has escaped.”

When he had had some soup, he told that the party had come to a village where they had been taken for slave-dealers, and the natives, on finding they were not, put on a hostile appearance, and as they pushed on came out in great numbers with bows and arrows, insisting on their return.  After consulting they thought it would be better to turn back and conciliate the chief, rather than leave a nest of enemies in their rear, and they therefore turned.  Unfortunately the negroes had caught sight of the 140 yards of selampore that they were taking with them as cash for the journey, and though the chief, who had been at Senna and Quillinane, was civil, there was much discontent at their not expending more in purchases of provisions; and Charles told them that their bearers had overheard plans for burning their huts in the night, killing them and taking their goods.  They decided to escape; and occupying the chief’s attention by a present of a bright scarf, they bade their men get under weigh.  A cry arose, “They are running away.”  There was a rush upon them, and Charles managed to break through.  He heard two shots fired, and was pursued for some distance, but, as darkness came on, effected his escape.

It seems to have been just one of the cases when a little hesitation and uncertainty on the part of the civilized men did all the mischief by emboldening the savages.  Of course it was necessary to rescue them, but as the Ajawa were but twenty miles off, and Magomero must be guarded, there was no choice but to have recourse to the Makololo, and thus let loose one set of savages against another.  Just, however, as a message was being despatched to bring them, the two clergymen were seen returning.  They too had walked eighty-five miles in forty-eight hours, and had had but one fowl between them.  They had in fact got out of the village almost immediately after Charles, but closely beset with natives armed with bows and poisoned arrows.  Some tried to wrest Mr. Procter’s gun from him, and even got him down, when he defended himself with his heels, until Mr. Scudamore, who was a little in advance, fired on his assailants, when they gave back; but an arrow aimed at him penetrated the stock of his gun so deeply that the head remained embedded in it.  Firing both barrels, he produced a panic, under cover of which they made their way into the bush, and contrived with much difficulty to reach home.

Six of their eight bearers gradually straggled in, and the last brought the following message from a chief in the next village: “I am not in blame for this war; Manasomba has tried to kill the English, has stolen their baggage and their boy, and has kept two of your men.  He says if the English want the men, let them come and buy them out, or else fight for them.”

It appeared that Manasomba was not a Man-gnaja, and that his suspicions were excited by anything so inexplicable to the negro mind as white men going about with so much cloth without buying slaves nor much of anything else.

There were still two men to be rescued, and the question was, whether to wait for Livingstone, who was armed with authority to give a lesson to the negroes, or for the mission party to undertake it themselves, especially in the haste which was needful in order to be in time for the meeting with the Pioneer.  They decided on the march, so as to release the men, and thus were forced to break up the calm of the Christmas feast.  “If it is right to do it at all, it is right to do it on a holy day,” was the Bishop’s argument, and so the Christmas Day was spent, partly in walking, partly at Chipoka’s village, where was held the Holy Communion feast.  “How wondrous,” wrote the Bishop, “the feeling of actual instantaneous communion with all you dear ones, though the distance and means of earthly communication are so great and so difficult!”  The negroes of the neighbouring villages joined them, and they proceeded.  Near Manasomba’s village they met a large body of men, with whom the Bishop attempted to hold a parley, but they ran away, and only discharged a few arrows.  The village was deserted except by a few sheep, goats, and Muscovy ducks, and these were driven out and the huts set on fire.

This punishment was as a “vindication of the English name,” and as an act of self-defence, since any faltering in resolution among such savages would have been fatal; but, after all, the men were not recovered, and the expedition had been so exhausting that none of the party were really fit to push on for the place of meeting with the Pioneer, nor would Chipoka give them guides or bearers in that direction, saying it was all occupied by Manasomba’s friends.

They came back to Magomero grievously exhausted; Scudamore fell down on a bed only just alive, and even the Bishop, though he tried to act and speak with vigour, was evidently suffering from illness and over-fatigue.

But there was the appointment to be kept with Livingstone and the ladies at the Ruo, and, unfit as he was, he persevered, setting off with Burrup, sadly enough, for Scudamore was lying in a dangerous state; but no one guessed that they would never meet again upon earth.

