Congo life and folklore

Every article in the white man’s store had a price on it. It was either equivalent to one piece of cloth, or to two or more pieces, or so many of it equalled the value of one piece. The first kind of cloth taken to Congo was probably of a common quality worth about 2s. for a piece of twelve yards. By and by other qualities were taken, and they were reckoned as equal to one and a half, two, or three pieces of the original quality. Then the natives wanted other things besides cloth, and as they were introduced the traders put a cloth value on them, e. g. six knives were equal to one piece of cloth, eight looking-glasses ditto, four strings of one kind of beads, or twenty strings of another sort, were priced at one piece; and thus through the whole list of goods stocked by the traders.

If a trader priced his goods high it was quickly known, and his store was avoided by the natives. They always went to that store where they received the best prices for their produce, where the articles in the store were cheapest, and where they were treated properly.

We remained ten days at the coast, selling the rubber, peanuts and ivory our caravan had brought from the interior. Some of the native traders were dissatisfied with the prices offered by the white trader, or were suspicious that the interpreter was retaining too much for himself, and for these reasons went to other white men and employed other interpreters; others of our party thought the prices of the store goods were too high, and went to those traders whom they thought sold their barter goods at reasonable rates.

It took us, as I have already stated, ten long, wearisome days of haggling, bargaining and chaffering to dispose of our produce to the best advantage. During this time our food supply was running low, and we often had not half enough to eat. Food at the coast was very dear, and we were all glad when our business was concluded and we could turn our faces homeward.

The return journey was accomplished without any incident more serious than the breaking of a few china ornaments belonging to Old Plaited-Beard, who had seen such things in the King’s house and had instructed his men to buy him similar ones with some of the produce he had sent for sale. The man, however, who carried them slipped on some huge boulders while crossing a river, and down he fell, cutting his own knees and smashing the fragile contents of his load. The old man, when he saw the results of the accident, did not blame his carrier of carelessness, but rather accused some one of bewitching him and thus causing the destruction of the goods. And with a look of hate in his eyes and a curse on his lips he threatened to punish the witch.

All the men and lads of our party were glad to be again among their own families. During the whole journey to and from the coast, and while at the trading centre, they had eaten very sparingly, as food was heavy to carry and very dear on the road; but now that they had returned they made amends for lost time and hungry days. Huge dishes of food quickly disappeared, and those who had become thin during the twenty-five days of short rations began to fill out again, and those who were feeling exhausted by the heavy loads they carried up and down hill and along rugged, narrow tracks began, after some refreshing, restful sleeps, to feel strong and active again and ready for the next trading expedition.

Old Plaited-Beard charges Bakula with stealing--The accusation is denied--Bakula declares his disbelief in charms and witch-doctors--Satu saves him from immediate death--The missing cloth is found in Bakula’s house--Tumbu exposes the accuser’s trickery--He is ridiculed--Bakula submits to the ordeal of the boiling oil--His arm is badly scalded--During the night Bakula escapes to the mission station.

A few days after the return of the trading caravan, the whole town was startled to hear that some one had stolen two pieces of cloth from Old Plaited-Beard’s house. He was most emphatic and circumstantial as to when and where he had left the cloth, and the disappearance of the pieces. He borrowed a strong fetish from a friend, beat it soundly to arouse it to action, held it three times above his head that its spirit might rush through the air in pursuit of the thief, held it also three times head downwards near the ground to enable the fetish spirit to run along the earth after the robber, and then hung it by the neck to the roof of his house. Then the old man waited a day or two, but the cloth was not returned.

Old Plaited-Beard fumed in pretended rage about the loss of his cloth, and at last accused Bakula of stealing it. The lad indignantly denied the charge.

The old man said: “Ever since you met that white man in Tonzeka’s town you have been a different lad. You do not enter into our fetish palavers, you laugh at the witch-doctors, you destroyed the power of my charms so that I did not kill a single animal through the whole of the hunting season, you bewitched my carrier, thus causing the breaking of all my crockery ornaments, and now you have stolen my cloth.”

“I am not guilty of any of these charges,” stoutly maintained the lad. "I have not stolen your cloth! Search my house if you like, for since our return from the trading journey to the coast I have not been to a market, nor have I been out of the town except to bathe in the river, so I have had no opportunity of disposing of the cloth. It is true that since the white man put medicine on my wound, and talked to me about God’s palaver I have lost my faith in charms and ‘medicine men.’"

