While the natives were in the middle of the great jigger visitation we had much difficulty to get the young people to come to work on the station, and many of the fruit trees which had cost their weight in silver to import from distant lands were dying for desire of water, as we had an unusually long dry season of over six months. We had high hopes of these trees being a great benefit to the country in future years, and thought that they might eventually help to make the Mission self-supporting. Anyhow they were a blessing in the meantime, for their presence enabled us to give continual work to a good many young men, who were thus taken away from their wild, redundant life and brought daily under the influence of the Gospel.
In that dry and thirsty land under the fierce and burning rays of the tropical sun, there were no native fruit-bearing trees, and we yearned for the first fruit which might, under the providence of God, be gathered from these trees, which we had been able under such difficulties to introduce. The need of fruit was perhaps more intensely felt because that, for lengthened periods, we had been without tea, coffee, cocoa and sugar, and many other products which are closely associated with European diet. For a long time we had no flour, and during that interval the staple food at our table was the insipid root of the cassava or manioc plant, from which is a staple food. All our funds were completely gone through the inconceivably heavy expenses which the early years of the work entailed. Only those old Societies who have had experience of opening up stations in Central Africa can have any estimated idea of the difficulty and expense of the work, when the base of operations is in the far, distant interior. We were at this time led to send to the Coast and to London all the personal jewelry and trinkets we possessed, including gold watches, chains, pendants, bracelets and rings, to the value of one hundred pounds. Even that was not enough to pay for the postage of our correspondence from the Coast to England. Still, we believed that God, who had enabled us to devote our entire means to the work of bringing the Gospel to the lost ones, that He would supply every real need.
The first gift that reached us in those difficult days was from a Missionary in another part of Africa. He had instructed a firm at the Coast to send us a caravan of supplies, and when these arrived up country we had no idea from whom they came. His gift cost a large amount of money in transport alone and must have entailed upon him very considerable self-denial.
We had a good many cases of clothing sent to us, and these were found so suitable to our needs that one would think the senders had had a list of our wants. A few of the Church Missionary Society's Missionaries in Uganda sent us a large sum of money by the hand of our honored friend, Dr. Baxter. The Rev. D. L. Hooper, of the Church Missionary Society at Jilore, East Africa, aided our Mission very considerably, and at great expense sent us a caravan of supplies from London.
Never perhaps was our stock of provisions so low as on one Christmas day. Our children had decorated the rooms beautifully, but the outside kitchen had quite a desolate appearance, and the food store was almost empty. On that morning at our early Bible reading, the children had asked the Lord to send them something for their table. Some time before midday we saw what seemed to be some loaded porters of a Coast caravan coming along the track which led to our Mission station. Since the usual route for Coast caravans lay several miles south of us, we thought that these men had missed the path and were coming to us for guidance. When they arrived at our station they gave the usual Coast greeting, laid down their loads, and handed to us a letter. To our great surprise the cases were for us, and had been sent as a present from a gentleman who had recently landed on the Coast.
We had met him some years before, on board a steamer running up the east coast of Africa, when we were about to advance into the interior to open the Mission. While sitting together on the deck of the ship, my husband spoke to this man about his soul, and of the wonderful and marvelous change which the reception of the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings to everyone who truly believes in Him as his own personal Savior. There, in a quiet corner on the deck of the ship, in the bright tropical moonlight which shimmered around them over mast and spar and crystal sea, they talked for hours of the pros and cons of the Christian life. Eventually the Holy Spirit led that man into the light of the truth, and he rejoiced in his newly-found Savior. We said goodbye to him as he changed ships for a port in India; and then, after all those years of silence, a caravan was sent up country by him with all classes of goods suitable for life in the far-away regions of the interior, and these arrived in the very nick of time as an answer to our children's prayers. Truly the words penned by Isaiah were then fulfilled, "And it shall come to pass that before they call I will answer: and while they are yet speaking I will hear."
