Chapter VII: General Provisions (18)

“That is the residence of A. E. Withey and Mrs. Withey. Their son Bertie, in his seventeenth year, tall and commanding, speaks fluently the languages of the country and has in him the making of a grand missionary. His two little sisters, Lottie and Flossie, are among the Lord’s chosen ones. The developed stand-by of this station is Charles A. Gordon. He is a young man of marvelous ability, adapted to every variety of our work. In preaching power in all the languages of that region he is second to none. Withey and Gordon are our principal merchants, and while doing a good business, in the meantime, by truth, honesty and holy living and faithful testimony for Jesus in different languages are bringing the Gospel into contact with a large class of traders from the far interior, who could not be reached by ordinary methods.

“Pungo Andongo Station has crossed the lines of sustentation and of absolute self-support, and is making money to open new stations in the regions beyond. We have two missionary graves at Pungo Andongo, one of Henry Kelley, a noble missionary apprentice from the Vey Tribe of Liberia, and the other of dear Sister Dodson (formerly Miss Brannon, from Boston). They both ‘sleep in Jesus,’ and will rise quickly to his call in the morning.

“An onward march of sixty-two miles brings us to Malange, a town of probably 2,000 population, and noted for its merchandise. Our people there are Samuel J. Mead, P. E., his wife Ardella, refined, well educated and a fine musician, at the head of our school-work. Willie Mead is head of the mechanical department; his wife is especially engaged in teaching missionaries. They are all noble specimens of vigorous minds, holy hearts, healthy bodies and superior linguists and workers. Robert Shields, a young missionary from Ireland, who was brought up at home for a merchant, runs a small mission store at Malange, preaches in the Kimbundu, and has a growing circuit extending among the villages of the surrounding country. Our Kimbundu teacher in the school was Bertha Mead, niece of Samuel J. Mead. She was one of ‘our children’ in 1855. She was wholly devoted to God and his work. On the first Sabbath of my visit to Malange, last June, she was united in marriage to Robert Shields. Immediately after her marriage she put my sermon for the occasion into Kimbundu, without hesitation, in distinct utterances, full of unction, which stirred a crowded audience, a number of whom were from the kingdom of Lunda, about 600 miles further east. In Sunday-school of the afternoon of that memorable day I heard Bertha put forty-one questions from the No. 1 Catechism of our church, and the school together answered the whole of them promptly; first in English and then in Kimbundu. The native people of that country are known by the name of the Umbunda people. Kimbundu is the name of their language. An interesting episode occurred while the forty-one questions were being asked and answered. The old king, who lived nineteen miles distant from Malange, was present, and manifested great interest in the proceedings, and interjected a question, of course, in his own language, which was: ‘Why did not the first man and his wife go right to God, and confess their sins, and get forgiveness?’ Bertha answered him, of course, in his own language, to this effect: ‘They were not guilty simply of a private offense against their Father, but a crime against the government of the great King of all worlds. The penalty involved was death and eternal banishment to a dreadful place prepared for the devil and all his followers, called ‘Inferno.’ God had to break his own word, dishonor his government, and destroy the legal safeguards he had established to protect the rights of his true and loyal subjects, or execute the penalty of law on that guilty man and his wife. Moreover, the devil-nature had struck clear through that man and his wife. They had become so full of lies and deceit that they had no desire to repent, so that all the Judge could righteously do was to pass sentence on them and turn them over to the executioners of justice.’ The heathen king leaned over and listened with great attention, and his countenance was like that of a man awaiting his sentence to be hung. Bertha went on and pictured the guilty pair standing at the bar of justice, each holding the saswood cup of death in hand, awaiting the order to drink it and die. ‘Then the Son of God was very sorry for the man and his woman, and talked with his Father about them, and made a covenant with his Father to redeem them. He would at a day agreed on unite himself with a son descended from the guilty woman, and drink their cup of death, and provide for them his ‘cup of salvation,’ and would protect God’s truth, righteousness and government, and provide deliverance, purity and everlasting happiness for the guilty man and his wife, and for all their family——the whole race of mankind.’ As Bertha went on to describe how Jesus did, according to his covenant, come into the world and teach all people the right way for them to walk in, and did die for man the most awful of all deaths——‘even the death of the cross’——and did arise from the dead and is now our law-giver in God’s Court, and our doctor to heal and purify us, and invites all to come to him, ‘and he will give them rest,’ the old chief seemed to take it all in through open eyes, ears and mouth till he could no longer restrain his feelings, and broke out and cried and laughed immoderately, and yelled at the top of his voice, and clapt his hands for joy. He had never heard the ‘good news’ before. I, meantime, quietly wept and prayed, and then thanked God. I remember how Bertha and our other dear missionary children used to ramble with me over the hills of Loanda. I was the only big playmate they had, and they used to wait anxiously for the shades of evening in which to have a stroll with their big brother; and now to see my tall, modest Bertha with perfect ease breaking the bread of life to the heathen fathers, I have no remembrance of ever before quietly weeping so much in one day as I did that day.