A great crowd by now was surging round the two principal persons in this strange scene, and a howl of derision went up from scores of throats when the brave lad daringly avowed his disbelief in charms and witch-doctors.

“He is a witch! Give him the ordeal!” shouted some. “Kill him!” screamed others, “or he will bewitch all of us.”

And women held their children tightly to their bosoms, and begged them not to follow the example of “that wicked boy.”

Satu came hurrying up to learn the cause of all the excitement, and when the whole case was laid before him he felt a great pity for the lad, and determined that he should have fair play; for he liked him, and had admired his smartness in trade, and alertness in games, dancing and hunting. Besides, he knew that his accuser, Old Plaited-Beard, hated the boy for some unknown reason.

When, therefore, the mob again demanded either the ordeal or death for the undaunted boy, the chief at once said: “No, let us search his house as he desires, and if we find the cloth in it, then we will have a palaver and punish him according to our laws.”

A rush was instantly made for Bakula’s house, where he lived with his mother; but no one entered until the chief actors arrived, and then Satu, Old Plaited-Beard, Bakula, and one or two others entered the house; and after searching about the hut for a very short time Old Plaited-Beard pulled the two pieces of cloth from a corner of the roof, in the dark inner room, where they were concealed by some grass.

The discovery of the cloth was hailed with screams of laughter, shouts of derision, and whistles of contempt. And if Satu had not been there, my poor owner, Bakula, would have been torn to pieces by the infuriated crowd, not because stealing was such a heinous crime in their eyes--there was not an honest man, woman or youth among the whole mob of screamers and shouters; but the discovery of the cloth in the house was taken as a proof of his witchcraft and utter stupidity.

In a very short time Satu was seated with his head men ready to judge the case. Old Plaited-Beard sat there with a snigger of triumph on his evil face, and Bakula, crestfallen, confused, but undaunted, stood, the centre of all eyes, the object of ridicule and contempt.

“Why did he not hide the cloth in the bush? Why was he such a fool as to leave the cloth in his own house?” were questions everybody was asking. The crowd derided Bakula for being a fool, rather than blamed him as a thief.

The court was held on an open space in the centre of the town, beneath the wide-spreading branches of a wild fig-tree. In a simple case like this there were no advocates, and no sides taken as in a big law-suit. Old Plaited-Beard told of the loss of the cloth, of his charging Bakula with the theft, and the discovery of the cloth by himself in the accused person’s house.

Bakula strenuously denied the theft, and gave a very clear account of all that he had done and the people with whom he had been since his return a few days ago. He appealed to Satu to state how he had accounted for every yard of cloth he had used when trading on the markets for him, and finished by saying that for some reason the Nenkondo (the new title of Old Plaited-Beard) hated him, and had more than once threatened to do him some harm.

Old Plaited-Beard scornfully asked: “Do you think I should steal my own cloth and put it in your house?”

Just then a lad, by name Tumbu, asked Satu for permission to speak, and, trembling with excitement, said: “The other day, when the town was nearly empty of people, I was lying down in my house, being too ill to go with Bakula and the other lads to bathe in the river; and while I was lying there I saw Nenkondo come along, and, after looking around on every side, enter Bakula’s house, which is right opposite mine. I watched him, and saw that he had something under his cloth; but when he came out the something was gone, for his cloth was flat on his thighs. Why did he go into Bakula’s house? and what did he leave there?”

Old Plaited-Beard was furious, and, choking with rage, he snapped out the question: “Is Bakula a friend of yours?”

“Yes,” bravely answered the lad. “I am, as you know, a slave, and Bakula has always been kind to me. He has given me food when I have been hungry, and defended me from the taunts of the other boys and girls of the town.”

Bakula, as soon as his friend had finished speaking, instantly sprang forward, and said: “I accuse Nenkondo of stealing his own cloth and putting it in my house. Tumbu is my witness to that; but there is no witness to show that I have been in his house. He is the thief, not I!”

Satu consulted his head men for a considerable time; but at last said: “There are two persons before us who accuse each other of thieving, and it is difficult for us to decide. We will therefore call the nganga, and will try the case to-morrow by the ordeal of the boiling oil; and whichever one is proved guilty must pay a fine of five pieces of cloth.”