Shortly before the arrival of that timely caravan we had a visit from Her Majesty's Commissioner, Sir Arthur Hardinge, who, accompanied by a following of Europeans and a large armed caravan, was making his first entry into the wilds of the region, over which he had been appointed Administrator when the country was declared a British Protectorate. It was a great pleasure to see fellow Englishmen once again and to entertain Her Majesty's representative and his attendants, in which were included Mr. C. R. W. Lane and Dr. McDonald. I was not present myself at the table, for only a short time prior to the arrival of the Commissioner another dear child had come to bless our home. Sir Arthur expressed to me and my husband his great pleasure in visiting our Mission Station, and said that he very much appreciated what we had done for the country.
At times, when I was laid aside with illness or child, the strain which fell upon my husband was very great due to the numerous tasks he had to perform. He was, on all occasions, our only doctor and nurse, while the natives made great and constant demands upon his time and attention.
Very soon we had evidence that the natives of East Equatorial Africa were face to face with a time of great shortage of food. Two very long dry seasons had passed by, and during the interval between them heavy rains were expected as usual, but these failed to come; and the small stretches of cultivated ground scattered here and there in the bush had produced very little food, while in some parts of the country, from elevated patches of ground, nothing whatever had been gathered.
Another rainy season had become due, but alas, it also failed, and the fierce, burning rays of the sun were literally opening the earth in numerous cracks and fissures. True! a few showers had fallen, saturating the surface of the ground two or three inches deep; and the poor, needy natives, in hope of a future harvest, had dropped in the earth the grain they barely could spare. The superficial moisture caused the seed to germinate and bud, but in the absence of further rain the green leaf soon withered, and every prospect of a renewed supply of grain was completely gone.
In every hut throughout the wilds there was shortage of food—in some there was none at all. The poor denizens of the wilds, who had neither storehouse nor barn, could not long survive two successive seasons of drought. Gaunt famine stalked through the land. Those who had a few goats or sheep began to eat them one by one, until not the trace of a hoof of these animals remained in their thorny fences. Those who had cattle were more favorably situated for withstanding the dire conditions which prevailed. Not only had they the advantage of a supply of milk, though greatly reduced in quantity by the drought, but they were able occasionally to bleed the cattle by opening a vein in the neck, and use the blood for food. Eventually, however, some of the cattle had to be killed so as to prolong the lives of the owners.
At this period hundreds of the natives begged my husband to go and shoot meat for them, as they were too weak to hunt and follow the animals themselves. At times he had often secured a good supply for them, and when the rhinoceroses were destroying their little gardens in the forest he had repeatedly complied with their urgent wishes to kill these gigantic predators, for the poisoned arrows of the natives were useless against the thick-skinned and dangerous animals. Now, in time of famine, when it was a matter of life and death, he more gladly agreed to their request.
Times without number he started off with them early in the morning, about three o'clock, and at that hour a large following were waiting for him. Indeed, many people came to our station the night before, lest they might be left behind in the early start of the morning. On some occasions when he got near to places which were frequented by animals, he would find there men from fifteen to twenty miles away, who had sought him and followed the sound of the rifle, so that they might share in the product of the chase. The caravan bearing the meat generally returned the same evening, as my husband was successful in getting two or three animals during the day. In this way he shot scores of tons of meat for the weak and hungry natives.
As the grassy plains and glades increasingly had less green food for animals, a great many animals wandered away from our district in quest of better pasture, while those that remained grew more cautious and difficult to come close to. For this reason it became necessary for my husband to remain away two and three days at a time to get sufficient meat for his ever-increasing train of thin followers.
It was with great reluctance that I consented to him leaving me and the children so often, for I knew the great dangers which he encountered from wild animals on these journeys, and besides all that, he was wearing himself out under the strain of so much tiring labor. Nevertheless there was great compensation in the work. The hungry were being fed and the wild natives of the woods, under the subduing influence of God's visitation, were becoming more hungry for the Word of Life; and around those camp fires at night in the wilderness he had hundreds to listen to his message of love and pardon and eternal life, who never, under ordinary circumstances, would have heard the glad news.
Sometimes he took no tent with him, as the natives were too weak to carry it, and it could not be divided, so he generally used a Willesden canvas cork mattress on which he lay under the open, starlit sky. When it was unrolled and laid flat on the ground a fire was made some distance from either end, so as to keep lions away while he was sleeping; and to the flame of the fire, and the providential protection which he claimed from God, he owes his preservation. Often lions roared around the camp all night, but their bellowing did little more than disturb his sleep.
