OUR WORK ON THE CONGO CATHARINE L. MABIE '::11a i/i ..i a/:i>iAu s / a ••.*r ..r-Af. r . - j. Canoeing on the Congo OUR WORK ON THE CONGO A Book for Mission Study Classes and for General Information By CATHARINE L. MABIE, M. D. 1917 Prepared for the AMERICAN BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY and the WOMAN’S AMERICAN BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY Published by AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY PHILADELPHIA BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS LOS ANGELES NEW YORK TORONTO Copyright 1917 by GUY C. LAMSON, Secretary Published July, 1917 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. A General Survey of the Field . i II. The People. y III. Religion . 12 IV. Educational Work . 18 V. Medical Work . 23 VI. Is It Worth While?. 30 ILLUSTRATIONS Page Canoeing on the Congo . Frontispiece Preparing the evening meal . 8 Doctor Mabie telling the story of Jesus to a group of heathen zvomen . 16 The beginning of a school in the bush . 20 Doctor Mabie conducting a baby clinic at Bans a Man- teke . 26 " The Childrens Hour,” conducted by Doctor Mabie zvhen on an itineration . 32 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Columbia University Libraries https://archive.org/details/ourworkoncongoOOmabi OUR WORK ON THE CONGO CHAPTER I A General Survey of the Field The American Northern Baptists’ African mission work lies along the lower stretches of the mighty Congo River, and for the most part within Belgian territory. Since King Leopold’s death and the conversion of the Congo Independent State into a Belgian colony with a responsible government, Belgian rule in Central Africa has been very satisfactory. This mission was born of the intense interest awakened in the hearts of Harley College men, England, when in the late seventies Henry M. Stanley traced the Congo River on the map of Africa. It was first known as the Livingstone Inland Mission, for its founders dreamed of a chain of stations which should soon girdle the vast con¬ tinent, and straightway set about making their dream come true. However, it proved far more difficult, costly, and distant of realization than had been anticipated, and, for various reasons, in 1884 they transferred their alle- 2 Our Work on the Congo giance from a British to an American management, and became the Congo Mission of the American Baptist Mis¬ sionary Union. Of the old guard not a few still remain in active service, as Henry Richards, Joseph and Mrs. Clark, Charles Harvey, Peter Frederickson, and A. Sims, M. D., D. P. H. The Congo Mission lies just under and a little south of the equator, and not even the low-lying hills of the cata¬ ract region afford any relief from the intense heat and humidity with their swarms of mosquitoes, tsetse flies, and other pestiferous insect life, in whose train follow malarial, sun, and other pernicious fevers, sleeping sick¬ ness, dysentery, and other deadly endemic diseases. As steamers sail, the mouth of the Congo lies some eight thousand miles from our Atlantic seaboard, and traveling via Europe about five weeks are spent en route. Excellent Belgian and French boats ply between Europe and Matadi, the port of the Congo. At the mouth of the river, sprawling on the hot, low-lying sandy beach, blink¬ ing under the coconut-palms is Banana, a little trading port where our missionaries for Mukimvika disembark and in canoes cross the wide expanse of murky, turbulent waters to the southern bank of the river. Mukimvika lies within Portuguese territory, and is one of our oldest and least developed fields. Here for many a long and lonely year Dr. F. P. Lynch has labored on, often quite alone for years at a stretch, ministering to Portuguese and natives alike, where twenty years ago Mrs. Lynch, one of the most gifted and gracious of Congo missionaries, laid down her life for Africa’s redemption. On leaving Banana the ocean steamer goes on up the river, stopping a day or two at Boma, the capital, some A General Survey of the Field 3 fifty miles inland, and missionaries always receive a warm welcome from the Christian and Missionary Alliance folk who have their base station here. Another fifty miles and the long steamer voyage is ended as we anchor at Matadi, above which navigation is interrupted for about two hundred and fifty miles by rapids and cataracts. A little toy railroad connects Matadi with the upper river at Leopoldville. Express-trains run every other day, and are two days in making the trip of about two' hundred and fifty miles. Beyond Leopoldville the river is again navigable for a thousand miles for large river boats on to Stanley Falls. The lower river, or cataract region as it is frequently called, is a hill-country without roads, because it is with¬ out beasts of burden save the native only, who carries on his head such burdens as must needs be borne. He travels by a narrow, stony hill trail, plowing through elephant- grass ten, twelve, to sixteen feet tall, fording streams, hallooing for the