After this decision the crowd at once broke up, and that night around the fires there was much speculation as to which of the two would prove the guilty one.

Early the next afternoon a nganga arrived with a deep vessel filled with palm-oil. This was placed on a fire and attended to, while the nganga’s assistants walked about the town. One of these assistants called to Bakula and asked him to show the way to the stream. When they were a little out of the town the assistant turned, and said to Bakula: “If you will give me fifty brass rods my master will put something on your hand and arm so that the boiling oil will not burn you, and you will be proved innocent. Will you pay me the money?”

“No; I am perfectly innocent of the charge,” replied Bakula, “and if there is any truth in the ordeal, it will show all the people that I am guiltless. For many moons now I have doubted witch-doctors, and believed that they tricked us, laughed at us and robbed us.”

“You had better pay the money,” sneeringly retorted the nganga’s assistant, “otherwise you will have to pay the five pieces of cloth.”

“Yes, I know your way,” replied the lad. “It is like this: I promise you fifty rods, then you go to the other and he promises you sixty, and after that you come to me and I promise seventy rods, and he offers eighty, and it is the one who eventually gives you the largest amount that wins the case by ordeal. No, I will not promise a single brass rod, for I know I am innocent, and if the ordeal does not prove it I shall know for a certainty that your ngangas are liars and cheats, and your ordeals trickeries and swindles.”

The assistant, heaping on him much abuse, and throwing at him many epithets of reproach, called him an utter fool, and returned to the town.

Later in the afternoon the drum sounded, and the people hurried to the judging-place. Women had not been to the farms that day or had returned very early; the men had not been to either market, forest or bush; and people had come in from the surrounding villages, for everybody who could be there was present, because no one wanted to miss so sensational a sight as the ordeal by boiling oil.

Satu and his head men sat by themselves a few yards from the saucepan of oil. Bakula and Old Plaited-Beard were at opposite sides of the circle of people that watched the proceedings intently. Old Plaited-Beard was called first, and approached the saucepan with a jaunty air, smirking face, and anticipated triumph in every movement. He submitted his right hand and arm to be rubbed with some decoction^[63] by the nganga; a piece of kwanga, or native bread, was dropped in the oil, and then, with an insolent flourish, Old Plaited-Beard dipped in his hand and arm and brought out the piece of kwanga. His skin was not scalded, he had passed the ordeal successfully, and was thus proved innocent of the charge.

On the plea that the first ceremonial use of the oil had cooled it too much to be a proper test, the nganga and his assistants heaped fire about the pot, and it was not until the oil began to bubble that the “medicine man” pronounced it ready for the other accused person.

My owner, Bakula, now went forward with set face and steady step to where the saucepan of oil was sending up jets of steam. I could feel his chest heaving, his breath coming and going in quick, short gasps, his body trembling with the excitement of the hour, and his heart pulsating turbulently.

The tension was great, the sea of faces seemed to crowd about and press in upon him; and as he drew near the saucepan he could see the glint of hatred and triumph in the nganga’s eyes, but he answered them with a look of defiance.

The nganga rubbed something on the lad’s arm and hand, and dropped the piece of kwanga in the bubbling oil.

Every head in that great crowd was bent forward, and, as a hush fell on the assembly, every eye was fixed on the lonely, slim, young figure standing before that saucepan of fiery oil.

Without hesitation, for he was absolutely sure of his guiltlessness, Bakula boldly dipped his hand in the boiling liquid, but before he could reach the kwanga at the bottom of the saucepan, a paroxysm of pain seized him and, with a scream of agony, he fell fainting to the ground.

His friend Tumbu and the chief hurried to him and warded off, by their bodies, any intended blows upon the prostrate, unconscious lad; and between them they carried him to his hut.

When Bakula returned to consciousness he was lying on his rough bamboo bed, and his mother, with unskilled kindness, was trying to bind up that burning arm in poultices of leaves, and Tumbu was weeping by his side.

Tumbu told his suffering friend that Satu had paid the five pieces of cloth and the nganga’s fee, and the matter was therefore settled.

“And,” continued he, “although everybody in the town thinks you stole the cloth, I know you did not.”

Bakula then told his faithful companion how the nganga’s assistant had come to him before the ordeal, and had asked for money; that there was no doubt the Nenkondo had given a bribe, and so had passed the ordeal without a burn; and, emphatically asserted the lad, “After this I will never again believe in ngangas, nor in charms, nor in ordeals. I am innocent, but look at my arm.”