At times he had some very exciting experiences and narrow escapes from death. The more difficult it became to get a supply of flesh for his starving followers, the greater were the risks necessary to obtain it. One day he had marched to and fro through the wooded wilderness and across the arid plains, but found nothing. Scanning the horizon with his field glasses, however, he discovered three rhinoceroses on a bare ridge where a triangular tongue of the plain intersected the thinly-wooded bush which formed its boundary on one side.
These animals when met with singly in the jungle are ferocious brutes to encounter, as many a well-armed hunter has found to his loss, but when a man is confronted with pairs or triplets of these mammoth beasts the conditions are then unsafe in the extreme, and especially on an open plain where no cover can be obtained. In wooded country the hunter may be able to get behind a tree, or under the shelter which a clump of bushes may give, but on the shrubless plain nothing but an immediately fatal shot will save one from the swift attack of these huge monsters.
My husband did not care to take home his large retinue of hungry men without meat, and, seeking divine help, he determined to take on the three gigantic pachyderms who were sunning themselves on the bare, red-earthed eminence. Leaving his followers behind in safety, he took with him two men—his gunbearer and another—and cautiously proceeded towards the three animals. When he got within about one hundred and fifty yards there were only two visible; and the keen-scented beasts, becoming aware of his presence, spun around, and raising high their huge, horn-crowned, terror-inspiring heads, they sniffed the air to determine from which spot the enemy was approaching. While he was shortening the distance between himself and them they began to approach him. There was no time to be lost, for less than eighty yards now separated him from the oncoming beasts. He immediately fired at one who, for a moment, lifted his head high enough to reveal his chest, and the monster fell in his tracks. Instantly he aimed at the second animal, who ran a few yards and then toppled over.
Thinking that his work was done, my husband attempted rushing towards the last animal that fell, and which seemed incapable of rising, to finish it off, but before doing so he was startled to find himself within about five yards of the third beast, who was charging straight for him, from behind an anthill which had hidden him. Jumping to one side, my husband immediately fired, and the animal turned and ran two hundred yards and then fell headlong on his face. When my husband reached him a minute afterward he made several attempts to get on his feet but was unable to do so. After having the hide removed in large planks and the carcass opened, it was found that the bullet had penetrated the shoulder and passed right through the center of the heart, tearing that organ considerably, and embedding itself in the tissues on the further side.
There were a good many tons of meat for the men in camp that night, and one of the animals was handed over by my husband to about one hundred starving men from the distant district of Kivalukc and Kyana. These natives had sought for my husband in the bush, and, on hearing the sound of his rifle, had struck out towards the point from which the sound emanated.
The large following of men from our own district had still some tons of meat in camp, and the crowd of haggard, pinched and angular forms, which were normally sleek and round and athletic, gathered closely around the blazing fires and feasted to their hearts' content on roasted chunks of rhinoceros flesh.
It was not always that several of these animals were disposed of with perfect success. Two were seen together one day, on one of those open glades met with now and again in the bush. My husband fired at one who at once charged down upon him. He used his rifle on the fast-approaching rhinoceros, but all in vain. In spite of the shower of bullets, on came the determined and infuriated beast until it reached his very feet, when the last bullet from his gun broke its leg in two, and it toppled over just beside him. Another cartridge was then slipped into the barrel and the huge animal was dispatched by a shot through the brain. On another occasion my husband sought to shoot for the natives two of these animals which were browsing together. Crawling up a dry river-bed with the wind in his favor, he got quite near to them before they were aware of his presence. He shot one through the heart and it headed directly for him, but before reaching his position it dropped.
He then fired at the second animal, but in the excitement of the moment hit it rather far back, and it immediately rushed over an adjoining hill and disappeared from view. Some of his native followers ran after it to ascertain what had happened, and came back with the news that it had fallen and was dead. My husband then went with the men towards the place where the animal lay like a big black hulk in the grass, but knowing that the natives do not care to approach these fierce beasts before being assured that they are really dead, he fired a shot at random. No sooner had he done so than the animal jumped up quite alive and made for the gathering of natives. These scampered hither and thither at a pace they had never attained before, but soon the animal picked out one man from the crowd and kept to him alone. The natives, being naked and accustomed to running all their lives, are as swift as the wind. The rhinoceros though bearing such a heavy body is an exceedingly fast animal, and, at times, in the southern part of the African continent has overtaken and tossed in air both horse and rider. All the same, for a time the native kept well in front of the wounded rhinoceros, but, quick and nimble as he was, the huge pachyderm was gaining on him rapidly.