“Brother Samuel Mead has adopted eight native boys and girls, and is bringing them up in the way they should go. His hour for morning family worship is from 4 to 5 o’clock. The alarm clock rouses them all at 4 A.M. In fifteen minutes they are all washed and dressed. The services vary and are full of life and interest: Scripture reading and explanation, singing of a number of different hymns in three different languages. None are called on to pray, but voluntarily they all lead in turn, some in English, some in Portuguese and some in Kimbundu. I kept account one morning and found that sixteen different ones led in prayer at that meeting. From 11 A.M. to 12 M., Sam Mead joins Willie’s family in a similar service. No family worship in the evenings, as many of them are taken up by public meetings in the chapel.

“Our church, organized at Malange at the time of my visit, contained twenty-one natives, all probationers, of course, but baptized and saved. The tide is rising.

“Our property at Malange is worth probably $6,000. Samuel J. Mead has charge of a big farm and is making it pay. Brother Willie trained four native men to run two pit-saws, and in the last year has turned out $1,500 worth of lumber, which sells for cash at the saw-pits. These men are also preachers, and preach several times each week in the Portuguese language. In labor, money and building material they have recently completed a new two-story mission-house and other mission improvements, amounting to an aggregate cost of $1,200, without any help from home. Men who are making money and attending to all their duties as missionaries have a legal right, under the Decalogue and Discipline, to a fair compensation from their net earnings; but all the missionaries we have still abiding in our Angola Missions, go in with the self-sacrificing, suffering Jesus under the ‘new Commandment.’ They invest their lives with all they possess, including all the money they have or can make in his soul-saving work in Africa, and have no separate purse which they call their own. If on this line of life they should suffer lack, or bring the Lord in debt to them, it would indeed be ‘a new thing under the sun.’

“We have graves at Malange also. Mrs. Dr. Smith, an estimable Christian lady, sleeps there. Dear Edna Mead, one of ‘our children’ of 1885, a lovely Christian, perhaps of 12 years, sleeps in our own cemetery on our mission farm. While I was there last June, we buried a Libolo young man——brought up and saved in our mission——in our cemetery; and six weeks after her marriage, our dear Bertha, our grand missionary Bertha, was smitten down and laid there to rest.

“A great many good people in the Church on earth do not believe in my missions, but God means that the Church above all shall think well of us: hence, he has not taken from us a single dwarfish, shabby specimen, but from the beginning has selected from the front ranks of the very best we had, so that we are not ashamed of our representative missionaries in heaven. Nearly all of our present force in Angola have made a marvelous achievement in the mastery of the Portuguese and Kimbundu languages. Prof. H. Chatelain has printed them in the form of a grammar, beside a primer and the Gospel by John in the Kimbundu. The rest of our people there, the same as himself, learned the vernacular by direct and daily contact with the natives, but Brother Chatelain’s books are of great value to them, both in advance study and in teaching.

“Our _Angola Missions_ were commenced a little over four years ago. They have furnished many useful lessons from the school of experience, and demonstrated the possibilities of success in the three great departments of our work, educational, industrial and evangelical, and of early self-sustentation later, absolute self-support and then self-propagation——founding new missions without help from home. Our work has to be run mainly along the lines of human impossibilities, combining rare human adaptabilities with Divine power and special providences under the immediate administration of the Holy Spirit. Hence, our greatest difficulty is to find young men and women possessing these rare adaptabilities. We have them now in Angola, and also on the Congo and west coast, but the sifting at the front required to get them is too big a contract for me. I can only do the best I can, and commit and intrust all the issues to God. He works out his will patiently and kindly. The people he sends home are good Christians, but on account of personal disabilities, or family relationship and responsibilities, find themselves disqualified for this peculiar style of work and not able to make self-support, and hence quietly leave for home. Many of such would gladly stay if we would pay them a salary, which we cannot do, though we don’t question their natural rights. Thus we lose numbers and gain unity and strength.

“From Malange, a tramp of 1,000 miles northeast will bring us to Luluaburg, in the Bashalange Country, discovered by Dr. Pogge and Lieut. Wissmann, in 1883. The Governor-General of the Independent State of Congo, at my request, gave to Dr. Summers, one of our men from Malange, permission to found a station for our mission at Luluaburg, which he did, and built two houses on it, and was making good progress when he became worn out by disease and died. I hope soon to send a successor to dear Dr. Summers.

“I have arranged at the land office in Boma for the completion of their conveyance of title by deed to our mission property at Luluaburg, on my return to Boma in April next (_D.V._). Those vast countries of the Upper Kasai and Sankuru Rivers are immensely populous. By the will of God we shall hold our footing and a few years hence shall (_D.V._) plant a conference in that county.