The two friends sat talking all the evening, and at last Bakula said: “To-night I am going to escape to the white man’s station. He will heal my scalded arm, and teach me God’s palaver.”

“Wait until the morning,” pleaded Tumbu. “Don’t travel in the dark, or the evil spirits will throttle and squeeze the life out of you.”

“Who talks about evil spirits?” asked Bakula. "Only the ‘medicine men,’ and perhaps what they tell us about them is as great a lie as their charms, fetishes and ordeals. I will test that to-night as I have tested their other teaching to-day." And a look of undaunted determination came into the brave fellow’s face, which, being seen by Tumbu in the flickering firelight, stopped his further arguments.

It was towards midnight that Bakula took farewell of his mother, and creeping from his house with stealthy steps, passed through the sleeping town and into the darkness of the silent, tangled, spirit-haunted bush. What lay before him? Would it always be the darkness, the tangled paths environed with fearful spirits? Or would he come into the light, that would show him the straight, clear road, and, chasing away the evil spirits of darkness, reveal the ministering angels of the white man’s God?

After much nursing Bakula recovers--He becomes a school-boy--He struggles with the alphabet--He learns to understand pictures--Routine life--Bakula itinerates with his white man--He does not relish sleeping in the wet bush--He is convicted of sin--He inquires the way of salvation--The lads play a trick on a witch-doctor--Bakula is received into the Church--He returns to his town.

After a long, weary walk Bakula reached his uncle’s town, and, staying only to tell him the news, and show him his scalded arm, continued his journey to the mission station. By the time he arrived he was feverish and his arm very painful. The missionary in charge of the medical work at once dressed the inflamed arm and put the exhausted lad to bed.

For many days Bakula was delirious, repeating with monotonous reiteration his innocence and the dipping of his arm in the boiling oil. At times the missionaries feared he would die; that the strain, the scalding, and the fatiguing walk would prove too much for him; but at last he began to recover--skilled treatment, regular food, and careful attention triumphed; and the lad was in due time walking about, little the worse, except for the scars on his arm, for the ordeal through which he had passed.

Bakula, on his recovery, found himself in a new world. When asked if he would like to stay on the station and be taught, he, immediately and gladly, accepted the invitation, and was handed over to the white man in whose district^[64] his town happened to be.

Bakula had always thought that “books talked” to the white men. In common with other natives he had said, when he saw a white man looking at a book and laughing: “The book is saying something funny to him.” He was therefore disappointed to find that the white teacher gave him no “medicine” to cause him to understand “book language,” and performed no magic over him to open his ears to the “whispers of book talk”; but that it was a matter of learning properly those curiously twisted and contorted marks called a, b, d, e; and he also found that so many of them changed their appearance when written, and again altered “their legs and arms” when they grew into big letters that he was puzzled, and sometimes feared that he would never know them.

How elusive those letters were! Just as he had mastered them on the printed sheet they changed themselves on the blackboard; and when he wanted to write the “full-grown ones,” and drew them as he remembered them on the sheet, he was told they were wrong, and had to train his hand to all kinds of curves and scrolls. It was like learning four alphabets; but by perseverance and attention he conquered them, so that, no matter what their disguises might be, he recognized them, and would say: “Oh yes, Mr. S; you can curve your back like this, S, or lean half yourself on a stick thus, , but I know you.”

Meanwhile he had learned to put two letters together and make syllables, and from that accomplishment he was led on to connect the syllables and form words; and from that point the school work became more interesting. Now that the building was showing above the ground he could see the reason for all the foundation work. By the time he had been in the school about two years he was nearing the top classes, and, laughing at the mistakes of newer boys, encouraged them, by his own example, to conquer their difficulties.

Bakula also found there was another language to learn--that of pictures. He had seen pictures at a distance in the houses of the traders, and they had simply been a blurred whole, like the pages of a book written in unknown characters. In the house of the white man, where he spent many a pleasant evening, he saw some copies of the Graphic.

At first he was unable to take in a picture as a whole. He held the illustrations upside down, or sideways, and more often the wrong way than the right one. In time, order seemed to emerge out of the chaos of marks and lines, then he would pick out a feature and say: “That is a nose, or a mouth, or an eye,” as the case might be, and thus he traced out a man or a woman and said: “Why, it is a person!” He did the same with a house, picking out the details, as a door or window, etc., and the same with scenery.