ferryman with his dugout canoe, or clambering up onto vine bridges swung from tree to tree across swift, turbulent rivers; and the missionary follows in his trail afoot, or carried in a canvas hammock swung from a bamboo pole carried on the heads of a couple of natives. Sometimes nowadays he travels in a one-wheeled push-cart where the paths are somewhat less hilly. This grass-land abounds in wild game—elephants, buffalo, antelope, wild boar, leopards. Every valley with its brook or river is a lovely, tangled jungle, cool and re¬ freshing after the burning heat of the hill trail. The monkeys and parrots, orchids, water-lilies, and fern, the soft purl of shadowy, rippling waters, all tempt the hot, tired traveler to loiter overlong, unmindful of the weary 4 Our Work on the Congo hills which yet remain before the night’s camp can be pitched. Within the cataract region we have six stations: Matadi, Palabala, Banza Manteke, Lukunga, Sona Bata, and Kimpese. Matadi is our base station. Here the in¬ defatigable Doctor Sims, mission treasurer and every¬ body’s friend in time of need, the best-known physician on the “ west coast,” resides. Here he has built a fine and commodious church edifice and book-room, and has a church-membership of about two hundred and fifty. The doctor entertains hundreds of passing missionaries of many societies as they enter or leave the Congo and attends to all their many needs, and conducts a large European and native medical practice, besides attending to a deal of other mission business. Above Matadi, less than three hours by train and steep mountain path, Palabala looks down upon the river and the hills. Much of intensely interesting mission his¬ tory and romance gathers about Palabala’s lofty height. Elizabeth Garland Hall has made its more recent story familiar to many an American audience. Banza Manteke, on the old caravan road, is within a long day’s journey from Matadi, three and a half hours by rail and another seven or eight by caravan route. It is beautifully situated on a hill overlooking hills and more hills, and is about twelve miles from the Congo River. The name of Henry Richards must ever be associated with this station; and not a few others whose names are familiar to American Baptists have shared in the develop¬ ment of this field. In our plans for intensive development it is purposed to center educational and medical work here for the Palabala, Banza Manteke, and Lukunga fields. A General Survey of the Field 5 Lukunga lies in a hot and lonely valley on a little knoll not far from the juncture of the Lukunga and Congo rivers. It is best reached by a two or three days’ caravan journey from Kimpese on the railway line. In the old days, when the caravan road was the only highway between the lower and upper river, Lukunga was the center of much activity, both governmental and missionary. While there are not now many people in the immediate vicinity of the station, the Lukunga field, which lies on both sides of the Congo and extends well over onto the plateaus of the Ban- gu hills, is as well populated and certainly quite as needy as any of our lower Congo districts. A good boarding- school for boys and girls is conducted in the station. Much village visitation, desirable in all districts, is im¬ perative in the Lukunga field. The names of Moody, Hill, and Bain are associated with this station. Sona Bata lies but a stone’s throw from the Congo Railway, well up toward Stanley Pool. It has an exten¬ sive and but partially developed field, and is to be the sec¬ ond lower river center for educational and medical work. It already has a good boarding-school and considerable medical work. Mr. and Mrs. Frederickson have long la¬ bored in connection with this field, and now have asso¬ ciated with them the McDiarmids and Geils. At Kimpese, a hundred miles from Matadi on the Congo Railway, is located the Congo Evangelical Train¬ ing Institution, a joint school established by the English and American Baptists in 1908 for the training of native preachers, teachers, and leaders, together with their families. At Leopoldville, on Stanley Pool, we have a very at¬ tractive mission compound, which for some years has 6 Our Work on the Congo been occupied by the Congo Balolo Mission. Owing to impending changes it may prove desirable in the near future for our Society to reoccupy Leopoldville. It is the natural connecting-link between our lower and upper river work, and the most convenient station for annual conference and committee meetings. It presents a desir¬ able, though limited, field for evangelistic and Christian work among the very needy and shifting population em¬ ployed by the various European industries located at Leopoldville. On the upper river we have Tshumbiri, one hundred and seventy miles above the Pool, where for many years Mr. and Mrs. Billington labored most effectively. The Metzgers and Woods are now in charge of the station. Ikoko, on the shores of Lake Mantumba, is seven hun¬ dred miles inland and a beehive of