“From Luluaburg, a week of foot traveling northwest will bring us to Lueba, at the junction of the Lulua and Kasai Rivers. Thence, in a little steamer descending the Kasai River about 800 miles, we sweep through ‘Qua mouth’ into the Congo, descending which seventy miles we will tie up at Kimpoko, near the northeast angle of Stanley Pool. We opened this station in 1886, designed as a way-station for our transportation to the countries of the Upper Kasai. The Lord is by delay preparing us the better to go up and possess the land in his set time. He meantime approves of our good intentions. We have now stationed at Kimpoko, Bradley L. Burr, Dr. Harrison, Hiram Elkins and his wife Roxy. At Kimpoko, we made an irrigating ditch a mile long, drawing from a bold mountain creek an abundant supply of water to insure good crops at all seasons. We have there about ten acres under cultivation, and grow in profusion all the indigenous food that we can use. To provide good beef in abundance and ready money, Brother Burr goes out for a few hours and kills a hippopotamus or two. They are in demand among the traders and the natives for food. Brother Burr recently sold three in Kimpoko for $80. Brother Burr, who is our Presiding Elder at Kimpoko, writes that the station has been nearly self-sustaining from the beginning, but entirely so since the beginning of this year. They are building a new mission-house this dry season, about 15x80 feet. In this work they may require a little help——a few bales of cloth from home. At a low estimate, our property in Kimpoko is worth at least $1,000.

“From Kimpoko we go by oars or steamer twenty miles to the lower end of Stanley Pool——Leopoldville. Thence by foot 100 miles to South Manyanga (which is called the North Bank route; by the south route we walk from Leopoldville 231 miles to Matadi or Lower Congo). From Manyanga we go by a launch of three or four tons capacity, propelled by oars and sails and currents, eighty-eight miles to Isangala. We have had a station at Isangala for over two years, on which we have built good native houses, but had not bought the site of the Government till my last visit to the land office at Boma. The site, containing seven and one-half acres, cost us nearly $80. A good garden spot. Our brethren dug a yam from their garden in Isangala when I was there, a few weeks ago, which weighed twenty-two pounds——more wholesome and delicious, if possible, than Irish potatoes. Our paying industry there will be in the transport line of business. As our Vivi Station is at the highest point of small steamer navigation, so Isangala is the lowest point of the middle passage of the Congo from Isangala, eighty-eight miles to Manyanga. Our site at Isangala, with improvements, is worth $300. We would refuse the offer of five times that amount on account of prospective value.

“Our missionaries at Isangala are Wm. O. White and Wm. Rasmussen. Both have made good progress in the mastery of the Fiot or Congo language; but Rasmussen is a prodigy in language. He interpreted for me with great fluency and force and is preaching in many contiguous villages. He has been out two and a half years, and (_D.V._) will soon be an able envangelist to go forth among the native nations and receive from them a support. A journey over the mountains and vales of fifty-five miles will bring us to Vivi Mission Station. We bought this site——the seat of government before it was settled at Boma——over two years ago, for $768. We have there but twelve acres of land, but can procure more if needed. It is a high plateau and seems so dry that I did not think we could farm to advantage. We needed the place for a receiving and transport station; but to my agreeable surprise on my recent visit, I find that J. C. Teter, our Preacher-in-Charge and transport agent, has near the end of the dry season an acre and a half of green growing manioc, an orchard of young palm and mango trees, and plantains and yams growing in a profusion of life and fruitfulness. In the way of live-stock he has twenty-five goats, eight sheep, two head of young cattle, half a dozen muscovy-ducks and 100 chickens, and when short of meat he takes his gun and goes out and kills a deer or a buffalo. While I was with him, a few weeks ago, he killed two _koko_ bucks. The koko is a species of deer, but as big as a donkey. So in every place we settle, we find that God has resources of self-support of some kind waiting to be developed. Vivi will be self-supporting in the near future, and the most beautiful station on the Congo. At any rate, J. C. Teter and Mary Lindsay, his wife, can make it such if the Lord shall continue to them life and health. Probable value, $2,000.

“One hundred miles by steamer down the Congo to Banana brings us within an hour and a half by oars of our mission-station at Matumba. Miss Mary Kildare, a superior teacher, linguist and missionary, is our sole occupant of the station at Matumba. I bought of the Government nearly ten acres of good ground there for nearly $120, having previously bought the native title. We have a comfortable little house of galvanized iron, 22x24 feet, set on pillars six feet above ground. The house is divided into two rooms, 12x12 feet, and a veranda, 12x124 feet, inclosed by a balustrading and a gate, and is used for a school-room. She has now a school of twenty scholars. She does her preaching mostly in the village; the house is in an inclosure of nearly an acre, surrounded by a high fence, with strong gate, which is locked up at 9 P.M. daily. So Mary, the dear lady, is perfectly contented, and is doing good work for God. She is an Irish lady, and paid her own passage to go to Africa to work for nothing. I took her recently a box of Liberian coffee-seed, which she has in a nursery growing beautifully, and she has a fruit orchard coming on.

“Our property at Matumba is worth $1,000. Two years ago, we started three stations between Vivi and Isangala——Vumtomby Vivi, Sadi Kabanza and Matamba. We built pretty good houses at a total cost of $30, not counting our labor. One of the noblest young missionaries we had, John A. Newth, of London, sleeps all alone in his station at Sadi Kabanza. Dear Brother Newth!——I was with him much and under a great variety of circumstances, and highly prized his lovable character and great versatility of practical talent. He loved his field of labor and would have made a success if the Master had not called him from labor to reward. This was in 1888, but belongs to this chapter of unreported history. The people I appointed to work Vumtomby Vivi and Matumba Stations became dissatisfied with their work and huddled together at Vivi with others of kindred spirit and worked against us.