Later he could take in all the details at once. He had to learn to understand pictures by the same method that he learned to read--first the a, b, d, then the t a t a = tata (or father), and lastly the whole word or sentence at a glance. Sometimes he had to appeal to the white man to explain a difficult detail, as a railway, a ship, or a horse; but gradually the pictures opened up a mine of information, and introduced him to new worlds of wonder.

A white man laughingly joked him one day about the pain and inconvenience Congo women suffered in wearing heavy brass collars round their necks, and on their legs anklets of great weight in order to be in the fashion; but Bakula quickly turned over the pictures, and finding a fashion plate that depicted a woman with a very tiny waist, he seriously asked: “Which is the more ridiculous--to wear a brass collar round the neck, or to have a waist like a wasp’s?”

During all these months Bakula had worked each day for four hours either on the farm or in the brick-field--puddling clay, fetching water, carrying the clay, or, as he became more expert, making bricks.

The life on the station was very regular. At 6 a.m. the boys rose to the clanging of a bell, and went to work either on the farm, the brick-field, or in the houses of the missionaries; from 8 to 9.30 was taken for breakfast and a short service, and then each gang of boys arranged themselves outside the house of the white man who was working the district from which they came. They stood in lines according to ages. At these parades the white man listened to all complaints, settled all palavers, instructed his group of boys in station matters, taught them, when necessary, on points of behaviour, and gave them the tickets for the day’s rations. The hours from 10 to 12 were spent in school, and from then until 2 p.m. at dinner and play.

Then came two more hours of schooling, and from four o’clock until sunset at six^[65] the boys engaged in farming, brick-making, or working in their masters’ houses. Thus each day there were four hours for work, four hours for school, three hours for eating and playing, and one hour for religious instruction.

On Saturdays there was no school, but the boys worked at their various employments or tidied up the station, except from 8 to 10 a.m., when the lads had their breakfasts, religious service, and the usual daily parade outside the houses of their respective white men. At one o’clock the stop bell rang, and every boy received a piece of soap and went off after dinner to do his washing and have a swim in a neighbouring river.

Besides the employments already mentioned there were others, as printing, bookbinding, composing, carpentry, bricklaying, washing and ironing, cutting out and sewing jackets for the boys on the station, cooking, and house-cleaning. For these occupations special lads who showed aptitude were selected and taught, and they received small rewards according to their skill and industry.

On Sundays there were services, and a Sunday-school on the station, and all scholars, unless ill, attended them. The missionaries, according to opportunity, health and weather, visited the neighbouring towns, both on week-days and Sundays, to hold services in them.

Bakula sometimes accompanied his white man on these preaching journeys to help in the singing at the services, and to carry a small load. At one place the people were so hostile that they would not allow the little party to remain in their village. They were not sufficiently courageous to demonstrate against the visitors with guns and knives, but were superstitious enough to drive them out with abuse, the shaking of their fetishes, and threats of what they would do if the white man and his boys tried to enter their village. It was a cold, wet evening, and the party was anything but cheerful sitting there in the bush with the rain falling in a continuous, monotonous patter about them.

Bakula now knew what it was to be misunderstood, and did not relish the experience. His intentions were friendly. Why were the people so foolish! He resented the treatment meted out to him and his white man, and, turning to the missionary, he said: “God is very strong, ask Him to punish these people severely for their conduct to us.”

To him the teacher replied: “Supposing the white man had asked God to punish you and your people for driving him out of your town. Where would you be now? Not sitting there, but dead, without an opportunity of hearing of His great love. We will not ask God to punish them; but we will pray that He may do for these people what He has done for you, Satu, and your towns-folk: so change their hearts and superstitious thoughts about us that another day they will gladly invite us to stay in their town.”

Before very long the rain had ceased, some grass and wood were collected, and the white man, soaking a paper with kerosene, and putting the grass and wood over it, soon had a blazing fire that thawed the hearts and tongues of the lads. In a few minutes they were laughing and joking as though they were in their cosy houses on the station, instead of being in the wet bush outside a hostile, inhospitable village with a very superstitious people shaking their charms at them not fifty yards away. Bakula never forgot this incident, and his constant prayer was: “O God, open the hearts of the people to understand Thy messengers and to receive Thy message.”