My husband seeing this, and knowing that there could be but a minute or two between the man and death, would have instantly fired, but for the fact that the men were running in confusion over the plain, and the pursued native was wisely and cleverly doubling now and again so as to leave the pachyderm behind. Due to the great length of these animals they cannot turn as quickly or as easily as a man. Every time, therefore, that the native doubled he was given a fresh opportunity of saving his skin.
In a moment beast and man were running in a circle, in the center of which my husband stood, while the front horn of the enraged brute almost touched the buttocks of the native. Never thinking in the strained excitement of that instant whether there were cartridges in the magazine of his rifle or not, but only of the life which was at stake, my husband ran towards the man as fast as his legs could carry him, hoping to reach the rhinoceros before he had gored his victim.
My husband, in giving an account of the incident in his own words, says, "...I reached the man almost too late. The rhinoceros had already thrown him over with the point of his nose, but had not got his horn in, as the native had, with native agility, cunningly dodged to one side when he found that he was about to be tossed. The huge animal turned round to dig his keen horn into the desperate form and crush him with his foot. A bullet from my rifle in the rump led the beast to change his mind, and leaving the fallen native, he turned around instantly and dashed at me with a furious snort.
Just then, when the enraged brute rushed for me with lowered head, I sought to run another cartridge out of the magazine into the barrel, but alas! there were none—the magazine was empty. I turned to escape with the infuriated monster at my feet and his horn almost between my legs. I had not the presence of mind to throw away the empty rifle. The huge beast and I started at scratch and he kept close to me all the time squealing most viciously. Never before nor since have I covered the ground so quickly. How far or how long I ran over the shrubless plateau I cannot tell, but eventually the quick pace and the long strides reduced my strength; yet still the rhinoceros kept close to my very heels.
At last I seemed to lose command of my legs and felt that I must fall forward. Realizing in my mind that I could not continue the race another minute, I gave myself up into the hands of my loving God, when, like a voice from heaven, came the words, 'Throw off your helmet.' With uplifted hands I wildly tossed my helmet behind me, and was immediately aware that the animal had stopped. When I had gone about twenty or thirty paces further I looked around, and, to my glad relief, the monster was plowing up the ground with his anterior horn and alternately tossing my helmet in air. Being somewhat dazed by my second bullet, which must have raked him right through, he evidently imagined he had got me! I sank down on the ground in absolute exhaustion. If he had come for me I could not have moved from the place on which I lay. My chest rose and fell as if an engine throbbed within my breast.
After a few moments I raised myself on my elbow, and turned my eyes around to take in the situation. I was on a bare plain covered with short, brown, sunscorched grass. No covering of bush was near, nor hiding place into which I could crawl. There was no sign of any native about, though I had with me that day over one hundred followers. They had all forsaken me and fled, including the man with my cartridge bag. I was then conscious that I had clung to the empty rifle all the time. It was still in my hand. A little over twenty paces from where I lay was the gigantic angry brute, still turning up the hard, sunbaked earth in furious rage, where, but a minute before, God had directed me to drop my helmet. On carefully scanning the plain, I saw in the distance the figure of a man, who seemed to be my gunbearer, coming with my cartridge bag. While he was approaching, the animal lay down beside my headgear.
When the native came cautiously forward he said in pleading tones, 'Oh, Sir, come away: you will be killed!' I reached out my hand for the pouch of cartridges and filled up the magazine; and having recovered breath I crawled up within a few yards of the rhinoceros, and, placing a ball in his ear, lifted my blood- stained helmet and came away.
The natives soon rushed forward from their hiding-places and gathered around me, while Mavolo, whose life I had saved and who was very little the worse for his toss, clung to me for a long time and would not let me go. He seemed truly grateful for his deliverance from a horrible death...."