“‘Then they went out from us, but were not of us; for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us,’

“‘This is the same old breed,
Of which we read.
I do not think
They become extinct,
But expose them to the weather,
Give them time and tether,
And they leave us altogether,
And peace abides.’

“Since that, Brother Reed and wife and Brother Bullikist, very good people, sent out by Dr. Simpson, of New York, have opened a station nearly midway between Vumtomby Vivi and Sadi Kabanza, so when we get ready to go out to found new stations we shall prefer, instead of resuming work at those vacated, to go into the more populous regions of the interior. The Congo State has a strip of country densely populated, 100 miles from the north bank of the Congo and extending from Banana 250 miles to Manyanga, all unoccupied and open to us, except a few new stations near the Congo. So God is opening a vast field for us on the Lower Congo, as well as on the Upper Congo and Kasai. I did not set out to found any new stations this year, and have not, except to consent to the birth of Ebenezer Station on Sinou River. Our business this year was to find out or to put in the guarantees of self-support for each station. We have found out that most of those founded in the short period of the work are self-supporting in the main. In our new Liberian stations, beside abundance of fruit and vegetables for food, our principal or most reliable resource in marketable value is coffee. So I provided, before leaving Liberia last April, that every station having men who can utilize oxen and plow, should be furnished with a plow and a yoke of cattle and that every occupied station should be supplied with as many coffee scions as they can plant and cultivate up to 1,000 plants for each station and provided each station with a bushel of coffee-seed to be planted in nursery, from which to enlarge each coffee orchard as fast as the ground can be cleared and the coffee scions set out up to 5,000 or 6,000 trees. Coffee means money, and it is only a question of industry, patience and time. It requires about five years to make a coffee orchard productive, but with a little attention it will yield a plentiful annual crop——two crops in Liberia——for fifty years without resetting. We ought to give all the stations a good start in cattle, (say) a dozen head for each one. God is manifestly with us along the lines of our work, and success is certain, and the glory will be wholly his.

“The teaching force of all the facts in the case, as we now see them, leads us clearly to the conclusion that we need our steamer on the Lower Congo much more than on the Upper. So, the Lord permitting, we will put her together at the base of the hill on which Vivi Mission is located, during the next dry season. She will carry goods from the side of ocean steamers at Banana 100 miles up to her berth, in the mouth of a little creek in which she will be constructed, the highest point of steamer navigation. This will save us exorbitant rates of freight up the river and land our goods where we want them, and give other missions a chance to reduce their heavy leakage of the same sort. The price for carrying to Stanley Pool is twice as large now as two years ago. We can’t pay such prices and found the stations in the Upper Kasai. That we feel (_D.V._) bound to do; but with our steamer on the Lower Congo and a steel boat of our own, of three or four tons, to be worked by oars and sails on the middle passage, to carry freights from Isangala to Manyanga, will give us the inside track of the freight business to those upper countries, and cut down our expenses more than a half of the present rate, and do work for other missions as well. Except in leadership and superintendency, all this heavy work will be done by natives, whom we wish to employ and train to habits of industry——one of the auxiliaries of our mission work.

“The steamers on the Upper Congo water-ways have multiplied from four or five to a dozen in the past three years, so that we can get passage for the few missionaries we want to put in to hold our Kasai pre-emption claim till we can work up from our lease, and by and by send up a small steamer of our own for our enlarged Kasai work. I am on my way now to make final arrangements with the builder of our steamer to put her up and launch her at the earliest practicable moment, and will, the Lord permitting, be back to Liberia in December. I will ask Richard Grant to furnish a statement of the total expenditures.

“In regard to appropriations, I remark: (1) That if the Committee wish to enlarge the appropriation to the African (Liberia) Conference, I make no objection, but I ask at least for the continuance of the usual amount of $2,500, sent altogether as it was last year, and have the distribution at Conference for the whole year.

“(2) If the Committee are pleased to order $500 subject to my call, all right. I did not draw it last year, because I had not time to use it for the purpose I had in mind.

“(3) If the Committee will appropriate $10,000 or $5,000 for the establishment of self-supporting schools for the principal countries of Liberian population, for the education alike of the Liberian and the heathen children, I will administer it as carefully as possible and report progress. It would take five or six years to grow marketable values adequate to self-support, but quantities of food can be produced from the first or second year.——October 4, 1889.”

Writing in June 1889, Bishop Taylor speaks as follows concerning his Angola Missions:

MARCH FROM DONDO TO NHANGUEPEPO.

“NHANGUEPEPO, Monday, June 3, 1889.

“I left Dondo last Thursday morning. Brother Withey walked with me about a mile. Four carriers——who brought cargoes from Nhanguepepo, arriving in Dondo on Tuesday, and taking a day for rest——were ready to start on their return trip on Thursday. I employed two of them, one to carry my bed and the other my food, and half a cargo for Brother Withey. We spent the first night at Mutamba, thirteen miles out, stopping about eight miles out for lunch, and four hours of rest.

