7 MARCH 1874, Page 18

MISSIONARY TRAVELS IN EAST AFRICA.* OUTSIDE the circles more especially

interested in Missionary work, Mr. New's name is chiefly known in connection with the Living- stone Relief Expedition of 1872, and we had some fears on open- ing his attractive-looking volume of African experiences that we might also be opening up afresh all the intricate complications and misunderstandings that attended the failure (owing to the prompt succour given to our great explorer by American energy and generosity) of that undertaking. A few pages, however, sufficed to show us that we had to do with a man too deeply interested in his own especial calling to make it subservient to personal vindi- cation, and it is not till towards the end of the final chapter that he gives a brief outline of his connection with the Relief party, and of the causes of its dissolution. A few words tell his readers how,

having heard his statement, the Royal Geographical Society ex- onerates him from all blame, and places it upon record "that he

has in no way forfeited their confidence."

There is one thing, indeed, which is almost too much for Mr. New's equanimity. The somewhat patronising comments of Mr. Stanley upon the party out of "whose sails," to use the expression of- one of its leaders, "he had so completely taken the wind," drive him into tartness and italics. We think it would have been better to have passed in silence criticisms which, in Mr. New's opinion, and in that of the Royal Geographical Society, are unde- served, and which, in themselves, are not of a very serious nature. We scarcely needed to be told that Mr. New thinks Mr. Stanley a good deal lower than the angels, and not quite a genius ; and Mr. Stanley will, we trust, be content with the simply human attributes of energy, pluck, endurance, determivation, tact, &c., with which he is freely accredited. We dwell thus much on a mere episode in the pleasant volume before us, because it is the only point on which the spirt of its writer is open to objection. To criticise, from a

literary point of view, a book which only professes to be a straight- forward narrative of certain travels, labours, and experiences

among the negro races of Eastern Africa, and which so fully comes up to its profession, would be superfluous, if not unjust. Mr. New's style is plain and manly ; the ground he travels over is all but new in point of fact, and will be quite new to nine readers out of ten—for Dr. Krapf's solid contribution to our knowledge of the same regions is far less known than it deserves to be—and the extension, in however small a degree, of religious light into the thick darkness of heathen ignorance cannot be without interest to

a Christian nation.

On this point Mr. New's experiences are not very encouraging.

The indifference of the negroes to anything which does not bring in immediate pleasure or profit is profound. They have no desire to be taught. When you invite East African negroes to come and hear you, they say

'What will you give us, if we do ? ' They tell you they never go to a maneno ' (palaver) of their own without getting something to eat and drink. Nay, nay, they say, they are not going to bo bored for naught. Yet you cannot feast them, so you have to content yourself with trying to teach them in other ways. You have to force yourself upon their attention. When they come to visit you by twos and threes,—this is one of your opportunities ; sometimes we have walked from morning to night, under a burning sun, going from hut to hut, from plantation to plantation, palm grove to palm grove, in order to bring to bear upon them the truth as it is in Jesus.' When a group has been gathered together, and appears so intent that you think the truth is going home to them, that it is telling upon their hearts, and that you have before you a number of people upon the very verge of conversion, you come to a close, expecting your audience to yield, instead of which some one looks you full in the face, and exclaims, by way of compliment, 'Art

thou not a "

Mr. New may well remark it is not a little disheartening to an anxious missionary to meet with such a response at the close of an earnest address. As a rule, the older men and women shake their heads, and say they are too old to change ; they will die in their old • We Wanderings and Labours in Laster'? Africa. By Charles New. London H odder and Stoughton.

customs, let him turn to the young. Here the field is more favour- able, and some progress is made, when the children weary of school, the parents fear the estrangement of their children by the newly-acquired learning, and all comes to an end :—

"You pause, begin again, and end in the same way. This happens time after time and you would lose all patience and hope, but for your confidence in dod. But perseverance secures success. So we found it. We eventually secured a number of scholars whose regular attendance, ready acquisition of knowledge, development of character, and improved general conduct aniply rewarded us for all our pains."

The account of missionary life at Ribs (the station founded by Dr. Krapf, in 1862, under the direction of the United Methodist Free Churches), is anything but enticing. Hard work, bad fare, and constant fevers was the lot of the missionaries. Of the four who accompanied Dr. Krapf, two returned home in disgust, the third broken down in health, and when Dr. Krapf left Elba only one solitary and sickly Englishman remained to carry on the work.

"It was most important that one man, at least, should be sent immediately to the rescue." Mr. New was applied to, and though

he had just received news of the death of a brother, also a mission- ary, of fever at Sierra Leone, he did not shrink from the task, of which, after ten years' experience, he writes :— "We have not a great deal to show as the results of our labours yet, but sufficient has been accomplished to give us the utmost confidence in the ultimate results of vigorous and persevering endeavour. There is nothing in such a life to be desired for its own sake ; on the other hand, it is dull, unromantic, forbidding. It has no attractions for us except those which are connected with the great work in which we have been engaged. For the sake of that work, we have borne all, and are ready to do it again."

Partly in order to restore his strength, wasted by constant fever, partly to open up fresh fields for missionary enterprise, Mr. New made excursions into the interior, two of which—to the G-alla country and to the snow mountain of Kilima Njaro—occupy a large portion of his narrative.