Shortly after this wonderful escape which was granted to my husband, a very sad incident took place near to the same spot, whereby Francis G. Hall, Her Majesty's District Commissioner, nearly lost his life and sustained injuries from which he never fully recovered. Seeing a rhinoceros in the distance he fired at it with his heavy express rifle, and the animal, catching his scent, immediately rushed for him with that sudden drive which is so difficult to stop, with even the largest rifle a man can lift to his shoulder. Mr. Hall kept firing at the oncoming brute, but without in any way stopping its headlong rush. Remembering at the moment how my husband had been saved, Mr. Hall took off his helmet and threw it at the monster when he was half a dozen yards from his feet, but all to no purpose. The rhinoceros, tossing him in air, got his horn right through the officer's thigh and ripped it up, fortunately missing the femoral artery, but just by a fraction. The horn of the enraged brute tore down the limb and removed the tightlaced shooting boot from off his foot, and then plunged forward leaving the man face down. During many long and painful months he lay at the very brink of death, and though he made a marvelous recovery he never really got over the results of that sad accident.
During the time of famine, as long as the natives were able to accompany my husband in the quest of animal food, rarely did the men ever return without large supplies of meat, for which they were extremely grateful.
One day they had ranged the plains in vain, for nothing living could be seen to gratify the cravings of the starving men. Turning towards the wooded wilderness which bordered the plain usually occupied by antelope, my husband and his gunbearers came suddenly upon six huge lions, who, like themselves, seemed to be bemoaning the absence of something to eat. The largest, an enormous male, seemed furious at the sudden intrusion upon their domain, and my husband immediately covered him with the rifle and firing, dropped him to earth. He expected to have a troublesome time with the other five and began loading his magazine. While so engaged four of them disappeared into the long growth of an adjacent swamp, while the fifth, a lioness, stepped over to her fallen companion, looked at him for a moment, and then followed the others into the jungle.
None of the men would approach the fallen foe to see if he were dead, so terrified were they of interfering with a wounded lion. My husband drew near until the body was visible, when it was found that the lion was lying with his huge, burly head between his front paws, as if about to spring. He seemed to be still alive, so natural was his position. Taking the precaution of aiming his rifle at the head of the animal, he walked slowly in a circle around him to see if the eye of the huge feline would follow his movements, but, discovering that there was no response in the fiery organ of vision, he stepped forward and kicked him on the nose—the King of Beasts was dead.
Not finding any other animals which might satisfy the cravings of the hungry throng, which dogged his footsteps in the bush, my husband directed his path to an extensive rocky eminence, which, like an island, rose above the thinly wooded, brown earthed landscape. This stretched out elevation presented on one side an unbroken face of steep rocks, while the other side was comparatively easy to climb by clambering over huge boulders which had been thrown together in great confusion. On reaching the top of the height and making his way to the other side of the eminence, my husband scanned the surrounding bush with his field glasses, hoping to discover the presence of some animal.
Straight up the wind, about six hundred yards from the ridge of the elevated rock, he caught sight of a rhinoceros browsing on the low undergrowth which dotted the surrounding valley. The distance was much too great to be sure of getting in a fatal bullet, and, thinking that a shot fired to hit the bushes beyond the beast might bring the animal towards him, my husband carefully aimed, so as to strike the rise in the ground just above the spot where the animal was feeding. The purpose was successful, for, no sooner did the animal hear the swish of the bullet through the trees in advance of his nose, than he spun around and rushed towards the rock at a terrific pace, snorting and blowing in an unearthly manner.
On he came parallel with the rocky eminence, and when he caught the human odor of the waiting men he increased his pace to the utmost of his power. My husband was waiting, rifle in hand, until the great beast got opposite to his position: and then, covering him over the heart, fired, and the dull thud which instantly followed raised bright hopes in the hearts of the dusky company that the couple of tons of meat, which rushed impetuously by, might be brought to earth and made to fill the aching void of which every man in that crowd was painfully conscious. With slowing speed the rhino kept on his headlong course; and then, lowering his nose, the long anterior horn caught the earth, and the huge monster threw a complete somersault and rolled over, while a smile of grateful satisfaction widened the pinched and straightened faces of the starving, waiting throng.