It was on the 4th of January, 1862, that they started with a few Malokolo and the interpreter Charles, and it was six weeks before the colony at Magomero heard any tidings.  There the stores were all but exhausted, and having hardly any goods left for barter, there was little food to be obtained but green corn and pumpkin, most unsuited to the Englishmen’s present state of health.

Meanwhile, in constant rain and through swollen streams, Mackenzie and Burrup had made their way down to the river, and there with much difficulty obtained a canoe.  On the first night of the voyage all the party, except the Bishop, wished to go on, because the mosquitoes rendered rest impossible.  He thought moving on in the dark imprudent, but gave up his own will, and even wrote jestingly afterwards on the convenience of making the mosquitoes act as a spur.  The consequence was that they came suddenly upon a projecting bend; the boat upset, and everything they had was in the water.  They spent more than an hour in recovering what could be brought up; but their powder and their provisions were spoilt, and, what was still worse, their medicines: including the quinine, almost essential to life, and that when they were thoroughly drenched in the middle of an African night.

Making sure, however, of speedily meeting Dr. Livingstone, they pushed on; but when they came to Malo, the isle at the confluence of the Ruo and Shire, they learnt from the natives that the Pioneer had gone down the stream.  The negroes could give no clear account of how long ago it had been.  If they had known that it had been only five days, they would probably have put forth their speed and have overtaken her, but they thought that a much longer time was intended, and that waiting for the return would be not only more prudent, but might enable them to make friends with the chief, and prepare for a station to be established on the island.  A hut was given them, and there was plenty of wholesome food on the island.

Inaction, is, however the most fatal curse in that land of fever.  There is a cheerful letter written by the Bishop to his home friends, on the 14th and 15th of January; but his vigour was flagging.  He spoke with disappointment of the inability of Dr. Livingstone to bring up stores to Chibisa’s, and longed much for his sisters’ arrival, telling his companion it would break his heart if they did not now come.  He also wrote a strong letter to the Secretary of the Universities’ Mission, begging for a steam launch to keep up the supplies, where the Pioneer had failed.  Soon after this, both became grievously ill; the Bishop’s fever grew violent, he perceived his danger, and told the Malokolo that Jesus would come to take him, but he presently became delirious and insensible, in which condition he lay for five days, the Malokolo waiting on him as well as they could under Burrup’s superintendence.

The negro tribes have an exceeding dread of death, and a hut which has had a corpse in it is shut up for three years.  Probably for this reason the chief begged that the dying man might be carried to another hut less needful to himself, and as he had been kind and friendly throughout Mr. Burrup thought it right to comply.  Shortly after, on the afternoon of the 31st of January, the pure, gentle, and noble spirit passed away.  The chief, from superstitious fear, insisted that the body should be immediately interred, and not on the island, and Mr. Burrup and the Malokolo therefore laid it in their canoe, and paddled to the mainland, where a spot was cleared in the bush, the grave dug, and as it was by this time too dark to see to read, Mr. Burrup said all that he could remember of the burial service, the four blacks standing wondering and mournful by.

He saw that for himself the only hope was in a return to Magomero.  The canoe was tried, but the current was so strong that such small numbers could not make head against it.  He therefore proceeded on foot, but fell down repeatedly from weakness, and was only dragged on by his strong will and the aid of the Malokolo.  They behaved admirably, and when he reached Chibisa’s, and could walk no longer, they and the villagers contrived a palanquin of wood, and carried him on in it.  The chief, finding that his store of cloth (i.e. coin) was expended, actually offered him a present of some to carry him on.

On the 14th of February, one of the Malokolo appeared before the anxious colonists at Magomero.  His face was that of a bearer of evil tidings, and when they asked for the Bishop, he hid his face in his hands.  When they pressed further, he said, “wafa, wafa” (he is dead, he is dead).  And while they stood round stunned, he made them understand that Burrup was at hand, so ill as to be carried on men’s shoulders.