Bakula was a great acquisition to the other boys on the station. He entered heartily into all their games, was a leader in many of their sports, and told them many a story around their evening fires. His humorous, merry ways, his amusing manner in telling a story, his cheerful, obliging disposition, his common-sense way of looking at things, his marked ability in school, and his genuine earnestness made him the favourite of all on the station, both white and black. He had discarded all his charms and had learned that a lad’s position was not due to them, but to his own disposition and willingness to oblige others.

One morning, when Bakula had been on the station about three years, he heard one of the white men give an address on the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the narrative and teaching so stirred his heart with the fear that he would be left in the outer darkness, that all through the day he was unusually quiet, and at meal-times scarcely ate anything.

At night he started up more than once from horrid dreams with the awful words ringing in his ears: “I know you not.” For several days he bore this soul agony, and at last resolved to lay the whole matter before his white friend.

It was easy to converse with the white man about pictures, Mputu, and many other palavers when other boys were about, or even alone; but Bakula shrank from talking about the inmost feelings of his heart, although he knew he would be listened to kindly and sympathetically. With much shyness, therefore, he went one evening to his teacher and asked for a talk with him. He was received with a smile of welcome and taken into the white man’s room, and the door was shut upon them. The white man had noticed Bakula’s quietness, had partly surmised the reason, and was not surprised at the request for a talk on God’s palaver.

Now that Bakula was sitting there he found it difficult to begin. When he opened his mouth no sound issued, for a lump seemed to rise in his throat and block the passage. His friend chatted to him until he felt more at ease, and then he poured out all the pent-up feelings of his heart, and gave expression to the thoughts of his long broodings. He told the white man of the address he had heard, of his dreams, of his fears that Christ would not know him, and of the many sins of adultery, robbery, cheating, lying and false accusation of which he had been guilty. He laid bare his whole previous life in all its ghastly wickedness until the white man felt it crowding on and pressing down his own soul.

Tears rolled down the lad’s cheeks as he asked if God’s Son would know such a guilty one as he, and could He forgive so many sins? The teacher spoke to him quietly and earnestly, read to him various passages from God’s own Word, and, after praying with him, dismissed him to his bed comforted and happy.

It was very late when Bakula left the white man’s house, but it was quite early when he arose next morning from a refreshing sleep. The sun was shining not only on the hills and valleys around him, but also into his heart, and he could not repress one hymn he had learned in school, though he had never fully realized its beauty and meaning until now: “Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.”

The boys who occupied the dormitory with him turned and asked: “What is the matter with you?”

“Oh, I had a long talk with the white man last night about God’s palaver,” he answered cheerfully, “and I feel very happy now.” And at once he told them of the address, and pleaded with them to prepare for the coming of Christ, so that He might know them on His arrival.

Several months passed, during which time Bakula took part in the prayer meetings, and at the services of the Christian Band he often gave a short address. He was eager to accompany the teacher to the various towns in the neighbourhood, and frequently used the scars on his arm as a text. He then, with soul-earnestness and much eloquence, declaimed against the trickery and lies of the witch-doctors, the uselessness of their charms, and the deception of their ordeals.

On one occasion the white man, Bakula, and some other lads were spending the evening in a town. The service was over, the teacher had retired to his hut, and Bakula and his companions had stretched themselves upon their mats in another hut that had been lent to them. During the night they were disturbed by the entrance of a witch-doctor, who hid something in a saucepan. Thinking he was up to one of his tricks, Bakula removed the thing and put it in another place.

In the morning the nganga, who was employed to destroy the power of an evil spirit that was troubling a family in the town, was up early shouting at the spirit to desist. He threatened it, fired his gun repeatedly at it, and after much rushing about and wild gesticulations, he declared at last that he had caught the evil spirit. He led the suffering family to the hut he had visited during the previous night, and entering it triumphantly, prepared his clients, by his boastful talk, for a great dénouement; but, behold, the entrapped spirit was gone.

When the lads, later in the day, brought out the “something,” they found it was tied up in imitation of a corpse, and on opening it, discovered inside a piece of kwanga, or native bread, and inside that a fowl’s bladder full of blood. The lads had a hearty laugh over the incident, and their disbelief in ngangas was greatly strengthened by this exposure of their trickery.