activity. Its new site, Ntondo, across the lake, will be more accessible and is to have a fine lot of brick buildings, and will be a thoroughly up-to-date station wherein to develop native leaders for its large inland territory. To speak of Ikoko is to think of its genial founder Joseph Clark. And last, but not least, is our newest station, Yanga, opened by Doctor and Mrs. Leslie in 1913. Vanga is reached by a comfortable steamer trip of a week from Stanley Pool via the Congo, Kasai, and Kwilu rivers. In a cannibal district but slightly subdued as yet by the State, our missionaries have traveled freely among the native towns, and have succeeded in gathering a couple of hundred boys into a station boarding-school. They have large native congregations, both at the station ser¬ vices and when out itinerating. I CHAPTER II The People The people among whom we work in Congoland are Negroes, and belong to the great Bantu tribe which, with its migratory habits, extends from the Camaroons to Zu- luland. The country is not heavily populated. Slave and rubber raids, witchcraft exposures and executions, sleep¬ ing sickness and other pernicious endemic diseases, gross ignorance and superstition, have all taken their heavy toll. Infant mortality is appallingly high. The people are reddish black and rather undersized. In their native state they wear next to' nothing, but smear their bodies a dull red with a powdered camwood paste, the women adding a string or two of bright-colored beads, huge brass collars and anklets, or spiral brass leg and arm ornaments, bracelets of various styles, and ear orna¬ ments. Both men and women indulge in elaborate coif¬ fures and tribal tattooing, and file their front teeth to sharp points. The men are fond of ivory bracelets, and frequently wear a bit of fur, a trophy of a hunting or trapping venture. Equipped with bow and arrows, or possibly a gun, a big knife thrust into his belt, the buck strides on down the trail, followed at a respectful distance by his woman carrying her lord’s effects, the baby, and the family sup¬ plies. He hunts and fishes and palavers by day, dances and drinks and boasts by night. He builds his house of 7 8 Our Work on the Congo bamboo or mud, thatching it with grass or palm fronds. On the upper river it may be a long, low house, in which under one roof live his various wives. Down country each wife usually has her own little hut. The upper coun¬ try is low, flat, and marshy, and the villages are oftenest reached by canoe, while on the lower river winding trails seek out the towns under the palm and mango tree. Pigs, goats, fowls, fleas, chiggers, cockroaches, lice, mosquitoes, tsetse flies, mongrel curs, and other vermin infest the native towns, and the mud-houses are worse than the more porous and dry grass-house. The gardens are cultivated at a distance, and the women and girls spend most of their time in the valley gardens, where they raise manioc, yams, sweet potatoes, beans, bush peas, squash, and peanuts. All the preparation for gardening, the cultivating, and harvesting is hand work, with no bet¬ ter tools than little short-handled hoes. Grass and weeds are prolific, and much weeding is necessary. Monkeys, insects, and elephants often destroy the gardens. On the lower river, where habits of industry, division of labor, and the wearing of clothes are beginning to prevail, the men now cultivate banana and plantain gardens, raise all the corn and sugar-cane, and gather the zinsafu and palm- nuts, hunt and fish and carpenter, and do the family sew¬ ing on hand Singer sewing-machines. Instead of engage¬ ment rings the boys give their fiancees dresses of their own making. When the first rains come the children gather quantities of delicious mushrooms, and crouching in threes and fours about tiny holes in the earth, gather little pots of tiny winged white ants for supper. When the rains are over and the grass fire is on, the children all go a ratting, Preparing the evening meal. Note flour-sieve in center, like tall basket The People 9 and hundreds of field-rats will be roasting on spits about the evening fires. Boa-constrictor steaks, monkey stew, venison, buffalo, and wild boar are choice viands. The riverine people live largely on manioc and fish, with an occasional feast of hippo meat. Manioc, or cassava, is a staple throughout the country, This is a root, bitter or sweet according to variety. The bitter is much more com¬ mon, and is soaked for several days preferably in running water until the bitter is extracted. Then the manioc is dried, and in mortars made of hardwood logs is pounded into flour, sifted, mortared, sifted and mortared until it is finely powdered. The flour is then sifted into boiling water and made into a stiff mush, which is then worked into little balls. These are dipped into a palm-oil, highly peppered gravy, and tossed down the throat without chewing. An unleavened, sourish bread is also made of manioc, and various mixtures of peanuts, leaves, corn- meal, and cassava are wrapped in