UP to sixty or seventy years ago very little seems to have been known about Central Africa. I remember, when quite a little girl, having read in an old geography book that the greater part of that vast continent, lying nearest to the equator, was supposed to be only a sandy desert, with here and there pools of water, round which a few native huts, in shape very much like beehives, were clustered. In some very old maps of Africa a great river has, been traced, but as no one appeared to be quite sure of it being there at all, it was often left out altogether.
Several explorers had tried to trace the river Nile to its source, and about the time that Alexander Mackay was making his first attempts at printing, a great deal of attention and interest had been aroused by hearing of wonderful discoveries. Yes, the old maps were, after all, right. The Congo, a mighty river, was really there, also lakes. Uganda was not a barren waste, but a well-watered and well-peopled country. Every new discovery formed a fresh subject of conversation in the boy's home, and few things gave him greater pleasure than to trace the journeys of Livingstone and Stanley on the map that when no longer required in his father's study, he carried off in triumph to his own room.
“Father," said Alexander one day, "there is one thing that puzzles me very often. I know that till quite recent times, when any skilled work such as building bridges, piers or lighthouses had to be done, we had to send across the Channel for engineers and they had to bring their own workmen with them. Have we had to send for missionaries too? Livingstone and Moffat were, I know, Scotchmen, but I see that quite a number of the missionaries in Africa are Germans.”
“Well, my boy," was his father's reply, "you see the field is so large, and so many stations needed to be filled, that it was difficult to find a sufficient number of really suitable men at home who were willing to be despised, unknown missionaries, and a large missionary institution at Basle, in Switzerland, responded nobly to the call for the foreign field.”
“But, father, why did you say 'despised missionaries'? I have always thought it was a great honor to be a missionary.”
“So it is, to those who are constrained by the love of Christ to carry the glad tidings to heathen lands; but any who have not that constraint had better stay at home.”
Soon after this conversation, the boy confided to his father his great desire to become an engineer. Mr. Mackay, who had long noticed his son's growing love for mechanics, was not surprised, though his own hopes and plans for the future of the boy had been quite different. He heard him patiently, and explained kindly that to place him as a pupil with a good firm in Glasgow or Edinburgh would cost a large sum of money, much more than he could afford. He advised him to go on with his studies, and when old enough, try to win a good scholarship that would carry him through the University, and in wearing college cap and gown he would, he told him, forget all about saws and hammers.
In the spring of 1860, when "Sandy" (as he was still called in the home circle) was just entering his eleventh year, he seemed to lose his robust health and high spirits. His lessons were, as a rule, well and faithfully learned; but it was easy to see that his heart was no longer in them. He did not complain, but grew thin and pale; he lost his appetite, and his parents grew anxious. He was seen by a doctor, who owned he could not tell what ailed the laddie. His father took him to Edinburgh to consult a physician, who gave as his opinion he was not really ill, but had grown beyond his strength, and advised change of air and a long holiday. Acting at once upon the advice of the doctor, his father took him for a tour in the Highlands. In later years he often recalled the happy, restful time he enjoyed during those weeks, specially when a friend lent him a strong Shetland pony and he was able to take long rides over the moors, and get delightful glimpses of lake and mountain scenery.
Three months of free, out-of-door life did him good in more ways than one, and he returned to his home greatly improved in health; but though he did his utmost to please his father by attention to his studies, his old love of books seemed almost a thing of the past. He was still gentle and thoughtful, and very kind to the younger members of the family, but he never seemed more happy than when engaged in some kind of manual labor. It was "Sandy” who shoveled and swept the snow that often lay in deep drifts blocking the way, and almost preventing visits to or from neighbors. He would clear and weed the garden paths; and sowing and reaping time always found him ready and willing to lend a helping hand. Small repairs, requiring the use of carpenter's tools, soon began to be looked upon by the family as his work, and he rather enjoyed, than otherwise, taking a turn at wood-chopping.
And so the years, happy, busy years, passed on till the boy was fourteen, and his parents felt it was high time he should be sent to school. Much prayer about it was made by both; for kind and amiable as he naturally was, they were not sure that he had really decided for Christ, and they feared that his affectionate, confiding disposition might, in the wider world of schoolboy life, expose him to temptations he would be unable to resist.
He had never had a boy companion, and looked forward with great delight to a promised visit, during the holidays, from a youth of about his own age, the son of an old friend of his father's who, like himself, was about to enter the Grammar School at Aberdeen. On the appointed day, John Hector, who in after years went as a missionary to Calcutta, arrived at the manse, and the two lads soon found that they had much in common, and, as the parents of both had hoped, a warm friendship grew up between them. They were left pretty much to themselves, and took long and delightful rambles, sometimes visiting a neighboring loch or waterfall, at others fishing or bathing in some mountain stream.