I ALMOST seem to hear some of my young friends saying our last chapter was not a very bright one, and it made them feel quite sad to read of the difficulties and dangers Alexander Mackay and his friends had to face in their attempt to carry the gospel to the then darkest part of "Dark Africa.”
Well, dear ones, if I only told you of the bright and pleasant things, and left out all the trials of faith and lessons of patience that had to be learned by the way, I should expect you to say my story was not a true one, and then you would not care for it.
Frequent attacks of fever thinned their numbers, and the few who survived were weak and often suffered greatly. Crossing rivers was often no easy matter, and in a letter written to friends in the homeland, Mackay tells of one that must have needed not only all the nerve and courage he possessed, but much real confidence in God.
He wrote: "I have just arrived at the Rukigura river. It is at present in flood, a mighty, rushing river, neck-deep. How I am to cross it I cannot tell. By putting up ropes and pulleys, much in the same way as for the lifesaving apparatus in shipwreck is done, I think I could manage to get the men and most of the stores over, but eighty oxen, the carts, and several donkeys will, I am afraid, prove slow and troublesome work. Still, I must make the attempt, or stay where I am till the flood is past, and I cannot tell how long that may be, as we are having thunder-storms with heavy rains day after day. A few of my men have run away, taking cloth and other things with them; those still with me are, I think, on the whole, fairly faithful. They are all sad cowards, and when any danger arises take to their heels, leaving their master to get out of it the best way he can.
“Just now a scorpion (one of a kind much feared by the natives, as its bite is almost always fatal) crawled over me as I sat writing. It would make you shudder to see half the horrors of this kind one meets every day. Snakes glide about in the soft, slimy mud through which we have, often knee-deep, to wade. Several kinds of flies draw blood with every bite, and they can bite too! Last night I was quietly sleeping when the growl of a hyæna just at my ear made me start up, seize my rifle, and fire; but Bobby, my dog, was before me, and set up such a lively bark that the hyæna was off before I had time to present it with a bullet.”
Heavy rains had made deep ruts. Large felled trees and bushes often lay right across the road, and the rough, uneven path was so wet and slippery that one or other of the carts seemed almost always in trouble. Sometimes the pole ox would fall and upset the cart. It must have been trying to find, as was often the case, that everything breakable was broken, and nearly everything that could be spoiled was so. But Mackay was not a man given to crying over "spilled milk"; so the cart was reloaded, and making the best of what could not be helped, they were soon again on the march.
About this time an accident rendered him lame, and for more than a week he was unable to walk. While helping to get one of the carts out of a rut, a bush caught his foot and he fell, the wheel going twice over his leg. Two of his men put their loads into a cart and carried him in a light hammock; but as cart after cart upset, they did not make very good progress, and weary and almost fainting from pain and loss of blood, the day's march ended, and they reached a village. The chief, hearing of his arrival, brought six or seven sick people to be treated, and one little boy he wished to be cured of spinal disease.
Weak and worn out as he was, the sad news that reached him while still some distance from Uganda, must have added greatly to his sorrow and anxiety. There had been fighting in a district through which they still had to pass, and two white men and about fifty natives had been killed. He did not need to ask who the white men were. Too well he knew that two of his missionary friends, with whom he had sailed from England, Messrs. Smith and O'Neill, were the only Englishmen within many miles; and he felt their loss deeply.
Soon after he wrote: "There were eight of us sent out; two soon found they could not stand the climate and had to return broken down in health, four have gone home, only two are now left. Poor Africa! But the work of God will proceed, even if we break down.”
The next stage of the journey lay through a plain thirty-six miles in length. He was only taking a few of his men, carrying small loads he was unwilling to leave behind, and as he knew robbers were often to be met with he ordered them to keep close to each other.
Towards evening of the first day, one of them fell a few yards behind, when a party of robbers sprang from their hiding-place, and striking the hapless man a heavy blow with a club, seized his load and disappeared. To attempt to follow them would, he felt, be worse than useless; but the contents of the stolen load could ill be spared. All the food supplies on which he depended for several days were gone, also his candles and matches. Perhaps the loss that tried him most was that of two ounces of quinine, a medicine he had found very useful in keeping off attacks of fever.
The robbers were hardly out of sight when a caravan drove up. The leader was an Arab trader, who was crossing the plain in a very comfortable way. He had a nice large tent, with Persian carpets, cooking utensils, sweets, coffee, plenty of rice, and many other things. He behaved in a most friendly manner to Mackay, and gave him a good dinner of rice and curried fowl, and before saying good-bye made him a valuable present, a packet of candles and a box of matches!
He had no quinine, so the next day Mackay sent back one of his men a distance of thirty miles with a note, begging that the precious powder might be sent to him with as little delay as possible.