“Four years ago, after waiting four or five days in Dondo trying in vain to get carriers, we depended on half-a-dozen Kabindas, whom we hired in Loanda, on good recommendations, as a standby in case we should fail. We were repeatedly told by men of long experience in Angola, that ‘it would be impossible for us, as strangers, especially as we would neither drink nor sell, nor give rum, gin nor wine, to get any carriers for the interior.’ ‘The traders, with their long and widely extended experience, facilities and free rations of grog, can’t get more than half the carriers required at this time.’ ‘One gentleman of my acquaintance,’ said, ‘I had 5,000 bags of coffee at Kazengo, thirty-six miles from Dondo, and could not put it into the market for want of carriers.’

“So, a part of our pioneer party, viz: myself, Willie Mead, W. P. Dodson, Joseph Wilks, Henry Kelley, the Vey boy from Liberia, determined to make a start on Friday night (about June 1, 1885,) even if we should have to do our own carrying, for the Kabindas whom he had hired refused to carry for us; and they had a lot of their own luggage, twice as much as regular carriers take with them.

“I learned from an old trader, who had thirty years of observation along our contemplated line of work in Angola, that Nhanguepepo was the best site for a mission between Dondo and Pungo Andongo. So we aimed to reach this first and best place. About 9 o’clock, on that night, we succeeded in getting six Kabindas to shoulder each a load of our luggage and food for the trip, leaving one Kabinda with Dr. Summers and C. M. McLean, in care of a large amount of our stuff at Dondo, stored in our tents, inside of a stone wall enclosure, said to have been a slave pen in the dark days of old. I and my little party of missionaries each took a load of stuff, and struggled up the mountain range four miles to Pambos, arriving about midnight. We spread our bed on the ground and got a little sleep. Before sunrise I had carried wood and made a fire, and had on the tea-kettle. The Kabindas looked grimly on, but declined to help with the camp work. Breakfast over, we made a move for our march, but the K.’s refused to pick up their loads. All my kind talk, and Brother M.’s scolding, failed to move them, so we ‘were stuck in the mud.’ We got the men through the English house in Loanda, and about 9 P.M. I saw Mr. N., the head of the English house, coming in his ‘tipoia,’ carried by men from his farm at Kazengo. So I went a little way from our camp, and met him, and explained to him the situation.

“He said: ‘The trouble is the Kabindas are not carriers. They are sailors and porters and gentlemen’s servants. They were represented to you as good for any service to which you might want to put them, but they have not been trained to work of this sort.’

“I replied: ‘Well, Mr. N., if you can prevail on the fellows to carry till we can reach an interior village we can pick up all the carriers we need.’

“‘Yes; I’ll try.’ He had a palaver with the men, and they agreed to carry till we could find natives who would do it. Then we cleared the camp and marched about four miles, and stopped at a small hamlet for our lunch, and there we hired half-a-dozen men to carry the loads of the K.’s to Nhanguepepo, and we transferred our knapsack to the K.’s.

“The price quoted in Dondo for carriers to Nhangue was ‘sixty-four makutas’ ($1.92) per man. We offered that, but could not get a man. The price asked by these country fellows was but ‘twenty-five makutas’ (seventy-five cents), confirming the theory I had advanced, ‘If we can get to the country villages inland, we can get all the carriers we may require.’ So with our new team we went on about five miles and camped at Mutamba, and rested on the Sabbath. Many villagers called to see the show, the sight of white men, and exhibited great interest in us. We had our worship and a good day of rest. On Monday morning the K.’s refused to carry unless we would hire another carrier, which we did, and soon found that they overloaded the carriers by tying their luggage to our cargoes. We could not speak their language, and they knew but little of ours, so it was of no avail to try to reason with them about their oppressions; but soon after I reached Nhanguepepo, I settled with them, and sent them back to the sea where they belonged.

“On my trip last week I had no trouble with carriers. I started from Mutamba at 6 A.M., walked twelve miles to Kasoki, took lunch and rested till 2.30 P.M.; marched seven miles further to Ndanji a Menia on the divide of a range of mountains, and camped without a tent, just where we pitched our tent four years ago, and I was reminded of the trouble we then had with our carriers. The villagers we had hired complained of the bad treatment they had received from the Kabindas, besides overloading them with their luggage, and refused, to go any further. I quietly offered to give them extra pay, and thus induced them to proceed with their big load to Nhanguepepo.

“I had a refreshing sleep at Ndanji a Menia last Friday night, took lunch on Saturday at Endumba, and reached Nhangue——nineteen miles——at 5 P.M., and was joyously received by our dear Brother Rudolph.

“I have tramped the fifty-one miles between this and Dondo, back and forth many times, but never with less fatigue than on my trip last week. I don’t purpose to give a history of all those journeys through the mountains, but simply note a few points of contrast between my first trip, and the one of last week. We arrived in the midst of drought and ‘famine’ four years ago. We came through from Dondo dry-shod, but last Friday I doffed my boots and waded the pools and streams seven times, and on Saturday five times, and I found it to be pleasant and healthful to my feet.