Although the starving Akamba were exceedingly fond of rhinoceros flesh, yet the greater part of that which my husband shot for them was of the different species of antelope and zebra. There was not so much risk to life associated with the hunting of these animals as with rhinoceros, except the danger from meeting with lions and leopards, which always infest the jungle where the antelopes roam. Such animals as zebra, gnu, hartebeest and waterbuck and the large gazelles of various kinds were usually more easily obtainable than any other, as they roamed the district in thousands, but being somewhat migratory in their habits it was not always possible to get them.
A bull gnu is dangerous only when wounded, and a zebra will kick and bite when felled to earth and unable to get out of the way, but the majority of the numerous species of antelope peculiar to Central Africa are mild and inoffensive even when wounded. The male of the gemsbok and grantii are exceptions to this rule; and in some cases the dead bodies of these animals, as well as that of the wild boar, have been found with their horns embedded in the body of the lion himself.
During the long period of hunger, my husband shot hundreds of antelope for the famished crowds of men and women who followed him on these flesh-hunting expeditions. One day the game was found to have deserted our region entirely, and not a hoof could be seen until over twenty-five miles were covered. Then he was fortunate enough to secure a zebra, gnu and hartebeest, after which two grantii followed in rapid succession, but the majority of the men were too weak to carry home the meat. While they sent some messengers for their wives to come and help them bear the flesh to their distant huts among the hills, my husband sought to add to the stock of animal food which had already been gathered.
The repeated firing of the rifle, in dropping those animals which had been secured, frightened the remainder away, so that he had to go still further afield to look for more game. Taking one of the most active of the men to carry his rifle, he left the others in camp, grilling on the embers of the fires the meat they so dearly loved, and of which all of them were in such desperate need.
Passing over some long stretches of rolling ground, which were sparsely dotted with dwarf bushes of thorny acacia, my husband saw an antelope away on the distant hill. While making his way there the animal disappeared on the further side of the elevation, but, on reaching the mound and skirting the base of the hill, he came in sight of the graceful, long-horned antelope which was moving towards him. He fired the rifle and the animal immediately dropped. Sitting down by the fallen gazelle, he sent his gunbearer to the camp to bring some men to carry the meat there.
My husband had not been waiting by the buck for more than half an hour, when, on looking round, he saw another splendid specimen of the same antelope standing on the top of an anthill about two hundred yards away. He was much larger than the one that had just been shot, and his huge horns gave both grace and power to his beautifully-marked body. The presence of the stately animal lent delight to the landscape and added embellishment to the lonely wilderness, as he stood silhouetted against the deep blue sky. But for the fact that many people in the little grass domes among the distant hills were dying of hunger, he might have been allowed to roam for years his natural habitat. Alas! For the famine caused the death of many, man and beast alike.
Crack goes the rifle! and, before the sound of the explosion reached his keen ears, he had dropped from the hill, which the toiling ants had raised, to the brown grass below. Rushing to the spot, my husband laid down his rifle and stood on the sun-baked earth admiring the splendid pair of horns which decorated the head of the fallen antelope. They were the longest he had ever seen, and their black, pointed tips were as fine as the prongs of a carving fork.
In a moment or two signs of life were discovered and the animal jumped to its feet, when my husband quickly gripped him by the horns. The antelope, however, drove him hither and thither and seemed to be possessed of impressive strength. "I could see," my husband said, " that he was wounded in the neck, for a little blood trickled from the hole where the bullet had made its exit. Thinking that perhaps the spinal column had been hurt, I tried to wrench the neck from side to side and break it by a whirling motion, but in vain. I then concluded that it was a flesh wound only that the animal had sustained, and that perhaps the bullet had slightly grazed a joint of the neck and had simply stunned him for a minute.
While these thoughts were passing through my mind he was pushing me all over the place, and I dare not let him go, for his sharp-pointed horns, of two and a half feet in length, would have torn open my body in a moment. My strength was fast failing and my arms were pained with the terrible effort, in my attempts to resist the driving motion with which he forced me to and fro.
At last, when nearly worn out, I lifted up my heart to God to guide me what to do, and I felt immediately that I ought not to try to withstand his violent rushing onsets any more. I allowed him, therefore, to push me as he pleased, still holding the horns with a firm, unrelenting grasp.