There was nothing to be done but to hurry out to meet him, taking the last drop of wine remaining.  He had become the very shadow of himself, but even then he slightly rallied, and could he have had nourishing food, wine or brandy, the strength of his constitution would probably have carried him through; but the stores were exhausted, there was nothing to recruit his powers, and on the 23rd of February he likewise died.

Meantime, his young wife, with Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Livingstone, had sailed in December in a wretchedly uncomfortable little craft, called the Hetty Ellen.  On reaching the Kongone they saw no token of the Pioneer, but after waiting in great discomfort, tossing at the mouth of the river, the vessel made for Mozambique.  There they fell in with H.M.S. Gorgon.  Captain Wilson, resolved to render them every service in his power, took the ladies on board, the vessel in tow, and carried them to Quillinane, where they presently fell in with Dr. Livingstone and the Pioneer.

His little lake steamer, the Lady Nyassa, had been packed on board the Hetty Ellen, and had formed the only shelter Miss Mackenzie had from the sun, and the transference of this occupied some time.  Then the unhappy Pioneer began to proceed at her snail’s pace, one day on a sand-bank, another with the machinery out of order, continually halting for supplies of wood, and thinking a couple of miles a good day’s work.  Captain Wilson, shocked at the notion of women spending weeks in labouring up that pestiferous stream, beset with mosquitoes by night and tsetse flies by day, offered to man his gig and take them up himself.  So desperate a journey was it for a frail invalid like Miss Mackenzie, that one of the sailors took a spade to dig her grave with; and in fact she was soon prostrated with fever.  None of the party knew who lay sleeping in his grave under the trees.  The natives on the island entirely denied having seen or heard anything of the Bishop, and never gave Mr. Burrup’s letter, fearing perhaps that some revenge might fall on them.  Baffled by not meeting him, Captain Wilson still would not leave the ladies till he should have seen them safe among their friends, and pushed on his boat with speed very unlike that of the tardy Pioneer, and thus, in a day and a half, arrived at Chibisa’s, where the Malokolo came down to the boat, with tidings that, though their language was but imperfectly understood, were only too certain.  The brave and tender-hearted leader of the mission was dead!  Still there was hope of Mr. Burrup; but Captain Wilson would not allow the young wife to take the difficult journey only to find desolation, but went on by land himself, leaving her with Miss Mackenzie, under charge of his ship’s surgeon, Dr. Ramsay.  He came back after a few days, having become too ill by the way to get further than Soche, where he had been met by three of the mission party, who now returned with him to Chibisa’s, with the tidings in all their sad fulness; and the mournful party set forth upon their return.  On coming to the island, he demanded Mr. Burrup’s letter, and the negroes looked at one another, saying, “It is all known.”  They gave him the letter, but it was with very great difficulty that they could be persuaded to show him the grave, over which he set up a cross of reeds, and then continuing this sad voyage, placed the ladies on board his ship, and carried them back to Capetown.

Bishop Mackenzie had executed a will not six weeks before his death, bequeathing to the Additional Bishoprics Fund his property, and to the mission his books, except those specially connected with his personal devotions, which were to go to his family, and which Captain Wilson brought down with him, the Bible, Prayer-book, and “Christian Year,” bearing tokens of that immersion in the water which, by the destruction of the medicines, may be believed to have been the chief cause of his death.  Until the arrival of a new Bishop, or of instructions from the Metropolitan of Capetown, the headship of the mission was to remain with the senior clergyman, or failing him, of the senior layman.  Thus the little colony had their instructions to wait and carry on the work: but further difficulties soon arose.  Stores were still wanting, fever prevailed even among the negroes.  All the class of little children whom the Bishop used to teach had died under it, each being baptized before its death, and the Ajawa began to threaten again.  The lessened force, without a head, decided that, though their advance might drive the enemy back, it was better to avoid further warfare, and relinquish the post at Magomero.  With the long train of helpless natives, then, the few white men set forth, and after several days’ tedious and weary march came to Chibisa’s, where they founded a new station on a hill-side, above the native village, and tried to continue their old system; but by Christmas Mr. Scudamore had become fatally ill, and he died on the morning of New Year’s Day, 1863, greatly lamented, not only by the remnant of his own party, but by all the negroes; and on the 17th of March he was followed by Dr. Dickinson.