If the witch-doctor had found the bundle where he had placed it, he would, after much incantation and dancing, have pierced it with his knife, and as the blood flowed from it he would have claimed to have trapped and killed the evil spirit. The deluded family would have paid him a large fee, and after a time, feeling no better, would have sent for another nganga and been deceived in another way. They were saved at least the payment of one large fee by the lads to whom they had lent the house.

The white men on the station watched Bakula very carefully, and often spoke about him to each other as one whose life and conduct showed that he was fully fit to be a member of the Church that had recently been formed there. But no pressure was put on him, as it was felt desirable, on account of the persecution all native Christians then suffered, that the request for baptism and Church membership should be entirely spontaneous.

After many months Bakula applied for baptism and entrance to the Church. He was told of all it might mean to him--persecution, ridicule, and perhaps death. But his answers were such that he was duly received into the little Church, and with quivering heart and tears of joyous amazement in his eyes he partook for the first time of the Lord’s Supper.

During these years he had paid more than one visit to his home. His mother had received him with hearty welcomes, Satu had had long and frequent talks with him about the white men and their teaching, and the lads and lasses in the town had regarded his accomplishments in reading and writing with awe, envy, and superstitious fear.

Old Plaited-Beard always looked at him askant, with eyes full of hatred and malignity; but Tumbu, his slave friend, never left his side during those visits except to sleep. He followed him like a faithful dog, with eyes full of admiration and humble love.

The time came at last for Bakula to return to his town and live there. He asked his white friend for a few slates, pencils, reading-sheets and spelling-books, as he had decided to start, if possible, a school among his own people. These were gladly given to him, and, taking farewell of his many friends, both black and white, he commenced his return journey.

How different was this last going from his first coming! The darkness had given place to the light, the tangled, crooked path had become straight, though narrow and rough, and the evil spirits of fetishism no longer haunted his life with terror and horror, for they had been displaced by the ministering angels of God.

The conservatism of the Congo people--Bakula and his scholars build a school-house--A missionary visits his town--He encourages Bakula in his work--A “luck fowl” dies--Its death is put to the credit of the missionary’s visit and teaching--The school-house is pulled down--Satu is afraid to interfere--Native way of punishing an unpopular chief.

Bakula had not been back many days before he asked Satu for permission to open a school for the boys in the town. The chief gave his consent, but was very doubtful how the townsfolk would regard the innovation.

For untold generations they, their fathers, and their forefathers had gone on in the same way. They had built their huts with either grass, mud, or rough plank walls; they had scratched the ground on their farms with little hoes; and when ill in health, unlucky in fighting, trading, hunting or in domestic affairs, they had nearly sixty wizards, or “medicine men,” to reverse their luck by their ceremonies, charms, fetishes and magical decoctions. They had kept their accounts with knots tied in strings, or notches cut on tallies; they had always hunted in the same way, fished in the same way, traded, travelled, lived and died in the same way. What, therefore, was the use of changing now?

They were a very conservative people that had always killed off the progressives--those troublesome fellows who wanted to introduce new methods of building, new articles of trade, new ideas, and new ways of using old materials. Men who in other countries were called inventive geniuses were accounted horrible witches in Satu’s town. The man who discovered the method of tapping palm-trees for palm-wine was killed as a witch; the men who first traded in rubber and ivory were regarded with suspicion, and treated as folk full of witchcraft; and the man who took the first load of gum copal to the traders was told never to take another, or he “would see plenty trouble.”

It was in the midst of such a people that Bakula started his school. Tumbu, of course, attended it. Many other boys came out of curiosity, and finding no magic in it, no short-cut to book learning, their ardour cooled, and they dropped away; and there were no school inspectors to inflict fines and penalties for non-attendance. A few had sufficient courage and perseverance to attend regularly, and these made some progress in the mastery of their letters and syllables.

Bakula so enthused his few scholars that at the end of the dry season they decided to band together and build a grass hut in which to hold their school during the coming rains. It was no small bit of work for a few lads, with poor tools, to undertake. Rafters, king posts, stanchions, and wall plates had to be cut in the forests and conveyed into the town on their heads or shoulders; grass must be cut, dried, combed and carried from the bush to the site; and string had to be prepared from forest vines and swamp reeds.

Then there was a floor to be raised and beaten, holes to be dug, and all the materials fitted and tied together to form the hut. It was a simple structure with no windows, but a large door that answered all purposes, and the boys were proud of it. If you had seen it you might have laughed at it; but could you have built a better one with the same tools and materials?