Just then the animal drove me to the place where I had laid down my loaded rifle on the dry earth, and my foot came in contact with the stock. I knew that my opportunity had come, and with my right hand I grasped the rifle and instantly fired. The bullet raked the animal from front to rear and broke one of his hind legs, and he fell on the spot."
The natives had great faith in my husband's power with the rifle, and oftentimes this was seen in such over-confidence as might have led to fatal results. One day, a single rhinoceros was seen browsing along the border of a wooded stretch of country which suddenly joined a bare, undulating plain. As my husband was starting off with his gunbearer to track the animal, two other natives asked to be allowed to accompany him. On these dangerous quests he made it a rule to leave all the men behind, save the one who bore his rifle, but, on that occasion, gave his consent to the couple of extra men joining him.
On they went, not over the bare plain which was the nearest path, for the animal would then have smelled them long before they reached him, but making their way through bush and brake they eventually emerged on the plain beyond the great beast, with the wind in their favor. It was then found that the animal had moved a considerable distance out on to the bare earth of the plain, and was still lazily progressing in that direction. Taking advantage of a hill which intervened, the hunters eventually got in ahead of him without the animal being aware of their approach. The situation was critical, for, due to the presence of several natural earth-mounds, only the back of the huge monster and the top of the long, front horn were then visible. Crawling on their faces, they headed towards the victim, and ultimately reached a mound of earth within fifty yards of the great pachyderm, who was now sniffing the wind and seemingly somewhat aroused. While waiting for the monster to turn, so as to give chance of a fatal shot, my husband was amazed and horrified to find that one of his three followers had taken up a position on a mound of earth which rose within fifteen yards of where the beast stood, and was beckoning his master to follow. Realizing that the man's life was in imminent danger, my husband resolved to follow him, though it was a risky deed. Crawling silently along, and pushing the rifle before him as he went, he finally gained the slight elevation which brought the great brute full in view, but with heart thudding so fiercely as he lay on his face, that it was impossible to shoot.
Not a moment was there to wait, for the animal instantly rushed with a tremendous plunge towards them. The trigger was pulled, but to no purpose, for on he came; and in a moment the feet of the gigantic beast were planted astride my husband's prostrate form as he held the rifle. Another shot was fired which exploded underneath his abdomen, and the monster jumped clear over the earth-mound and tumbled across the plain with his tail in air. Although his carcass had been so eagerly sought by the gunbearers, they were rejoiced to see it so quickly disappear in the distance on that eventful day.
It soon became evident that my husband could not continue the terrible strain of work which was speedily wearing him out, nor could he supply the wants of the thousands of people around, even if he were capable of hunting all the time. Besides, the men had become so weak that they could not quite follow him to the far-away places where animals might be found, much less carry loads of beef to their lonely huts of destitution and death.
With ever-increasing severity the scourge of famine desolated the once smiling land. People were already dying in large numbers throughout the entire country. A third rainy season had now become due and was passing by without rain. Many of the natives became wild with despair.
My husband pleaded with them to give their hearts to God. Never have I in all my life seen men pay such careful attention to the Gospel of the grace of God as those throngs of subdued natives which came day by day around us. I shall ever remember the way in which our little church building was filled to overflowing with the sadly-emaciated elders of the tribe—stark-naked men—who had come together to pray to God for rain and to hear the glad news of a Savior's love. Never before had they bowed the knee to Jehovah. In former years they had gone to the rain-doctor and given to him their sheep and goats, so that he might unlock the windows of heaven and bring rain upon the thirsty earth. Now they had given up the rain-doctor in anguish, and had come in their awful distress to make their wants known to God and to hear His voice from the Book.
The hush which fell upon those Gospel meetings can never be expressed. Sincerity was stamped upon every face. What work God brought about by His Spirit among those aged men we know not. But they all heard the message that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Hundreds of them said that they had been led to know the Lord Jesus and had received Him as their Savior. We rejoiced with deepest thankfulness over the assurance we had from their lips that they had yielded their hearts to Christ, for, in a few short months, most of them all had passed away from earth in that weakened sleep which deadly hunger brings about.