leaves and steamed much like Mexican tamales. Nearly all foods are cooked, and much time is spent in preparing the evening meal, the principal one of the day. A relish made of squash- seed meats, ground to a paste and seasoned with red pepper and spicy leaves, is very popular. The women mold and fire their own pottery, and make baskets similar in form and decoration to those of our American Indians. The men weave grass-cloth and make grass and reed mats, and also bamboo beds for themselves. The women and children sleep on mats on the earthen floor. The people are fond of bathing, and the babies al¬ ways have their early morning baths. In a lower Congo village, as the sun comes above the horizon about six of a morning, dozens of mothers can be seen holding their 10 Our Work on the Congo babies by one arm outside the house door, each pouring cold water from a big, black water-bottle over the kinky head and shapely, little body, then scrubbing away with the other hand, and then giving another deluge from the black bottle until baby is sweet and clean. While on the upper river some years ago I saw a riverine mother with an infant three or four months old, which she was hold¬ ing by one arm and plunging completely under the water. I counted nineteen immersions; the poor little tad spit, and sputtered, and finally, all but breathless, was tied on its mother's broad hips, and disappeared into the bush. Polygamy prevails, and the chiefs and headmen have large harems. The price of wives often makes it impossi¬ ble for the young men to secure suitable women or, in¬ deed, any at all. An exchange of girls in settlement of debts is common. A man “ borrows ” his wife, giving in payment goats, sheep, plantains, peanuts, cloth, palm- wine, service—whatever is agreed upon between his family and the woman’s. He is usually years in complet¬ ing his payments. His children belong to the woman’s family, and in case of her death, or a decree of separa¬ tion, return to the mother’s people. They always speak of their maternal uncles as “ zimfumu,” or chiefs, and it is disrespectful to speak a chief’s name. A woman never calls or speaks of her husband by name. She says, “ nkaz’ ami,” my husband. Child marriage prevails in some dis¬ tricts, but in the lower Congo the girls are usually from twelve to fourteen when they leave their fathers’ huts for those of their husbands. Bethrothal in babyhood is com¬ mon, however, and affords considerable protection to a girl. They have their own codes of morality. Wherever there is much palm-wine and drunkenness the moral tone The People ii is lacking, while in some districts it is fairly good accord¬ ing to their own standards. These dusky children of the night are passionately fond of the moon, which they think of as masculine. His wo¬ man is the evening star. The children are eager for the first faint appearance of the new moon and greet him with shouts of joy, passing the glad word on over the hills from town to town. When the glorious light of the full moon enfolds the grimy little village in its mysterious beauty, there is little sleep if the town be a heathen one. All night, hour after hour, the dance is on, accompanied by the weird, monotonous cadences of chanting voices. Code messages are sent from town to town on the great war-drums. Palm-wine flows freely, and the sensuous holds sway. If the town be a Christian one there will be no dancing or drinking, no wild abandon to the lusts of the flesh, but order and decency prevailing. Perhaps as the silvery light, so brilliant in the tropical heavens that it dims all but the southern cross and a few of the mightier host above, filters down through the palms, one will hear hymns of praise arising from shadowy groups here and there, making melody in their heart because the God of love has delivered them from the old haunting fear of the evil which prowls by night nor halts his destruc¬ tion by day. B CHAPTER III Religion In religion the Congos are animists. All nature, includ¬ ing human nature, is peopled with spirits. Spirits of their own dead, spirits that never were embodied, spirits good and spirits bad, a great spirit probably ancestral whom they call Nzambi, the creator—in dire straits they may call upon him, not knowing whether he hears or cares; then there’s Mbungi, the prince of evil spirits, the destroyer. Compassed about with so numberless a host of jealous, vengeful spirits lurking everywhere, all their lifetime the people are subject to a bondage of fear. The first great triumph of the gospel is emancipation from this fearfulness. The spirits of their own dead are perhaps the most constant menace. Whenever death occurs bedlam is let loose. With wild shrieking, shrill wailing, and mad howl¬ ing and moaning till voices are exhausted, throwing dust into the air, covering their bodies with mud, the relatives give themselves up to an orgy of mourning. Bands of chanting women sit hour on hour about the corpse, charg¬ ing the departed to be content where he has gone. Did he not have his full share of the good things of this life while with them? Food for the journey, cloth, his cher¬ ished possessions, his wives and slaves also, before the coming of the white man prevented, would all be sent with him as his credentials and companions in the spirit world. 