“Till railroads shall be built through this country, the best mode of traveling, and the most healthful, is to walk, and ‘wade.’ As for speed in a journey of a few hundred miles, a man on foot will out-travel a bull, or even a good horse. Persons who travel in a ‘tipoia,’ amid the rattle of sleigh bells, and the shouts of their carriers, are not in a position to receive my statement, but I base it, not on a theory, but on facts from the field of action.

“When we were here four years ago, we lived in tents near the Caravansary for about three months. We had been invited by the Governor-General, Sr. Amaral, to settle on Government land wherever we chose, and the Government would make us a grant of any amount required up to 2,400 acres. Having explored the Nhanguepepo region pretty thoroughly, we concluded that the Lord would have us open a mission here. Our families and a number of our young men were waiting——in Loanda at a heavy expense——for us to open fields for them; and the dry season was passing away, so we had to proceed as expeditiously as possible.

“I opened a mortar bed for making adobes (sun-dried brick) preparatory to the erection of a mission house near the Caravansary, where crowds of carriers, many of whom were from a distance of five or six hundred miles east of us, camped every night. Having made inquiry I believed the site I had selected was Government land, but was notified by the “Commandante,” before I had proceeded with my adobe-making, that all the land about the Caravansary was private property. He was very kind to us, but wanted to sell us the house in which he lived, a roomy, substantial building, with adjoining roofless walls of solid masonry of much larger extent. I saw on examination that the property would be suitable for our purposes of residence for our large families, and for a receiving and training station for new recruits from home in coming time, being a high, breezy, healthful region; but we had no money. However, firmly believing that the God of Abraham would lead us, and provide for us, I wrote to our people in Loanda to come on as quickly as they could. Owing to the continued illness of a large proportion of them, and the difficulty and delay in getting steamer passage up the Coanza on account of the drought and low state of the river, our people came in groups in July and August. I was notified at the time of their transit that our money in Loanda was all used up. As strangers, we could not ask for ‘credit,’ and as servants of God, doing business solely for Him, and not for ourselves, I did not think it necessary, nor feel at liberty to try to put His credit on the market, so I worked and waited.

“My people could not travel inland without money to pay their carriers, and we had no place in which to shelter them, even if they could get in. Our cloth was all of one kind——white cotton, which became popular and marketable months later, but at that time was declared to be entirely unsuitable for the market, and hence could not be passed off at any price. Money was the thing required, and without it our people in transit could neither travel beyond Dondo, nor stop and pay expenses. I did not doubt that I was working in the order of God’s providence, hence could not and did not doubt that He would lead us, and provide for these demands on us, outside of our abundant home supplies which He had already provided. The fact is, I brought into the country, in money, only the small sum of about $1,200, and $1,000 of that had been handed to me by dear Brother Critchlow to meet ’emergencies’ in Loanda. Heavy duties, house-rent for forty persons with high rates for wood, water, etc., soon swallowed that amount. But just in our extremity, Mr. J. T., a Church of England man in the City of London, gave us £250——over $1,200.

“The Lord thus tided us over that bar. So in our extremity of need, as before described, the God of ‘the Church of England’ as well as of our own, through His servant J. T. of London, gave us £250 more. With that we bought the Nhanguepepo property of the Commandante, and settled our people here, also at Pungo Andongo, and Malange.

“I proposed that our Nhangue Station should bear the name of our London brother, but when I spoke to him about it, he replied, ‘No, Bishop Taylor, no! that is an honor I do not deserve. I live at home in comfort. Call it after somebody who has suffered and done something for God among the heathen.’

“All the members of the families, and young men appointed to Nhanguepepo four years ago, are still at the front making a record for God and heaven, save Nellie and Edna Mead, who have gone to represent us in the home country of our King. Brother Carl Rudolph, however, is the only one who remains at Nhangue, and is at present in sole charge of the station, and is breaking in native workers, and is likely to make this a training station of native, rather than an American agency. If such should turn out to be in the line of God’s wisdom, and gracious leading, all the better. These are acclimatized, know the languages, and the life of the people, and have many advantages over foreign agency. The foreign missionary is sent by the Holy Spirit ‘to prepare the way of the Lord,’ but the sooner he can train and trust the native-born men and women whom God shall call to be heralds and witnesses of the truth, the better.

“The station buildings that were in good repair when we took possession, remain so; some portions not entirely furnished with ant-proof rafters, need repairs. Many of the walled rooms have been roofed and utilized.

“A walled room we have, 18x40 feet, would answer for a chapel and school-room. We hope to have it covered and fitted up this dry season. We are also building this season a new stone wall around our corral, and must have a shed for milking the cows.

“A new house, 18x40 feet, of adobe bricks, has been put up near our main building, and a farm house of adobe brick, 20x40 feet, a mile distant, at the mission farm.