Every morning the school was opened with prayer, singing, and the reading of a portion from the Gospel of Matthew--the only Gospel then translated into the language of the people. Occasionally men and women came, and, standing about the door, listened to the simple service. Many ridiculed the whole palaver; a few, however, were impressed, and came repeatedly; and, encouraged by them, Bakula started a Sunday service; but out of more than 1,500 people in the town, only from ten to twenty attended it.

One day Bakula’s heart was gladdened by the arrival of one of the missionaries on his way from the Ngombe district to the King’s town. He was trying to open up the country, visiting the towns and preaching in them as opportunity offered. Satu welcomed him heartily, and Bakula and his small class of scholars were delighted to see him. The missionary examined the school, and by his presence and words of praise encouraged the teacher and his pupils to continue their efforts.

The white man had long talks with Satu, and suggested that the next day a crier should be sent through the town to invite the people to come and hear God’s palaver. The time, however, was not ripe for such a service, for only a few responded, and they came more to ingratiate themselves with their chief than to listen to the white man.

This white man was a zealous teacher, thoroughly in earnest and well acquainted with the people’s language. No opportunity was missed by him of speaking to the twos and threes. Here he was to be found in conversation with some swaggering young men, there talking to a few old men, and again in another place arguing with some of the head men. He was a man of great attainments and wide knowledge, yet he exhibited no annoyance as he dealt with their puny reasoning, and unfolded the weak places in their arguments. He was like a giant handling pigmies, tenderly and persuasively. Bakula was sorry when his visitor had to pass on his way to other towns, and to open up the road across country upon which his heart was set; but the young teacher never forgot the words of encouragement he received from the white man in their private talks.

A short time after this visit the “luck fowl” (or nsusu a zumbi) belonging to one of the head men died without any apparent reason. It had probably eaten unwisely, or had been bitten by a snake; but the owner put it to the credit of the white men who had just visited their town. Everybody remembered that, immediately after the promised visit of the white man whom they had previously driven out of the town, a pig died.

They argued thus: "A white man came to us with God’s palaver, and a pig died soon after he left; another white man came on the same errand, and before many days had passed a ‘luck fowl’ died, therefore it was most foolish to have anything to do with God’s palaver." They conveniently forgot all the pigs and “luck fowls” that had died before the white men ever came near them, and only remembered these two that had died after their visits.

There was a great to-do in the town over the unfortunate death of this “luck fowl.” The owner raved against the school that had been opened by Bakula, against the visits of the white men, and against the introduction of new ideas of any kind. The more superstitious folk in the place combined to close the school and pull down the school-house. Many were indifferent to the whole matter, and a few were for letting the boys alone. There was much discussion; but the party for the “medicine men,” the fetishes, the charms, and for maintaining the status quo being the larger, the noisier, and more dominant faction, gained their point, and, while demolishing the school, destroyed as many books and slates as fell into their possession.

Poor Bakula was nonplussed by this calamity, and the other boys for a time were disheartened; but there is a great amount of grit and determination in the Congo character, and before long the lads were meeting in Bakula’s house for their lessons and for such teaching as their young tutor could give them.

Satu, the chief, tried to stem the current of popular feeling and turn it away from Bakula, but he failed even to save the school-house. Native chiefs have power only to make the people do what they want to do; and they generally have to bow their heads before the whirlwinds of popular sentiment and feeling. This was Satu’s case. Neither his heart nor his intellect had been awakened by the new teaching, consequently he was not yet prepared to suffer either abuse or unpopularity for the sake of God’s palaver and all that it meant.

The natives have a way of their own in punishing an unpopular chief, as the following incident will show, which I heard a man relate one day to Bakula with much laughter: There was a chief of a neighbouring village who treated his people very contemptuously, and was always, on one pretext or another, exacting fowls, cloth or other goods from them. They bore patiently with him as long as possible, but at last his unreasonable demands became too excessive; so one day they bound him securely, placed him on a shelf in his own house, made a fire under him, and having sprinkled a quantity of red pepper on the fire, went out and shut the door.

The chief sneezed tremendously, and would have died if sufficient pepper had been put on the fire. After a time they took him out of the smoke and tied his extended arms to a cross-stick, and would have punished him further; but he paid a heavy fine, and has been much better since the sneezing cure was tried on him.