12 Religion 13 The body would be wrapped in many yards of cloth, sometimes in a sitting posture until it looked like a great bale of cotton. If a chief or headman, burial was often delayed for many months, the body being entrenched in the house and the wives sitting all day week after week, month after month surrounding it, stealthily sneaking out after dark in search of food. At the final burial food and personal belongings, broken to loose the soul stufiF, are placed in and upon the grave. In the early days the mis¬ sionaries rescued more than one poor human victim who, partially buried with the dead, was left to slow death from starvation and exhaustion. Gunpowder is fired at fre¬ quent intervals over the grave to speed the departing spirit loth to set out on the great adventure, and again and again he is charged not to return to his former haunts. His house is immediately burned lest, hovering about the town, he return and haunt it. Probably their notion of the duration of the life beyond is limited and conditioned by the faithfulness of one’s descendants in remembering. The souls of little children are like caged birds unaccus¬ tomed to confinement, and unkindness or punishment may result in sickness or the death of the child. There is no word for discipline in their vocabulary. The old men said of the first missionaries, “ They are not really people, but the reembodied spirits of our dead,” and so frequently called them “ tata,” father, or “ nguan kazi,” uncle. The first converts who submitted to baptism were believed to have put themselves under the spell of the missionary, and it was thought they would soon die and be trans¬ ported to his country as his slaves. A boy from a heathen district had been in the station at Banza Manteke for some months and still seemed timid and half afraid of us. 14 Our Work on the Congo One day, upon seeing some photographs of my family and some food and clothing which they had sent me, he sur¬ prised me greatly by saying, “ Then you really are peo¬ ple?” When the natives at Kwilu learned that Mrs. Leslie had left her children at home in order to come and acquaint them with God’s love, they naively asked if she had left them with God, and probably only when another child was born to the missionaries were they quite con¬ vinced that they were flesh-and-blood folk like themselves. Most of their religious observances are propitiatoiy, or intended to block the spirits in their evil designs. Re¬ membering and feeding the family dead is a religious duty. There are two common methods of warding off or combating spirit interference; fetishes serve for all or¬ dinary purposes, for serious cases exorcism and the de¬ tection and trial by poison or other ordeal of witches. A fetish is not an idol unless one accepts a very simple defi¬ nition of an idol as being anything to which power is attributed when it has no intrinsic pow r er, as a horse- chestnut carried in the vest pocket to ward off or cure rheumatism. A fetish is a little shield with which to fend and ward off machinations of malign spirits. Each fetish is so limited in its power, and so liable to lose its own pe¬ culiar potency, that one needs almost as many to get safely through life’s dangers as the medieval knight needed links in his coat of mail. To the sorely pressed, illy armored animist just emerging from the fog of spiritualism, how comforting is David’s characterization of God as his “ strength, a sun and a shield,” and so as Christ’s ambassadors we entreat them to be reconciled to God, Nzambi, their shield and defender, the Ancient of Days. Religion 15 Witches abounded. Whenever serious illness or death occurred a witch-doctor was sent for, who by his fa¬ miliarity with the spirits determined who had bewitched the patient. Often a whole clan or town would be ac¬ cused, and ordeal by poison would determine the guilty parties, and their execution would have been accom¬ plished at one and the same time. All who died were without question guilty. The gospel of God’s grace as revealed in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus has again proved itself, even among this degraded people, the power of God unto salvation to every one who believeth. When confronted with God’s law they said, It is good, we know, and not infrequently in self-righteousness we do these things. But when the Lord from heaven, Mary’s (the sister’s) son, looked into their accusing consciences from Cal¬ vary’s cross they bowed their hearts, confessing their sins, acknowledging his authority over their lives, and in the light of his word many to-day are walking in new¬ ness of life. Abstinence from heathen customs—as the resorting to fetishes and exorcism in sickness, drinking, dancing, polygamy, intermarriage