We do not deal with those still living, therefore we will only further mention that on the 26th of June following Bishop Tozer arrived at Chibisa’s.  He decided on removing to a place called Morumbala, a station nearer Quillinane, which he hoped might prove healthier, and out of the reach of the Ajawa.  The remaining clergy of the mission were greatly concerned at this, for they had hopes of influencing the Ajawa, and besides, the negroes whom they had rescued, who had been now more than a year under their care, could not for the most part be taken to Morumbala; for, though grieving much at losing their “English fathers,” they would be placed at a distance from their own tribe, among strangers and possible enemies.

The families who could provide for themselves were left at Chibisa’s, Mr. Waller making the best terms in his power for them.  It was sad to leave them without having more thoroughly Christianized them, but the frequent sicknesses of the clergy, the loss of the chief pastor, and the want of some one to take the lead, had prevented their instruction from being all that could have been hoped.  They had become warmly attached to the English, and had in many respects much improved, and it is hoped that they may keep alive the memory of the training they have received, and prepare the way for better things.

There were about twenty orphan boys, for whom Bishop Tozer undertook to provide; but there were also ten or twelve women and girls, the former old and infirm, the latter orphans, and these Mr. Waller could not bear to abandon, so he carried them with him to Morumbala, and supported them at his own expense, until at the end of five months it was decided to give up Morumbala, and fix the head-quarters of the Central African Mission at Zanzibar.  Then, as it was not easy to convey the boys, or provide for them there, Mr. Waller took the charge of them likewise, and, with Dr. Livingstone’s assistance, conveyed both them and the women and children to Capetown, where he succeeded in procuring homes for them in different families and mission schools or stations.  All are now Christians, and show themselves gentle, and susceptible of training and education; nor have they much of that disposition so familiar to us in the transplanted negroes of Western Africa.  Four boys were brought to England, but the climate would soon have been fatal to them, and it is evident that Capetown or Natal and its dependencies must be the meeting ground of the English and African races, since there alone can both retain their vigour in the same climate.

Thus ended the first venture of the University mission, in the sacrifice of four lives, which may be well esteemed as freely laid down in the cause of the Gospel.  Such lives and such deaths are the seed of the Church.  It is they that speak the loudest in calling for the fresh labourers; and though the Zanzibar Mission has drifted far away from the field of Mackenzie’s labours, and has adopted a different system, and though his toils in Natal never were allowed to continue long enough in a single spot for him personally to reap their fruits upon earth, not only has his name become a trumpet call, but out of his grave has sprung, as it were, a mission in the very quarter where, had he been permitted, he would have spent his best efforts, namely, the free Zulu country, Panda’s kingdom, to the north of the Tugela.

It has been already mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Robertson had removed thither, from their station upon the Umlazi, taking with them a selection of their Christian Kaffirs, and settling, with the king’s permission, at a place called Kwamagwaza.  At first they lived in a waggon and tents, for, delicate and often ill as was Mrs. Robertson, she shrank from no hardship or exertion.  She writes, “My own health has been wonderful, in spite of much real suffering from the closeness of the waggon, and exposure to rain or hot sun, which is even more trying.  I often have to sleep with the waggon open, and a damp foggy air flowing through to keep me from fainting, and I have often told myself, ‘You might be worse off in the cabin of a steamer,’ that I might not pity myself too much.”

A hut was soon raised, and Mrs. Robertson here ruled in her own peculiarly dignified and tender way as the mother of the whole station, keeping guard there while her husband went on expeditions to visit the king and his son Ketchewayo, the chief executive authority.  Another hut was raised to serve as a church, and the days were arranged much as those on the Umlazi had been.  Children were born to the Christian couples, and Mrs. Robertson spent much time and care in teaching the mothers how to deal with them after a civilized and Christian fashion.  Other children were sometimes brought to her to be adopted, and when entirely made over by their parents were baptized and bred up as Christians.  The general trust in Mr. Robertson’s skill as a doctor brought many people under his influence, and likewise gave some, though very slight assistance, in combating the belief in witchcraft, the worst enemy with which Christianity has to contend.