“A great deal of material work has thus been done in the four years. I provided for putting in a herd of cattle here before I left, nearly four years ago. The herd increased and went up to a total of 144 head, including calves. To protect them from thieves and from wolves they have to be carefully guarded by two boys by day and secured within heavy stone walls by night. One night, about two years ago, the herd got out of the ‘corral’ and went to their grazing ground, and a pack of wolves killed and partly devoured one of the cows. Later, a couple of wolves managed to get hold of a calf that seemed to have laid near the gate. Some natives heard their barking and raised an alarm, which frightened the wolves away. Brothers Withey and Rudolph went out with a light, and found the calf outside the gate, and one of its legs broken. It appeared to have been dragged through an opening in the gate, caused by a broken bar, and thus got its leg broken. It was midnight, but Brother Rudolph at once slaughtered and dressed the calf for food. Meantime he preached to the crowd of natives thus drawn together about the devil-wolves which were in pursuit of them, and said their only refuge is in the fold of Jesus; that they should not go outside, nor lie down to sleep too near the gate.

“The crowding together of so large a herd of cattle proved to be unwholesome for them, especially in the wet season, when they could not keep the corral clean. Many of them became afflicted with an itchy, festering skin disease, though otherwise healthy and fat. Such were separated from the main herd to prevent possible contagion, and were gradually slaughtered and used to meet the demand for beef, fresh or dried; others proved to be ‘lean kine,’ which greatly ran down in weight during the dry season, when the grass was short; some milk cows were poor in the quantity and quality of their milk; others would not yield to kind treatment; all these varieties, noted as unprofitable stock to keep, were sold or slaughtered, so that now of ‘the survival of the fittest’ we have left a herd of eighty-four head, including calves; beside selected seed for a herd at our Pungo Andongo Mission, which now numbers twenty head, old and young.

“Brothers Withey and Gordon were both merchants for years at home; hence very proficient in that line, but not so well adapted to farming or mechanics; so the Lord is giving them success in establishing a _commercial business_, both at Nhanguepepo, and at Pungo Andongo. It was contemplated from the start that when such men should be put down by the Lord in a good place, and shall so be led by His Spirit and Providence, that trading posts should constitute one branch of our school industries. These give ample support now to the two stations named, but are still assisted from home in taxes, repairs and new additions to church properties.

“The foundation industry, however, is farming, fruit, coffee-growing, etc., (1) because of its intrinsic value, present and future. (2) That we may thus train boys and girls for industrial pursuits, by which, when grown, they may secure good homes of their own and form Christian communities as a basis of self-supporting churches and schools.

“The soil of Nhangue is abundant, rich and ready for the plow, but thus far, owing to the great attention given to building, to the stock, and to merchandizing, and the departure of so many who ran well for a season, our farming interest has suffered; but Brother Rudolph will give the farming and industrial school-boys and girls to help and to be helped, a fair trial, as soon as we supply him with an assistant, and, by the blessing of God, he will, I am sure, make a success which will demonstrate grand possibilities on that line. This is essential, even if the stores should far exceed absolute self-support, which they will do if kept solely in charge of such men as we have named; but all the boys we train can’t be merchants. The school work commenced with promise nearly four years ago, has not made decided progress, for the same reasons named in regard to farming, but good results are manifest from the educational work, especially in some of the boys trained by our good brother, Wm. P. Dodson, who give evidence of their genuine conversion to God. In spite of all discouragements, which, among ourselves, have not been small nor few, God is at the front and will lead all who abide there with Him to early and glorious successes on all the lines of our movement, especially in the salvation of the heathen around us. I am so assured of this that I am praising Him now for the coming work of salvation among the heathen. Glory to God! Glory to God! WM. TAYLOR.”

NHANGUEPEPO.

“Arrived in Nhanguepepo by a walk of fifty-one miles from Dondo, on Saturday, June 1, 1889. At present we have but one missionary on this station, Brother Carl Rudolph, but he is doing the work of two or three by breaking in the native boys. He has a self-supporting store of varieties, a large herd of cattle, is building a stone wall for enlarged corral for the cattle, teaching and preaching daily, and preparing to put in a large crop of corn, beans, manioc, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, etc.

“This was designed for a receiving and training station for our newly arriving recruits from America, but instead it has become a training station for native boys who are acclimatized, who know the language of the country and the life of the people, and have many points of adaptability which a foreigner must spend years to acquire, and meantime is likely to get sick——home sick, and skip out. Yet native agency can’t be trained without competent men of God to train them. God has developed such from our first force whom we settled in Angola four years ago, who will do a wonderful and widely extended work, even if no more should come. If we can get more from home, who, like these, will stick, and do and die for Jesus in Africa, well; but otherwise, Angola, already self-supporting, except some help in repairing and enlarging our mission properties, will be worked by our present force of Americans and the natives themselves. We have the nucleus of a Methodist Episcopal Church in Nhanguepepo, now consisting of half-a-dozen saved boys, and others are seeking.