with the heathen, and many other objectionable practices—greater cleanliness, the wearing of clothing, a new attitude toward women, and the assum¬ ing of Christian responsibilities are some of the outward signs of the new life. Not infrequently the Christian de¬ scending into the dark valley finds it aglow and tells his family and friends that Jesus is waiting for him. When life’s candle flickers out they say, “ He has gone up. He sleeps. He has gone to be with his Lord.” Their grief is much quieter and when, with a prayer and Christian 16 Our Work on the Congo hymn, the body is consigned to the dust until the resur¬ rection morning, they sorrow not as the heathen, believing that the departed spirit is homed in God’s love rather than hovering about its old abode harming those for whom it once cared. The first converts became zealous evangelists and went about from town to town telling the gospel story, and many believed and turned to God from fetishism. Singly or by twos, frequently all the Christians in a village would take their food and go off for a several days’ evangelistic tour. Not a few of the early believers suffered death for their new faith. The most promising young men were brought to the mission station for a few months’, possibly a year’s teaching, and were then set apart as evangelists and were sent out to start village schools and preach the word. At other stations children were gathered into boarding-schools, and after several years’ training were sent back to their towns to spread the news. At a certain up-river station a bushboy, after being in the station school but a year or so, returned to his far-inland town. He carried home a Gospel of John, and sitting outside his hut reading it attracted the attention of the village black¬ smith, who succeeded in learning to read and write from his boy teacher. Soon after the villagers refused to gather rubber for King Leopold’s soldiers; the village was destroyed and many killed. The blacksmith escaped, and after subsisting for many days on such food as the forest offered, found himself on the banks of a beautiful lake and among a people speaking another dialect. He stayed with them and told them the gospel story so far as he knew it. A year or two later a missionary visited the lake district and found a number of believers, who Doctor Mabie telling the story of Jesus to a group of heathen women Religion i 7 after further instruction were baptized. Even so the Lord multiplied the lad’s few loaves and fishes. Missionary itineration is a very fruitful form of evan¬ gelism and most necessary for the edification and nurture of the Congo church. In this form of missionary en¬ deavor the missionary comes into the most intimate and personal touch with the people in their village life. He listens to their experiences, counsels and guides them in their many difficulties in the new life, further instructs them in the word, ministers to their sick, and in many ways makes himself of service to them. The Congo country is not a white man’s country, and the necessity of raising up a trained native leadership is imperative. With this end in view, the Congo Evangeli¬ cal Training Institution was established at Kimpese a few years ago and gives promise of accomplishing that for which it was instituted. A goodly number of its gradu¬ ates are serving the churches very acceptably. “ The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he send forth more laborers into his vineyard.” CHAPTER IV Educational Work The Bantu tribes are a people without a history, never having committed to writing the fine language of which they are justly proud. Many migrations have given rise to many dialects, but all bear unmistakable evidence of a common origin, and among the widely dispersed Bantu folk, from the Camaroons to Zululand, no tie is so strong as that of language affinity. When the Congo missionary came to dwell among them he learned their language, wrote it phonetically in Roman characters, and straightway set about teaching the na¬ tives to read and write it. The chiefs and headmen had sought to keep the language measurably pure by care¬ fully training their nephews and a few chosen boys, whose vocabulary and speech were superior to the ordi¬ nary native, and the missionary always sought such boys as language teachers. Not only a vocabulary but a grammar had to be acquired by carefully listening to the native speech ; and in the early days, whenever missionary met missionary, language discoveries, comparisons, de¬ bates, and disputes were sure to be the fruitful theme of conversation. Sometimes a missionary with a good deal of imagination would read into- a word not only his own, but the sense of several synonyms of its English equiva¬ lent, as nlongo, “ taboo, forbidden,” which by this method came to be “ sacred, holy ” in the white man’s version. 