The Gallas inhabit the stretch of country between the tribes lying inland from Mombosa and the south of Abyssinia; they are reputed to be especially ferocious, a nomadic people, hostile to all traders. "You may go among them, but you will never come back again," was the assertion of the Arabs and Wasuahili. He went, however, and did come back ; with whole skin and enlarged experience, but with little opening made for civilising influences to enter the Galla-land. A wild, fierce people, even the slave-dealers draw back from their boundaries, and leave them in peace from without ; within, wars are common and factions must run high, if we may judge by a custom which we commend to the notice of party leaders in general, as tending greatly to strengthen the hands of Government. The chief is elected from certain families, retains his office eight years, and is supported by a " lubu," or party. The party out of office are required by "custom," the ultimate authority among negroes, to throw away their children, only the party in power being allowed to rear theirs. "The object of this custom," writes Mr. New, "is to keep down the numbers of those who are not in power, and to increase those who are." They have a singular custom as to marriage. The whole people is divided into two tribes, and the men of each tribe have to select their wives from the other, marriage within the tribe being strictly forbidden, "the relationship being too near."

Mr. New's next important journey was to the Snow Mountain, Kilima Njaro, discovered some years since by Mr. Rebman, and since then visited by Baron von der Decken, but never ascended. To accomplish the ascent, to verify the asserted fact of its eternal snows, and inspect its capabilities as a future bill sanatorium for white dwellers on the coast and plains, had been for a long time the object of Mr. New's ambition. The account of his travels inland to this singular and beautiful mountain, of its perilous ascent, and of the varied climates and fertile lands that lie about its aides, will be, to most readers, quite the most interesting part of this contribution to our knowledge of a very little known part of the African continent. The wonder of his negro companions vhen the snow was reached, and the white man took some in his mouth, was extreme, and only to be surpassed by the discovery that the white stone melted to water in their own mouths. "Who ever heard of atones melting before ?" The chief, on the return of the men whom be had sent with the white man up the mountain, was

very disappointed to hear that the white matter was not silver, only water, nothing but water."

This chief was a remarkable specimen of the pure savage ; re- markable on account of the intellectual capacity and generosity of temper be showed, by fits and starts, through the sullen violence of his untaught nature. We will give his parting words to the white missionary, as they afford a very fair index to the real

present desires and feelings of the negro race towards its would- be civilisers

"After repeating all I had said to him regarding my object in coming to Chaga, I asked him to tell me his mind with freedom and candour. He asked me if I could not bring some mechanics to Chaga to teach his people the useful arts, expressing a very strong wish for such men. He said, want you very much to return to Moche ' (his capital), 'par- ticularly if you can bring some artisans with you. I shall be glad to have my young people taught to read and write. I will give you a plot of land upon which to build a house, and I will brad one near you. Como back, by all moans.' I believe he meant every word he said, though his only idea was that the presence of white men in his country would giver great importance to it."

While such can be said to be the disposition towards white men of a chief quite remote from any influences of fear, or hope of immediate profit from fair words, the opening up and gradual

civilisation of Africa would seem to be something more than a remote possibility. Mr. New has contributed his share towards

that consummation by his life and labours among its people. The slave traffic, both internal and foreign, as the chief and terrible im- pediment to all progress, is the object of his unceasing denunciation..

It would not be fair by Mr. New to leave upon any reader's mind the impression that his book is wholly of the solid descrip- tion befitting a work on such grave topics, for in truth it is in parts extremely amusing. The touches of native character are well put in, and he saw some out-of-the-way sights in his inland journeys. We do not remember to have met before in any work of travel with the " obe" or " ganzi," a species of cactus from whose huge central bulb straggle long thorny arms, which so com- pletely defend it from attack, that the cattle are seen standing longingly before it, lowing for help. The arms being hewed away,. the central bulb is eagerly eaten by them, "one large plant being sufficient to supply a score of cows with all the water they need." The Gallas say that this plant is both meat and drink to their cattle, which thrive wonderfully upon it. Men must eat sparingly of it, as it is liable to bring on unpleasant results.

Mankind has often been reproached with the superior discretion and moderation of the lower animals, but we have read somewhere of humble-bees intoxicating themselves on the honey of certain flowers ; and in Unika, the " kitosi," a pretty little bird, often indulges in such deep potations, that "as drunk as a kitoai" has passed into a proverb. He goes from one palm-tree to another as the juice flows out into the calabashes, and helps himself to the liquor they contain till he becomes intoxicated."

Our notice of Mr. New's book has already run into undue length, but we cannot conclude without giving one picture of the great mountain, Kilima Njaro, to whose snow-line he alone has ever reached. Its summit is still open to future adventurous mountaineers :—

"I looked over a vast extent of rising land There were hills upon hills covered with the most luxuriant vegetation, extensive growths of plantains, open tracks laid out in square beds and planted with masombo vikwa (both esculent roots like potatoes), sweet potatoes., pulse, du, waving fields of sugar-canes, waving woods, verdant lawns. Above this region rose mountains upon mountains of dark forest; loftier still, heights on heights of grassy hills, beyond them what appeared to be barren, rocky steeps ; and then came the region of perpetual snow. The mountain culminated in two towering elevations ; on the one hand, in the shining dome called by the natives Kibo, and on the other, in the rugged, dark, and dappled peak or crag called Kimawenzi,—a saddle-like ridge several miles in extent dividing the two summits. At the snow-line on the west of Kibo the mountain descends in a long, straight ridge behind Machame, while the crag,. after two abortive attempts to rise into peaks at a short distance from the summit, drops in a far more abrupt manner towards the east. The aspect presented by this prodigious mountain is one of unequalled grandeur, sublimity, majesty, and glory. It is doubtful if there be another such sight in this wide world."