“On Sabbath, the 2d inst., I was late in rising from bed, just off a journey; indeed, I wished, at any rate, to spend part of the day in Sabbatic rest in that way. But, I was going to say, as I lay in bed, a blind man, whom I met here four years ago, came to see me. He is a native of Dondo, and learned there to read and write in Portuguese, and speaks that language as well as his own Kimbundu, but for years he has been blind, and lives alone in a hut not far from our house. His name is Esessah. He expressed great pleasure in meeting me again, and Brother Rudolph gave him a seat by my bedside, and sat down near him. After the compliments of the occasion I said to myself: ‘This is my chance for Sunday morning preaching, which has been the habit of my life for the last forty-seven years. If the Holy Spirit will use me this morning we can get this poor man saved. He has groped in the dark a long time; to walk in the light for the remaining time of his pilgrimage, and then leap into the joyous brightness of eternal day, will be a blessed gain for this poor man.’ So I said: ‘Brother Ruldolph, I want to preach to this man, and have you put it in plain Portuguese or Kimbundu.’ Brother Carl is perfect in love to God and man, and his whole soul and life are devoted to such work, and he is well up in those languages. So I gave him my _Gospel Short Cut_ to the mind, conscience and heart of the heathen. The Spirit of God put Divine electric fire into it, which broke us down with weeping again and again. At the close of the discourse, the three of us went on our knees. I was led to pray that the Divine Spirit would make his repentance so deep and expressive, and his conversion to God so clear and distinctive, as to leave no ground for doubt in his mind, nor ours, and which would give point and force to his testimony to his heathen neighbors. So I and Carl led in prayer, then the blind heathen broke out in audible prayer, and wept, prayed and wept, till finally he submitted to treatment and _received_ the Lord Jesus, the Great Physician, and was straightway pardoned and healed, and gave a clear testimony to the facts in his case.

“We did not call to see him on Monday. I thought it was well to leave him alone with God for a season, but on Tuesday, yesterday, Brother Carl and I went to his hut, and he received us joyfully. He is not at all a noisy man, but courteous, unobtrusive and very sensible, and in low, distinct articulation, he is a fluent talker. We had a long teaching talk with him, and heard his most clear and distinct testimony to the saving power of God in his head and heart. I led in vocal prayer, Carl followed and then Esessah prayed intelligently and earnestly. As we were leaving, Carl and he embraced each other and wept, and held each other and wept on for some time: meantime, I was waiting in the path, and tearfully thanking God for such a sight in the midst of heathendom. Glory to God! The big rain drops are falling on us. A thunder-gust of glory will sweep through these mountains, soon followed by the regular ‘former and latter rains’ in this season. Glory to God! My eyes shall not dim much with age till I shall see these things. Let all the people who have been praying for us, praise God for the glory to be revealed. WM. TAYLOR.”

FROM NHANGUEPEPO TO PUNGO ANDONGO.

“Thursday, June 6, 1889.——I left Nhangue at 6.30 this morning, with my two carriers, whom I seldom see on the path, being usually ahead of them. Two miles out I called to see the Assistant Commandante. He and the Commandante called to see me the other day, and of course I returned their call. A Commandante, appointed by the Portuguese Provincial Government, has charge of a detachment of soldiers, and is also a magistrate of a certain district of the Province. Some of them are Portuguese. The others, probably the larger proportion, are Africans, who have had some advantages of education. They have been courteous and kind to me and to my missionaries almost invariably, and we reciprocate cordially.

“Three miles on my way I called to pay my respects to Sr. Jacintho, a Portuguese trader, whom we used to call ‘the honeyman,’ because he occasionally, when we were strangers in a strange land, presented us with a bottle of honey to sweeten us up a bit. We bought of him some of our best cattle in starting to form our herd.

“In the forenoon I walked fourteen miles to Sangue. On my first trip over this path, to settle Joseph Wilks in Pungo Andongo, we spent a night at the house of the Commandante at Sangue.

“I had been overworked at Nhangue, and was not in good condition for walking that day, and, on reaching Sangue, soon found a corduroy bedstead in a private room, and laid me down to rest. I heard Brother Wilks say to our host, “Bispo doente, muito doente”——Bishop sick, very sick. I said to myself: “If my kind Father will give me a refreshing night’s rest across these rough irregular poles, we will see before to-morrow night who will be the delicate brother.”

“In due time our host sent me a basin of delicious native soup, which refreshed me very much, and though I spent much of the night in turning over, I slept well in the intervals, and was up with the day-dawn and ready for a march of twenty-four miles. We waded through long reaches of sand in the path, which made wearisome walking for us. Wilks was good for a long pull, but he had no more to say about “Bisbo doente,” as the walk that day put him up for all he could do to keep up, and to hold out till we reached Pungo Andongo, a little before sunset. We were kindly received and entertained at the trading ‘factory’ of Sanza Laurie & Co.

“Marcus Zagury, a member of this firm, had visited us at Nhangue a few days before, and gave us full information and encouragement in regard to Pungo Andongo, as the place for planting a mission, and tendered us the hospitality of their house. The evening of our arrival had been set for an entertainment——a big dinner——for the Government officials and traders of the town at this house; so we made somewhat the acquaintance of those gentlemen, also of a Catholic priest, who was an East Indian. All spoke encouraging words to us, but of course did not engage to paddle our canoe for us. Next day we rented from Sr. Zagury, at a cheap rate, a pretty good house for a school and for residence of the mission family, and I left Brother Wilks in charge and returned to Nhangue.