The old people and the very young children died off first, as they were unable to do anything to help themselves, while the youths of both sexes and the matured men and women survived longer, being able to search for and obtain edible roots in the wilds around. Some of them hunted for the tubers of the broad-leaved maranta, while others dug up the bulbous roots of several species of grass. Tens of thousands of people died, and in some districts the inhabitants were completely wiped out.
The scenes around our Mission Station were appalling. Skeletons were tottering hither and thither with every bone and joint in their body exposed to view. No matter where one went, corpses strewed the tracks. Little skeleton babies were found crying by the dead bodies of their mothers.
One day, a little tiny tot came toddling into our house barely able to put one foot past the other. It was not weeping—its weeping days were over, but the sad expression which rested on the thin, little face can never be forgotten. Taking the baby, I went out to see if I could find its mother. Yes! there she lay, stark and stiff, two hundred yards from our station. We took the little one in, and placed it among the fifty or sixty we were trying to save, but nine out of ten were already in the last stage of hunger and soon died.
The dead bodies were so numerous on the native tracks in the bush round our station, that my husband has often gone out himself, and dragged the naked bodies of men and women and hid them away from sight in the holes and crevices of the earth. Near to and around the spring from which we drew our water, there was a collection of human arms, hands, feet and heads of the bodies, which were continually being carried there by hyenas and partially eaten. From time to time we collected and buried them, so that our water, at which the hyenas quenched their thirst, might not be contaminated. Along the jungle paths throughout the country, wherever we went, dismal and disturbing scenes were ever presented to view. Sometimes we had actually to thread our way among the naked and partially-eaten corpses.
Amid these terrible scenes of drought, dearth, desolation, and death, which smote the landscape as with a blighting curse, there was—let me speak in deepest humility- in our little garden a fruitful crop of potatoes and Indian corn during the three seasons of drought while the famine lasted. The natives who saw it were astounded, and placed their hands upon their mouths at the sight. To them, as well as to us, it was a wonderful evidence of the amazing providence of God, who had spread our table in the wilderness.
At that time the railway, which the Government was building from the Coast to Lake Victoria Nyanza, was thrusting out its long arm into the interior, at the rate of half a mile a day, with the aid of the tens of thousands of Indian coolies who had been imported for the work. This section of line, which had cost the lives of so many Indians to build, for they died like flies in the early days of construction, was now used in saving the lives of tens of thousands of native natives.
Over the stretch of rails which had already been laid, the Government brought up large quantities of Indian rice and, opening free food depots at various forts in the country, distributed food to those wrecks of human beings who were able to reach the dispensing centers. Some reached the area of distribution too late and soon passed away, while hundreds ravenously bolted the uncooked grain and immediately died, but many thousands of lives were saved. The train which the natives had called "The great serpent," to whose coming they had blamed the famine, became, in the goodness of God, the means of their deliverance from starvation.
Around our station the remnant of natives still prayed to God for rain. The sun had once more become vertical over the Equatorial Belt, and the time of rain was again fully due. There was noisy joy amongst the surviving natives when the signs of the coming moisture made their appearance in the atmosphere.
Great banks of clouds rose higher and higher, covering the ethereal blue of the burnished firmament. The entire arch of the evening sky seemed draped in deepest mourning for the many who had died in that dire scourge which, for two long years, had swept the land and strewn the wilderness with thin and emaciated skeletons. The air was heavily charged with electricity. Repeated strokes of zigzag lightning rushed from east to west in their angular courses, writing strange hieroglyphics across the heavens, and lighting up with extreme brilliance the heavy, black, mountainous masses of accumulated moisture. These were followed by fear-instilling crashes and clattering peals of thunder, which seemed to shake the earth and tear the very vault of heaven.
While the sky was moving in these convulsions, down came the rain in swirling sheets, and the thirsty, cracked earth drank greedily of the deluging downpour. In the still morning, when the sun rose over the earth, the landscape seemed beaming with joy, while every bird and beast were full of delighted happiness and flitted and romped in rapturous hilarity; and the remnant of Ukamba's fierce and haughty natives were smiling at the assurance which had been given by Almighty God that a glad, new day had dawned for them, and that the backbone of the drought monster had been broken.