18 Educational Work 19 The most difficult problem which the African missionary meets is that of approximating the native thought-plane, of thinking native thoughts in native words rather than projecting his own concepts into those words. The verb is the principal word of the language, and is very highly inflected. There are eight classes of nouns. The lan¬ guage is rendered euphonious by a system of concordant prefixes. Three societies have been at work in the lower Congo country, where but a single dialect is spoken over a large area. They have compiled two dictionaries and grammars, two translations of the Bible, three of the New Testament, and a number of school-books. Much more should be done along this line in the immediate future. Vanga plans to do its educational work in the lower Congo dialect. Each of our upper-river stations has a dialect peculiar to its own district. In Belgian Congo the government has attempted noth¬ ing educationally, so all has devolved upon the mission¬ ary. From the beginning two methods have been em¬ ployed which might be differentiated as the evangelistic and boarding-school methods. The first was that of first gathering a few converts and, after instructing them somewhat in the rudiments of Christianity and the “ three Rs,” sending them out as evangelists and teachers to whatsoever towns would receive them. Their more virile and promising converts were in turn brought to the mission station for a few months, or possibly a year, of instruction before being sent out on similar missions. Schools would be established in the towns, and for an hour or two each morning old and young would be sitting- on the earthen floor of a grass schoolhouse struggling with the charts and slates. Scripture would be read and 20 Our Work on the Congo expounded and prayer offered. These men usually mag¬ nified their calling as evangelists and Bible teachers rather than as school-teachers. This method could not be expected to develop efficient teachers. Under the boarding-school method children were gath¬ ered as soon as possible into station schools, where they received careful instruction in Scripture and common- school branches for several years under constant mission¬ ary supervision. Most of the children professed faith in Jesus Christ while in the schools, and on returning to their towns told the story and assisted in the education of the villagers. School children frequently married and established Christian homes. Both methods are good so far as they go, and after converts begin to multiply both may well be employed simultaneously at the same station. Banza Manteke and Tshumbiri have been developed under the former, Ikoko and Vanga under the second, and both have prevailed in the Sona Bata field. Both have resulted in the establishment of village schools in practically all towns where there are Christians, but most of these schools have never advanced beyond a low pri¬ mary grade, with the result that the keen interest of the earlier days, when the whole family went to school, has flagged. To-day the crying need of the village schools is the enthusiastic, trained teacher. Indeed, he is imperative if the Congo church is to be a strong, self-propagating body. At Kimpese we have established an educational center for the development of native preachers, teachers, and leaders. Training is also provided for their wives and children, the attendance of whom is compulsory. The children form the practice school for the normal depart- The beginning of a school in the bush Educational Work 21 ment of the institution. Kimpese is located on a knoll within a rolling valley at the foot of the beautiful Bangu hills, along whose base flows the Lukunga River, and is about a hundred miles above Matadi on the Congo Rail¬ way. Three good missionary residences have been built for the accommodation of the faculty, which consists of Rev. Thomas Powell, B. A., B. D., Rev. S. E. Moon, B. A., B. D., their wives, and Doctor Mabie. Two corru¬ gated-iron, grass-thatched sheds occupy the site where it is proposed to build three main buildings of the insti¬ tution as soon as the necessary money is in hand. For nine years these hot and altogether inadequate iron sheds have served the institution as classrooms and chapel. The student quarters down below consist of semidetached brick houses, each accommodating two families. Each apartment has its garden-plot in the rear, and large plan¬ tain and manioc gardens are cultivated farther afield. For three years we have the whole family under cul¬ tivation spiritually, mentally, and physically, under con¬ ditions approximating the ideal. Kimpese is a little Christian community segregated for purposes of intensive development. From six-thirty in the morning until noon classes for both men and women are held. The after¬ noons are devoted to industrial training, gardening, and the children’s school, wherein the students receive practi¬ cal instruction in methods of teaching. The evenings are spent in study, and curfew rings at nine. Thorough courses in Old and New Testament, a little general and church history, elementary mathematics and science, phys¬ iology and hygiene, and practical pedagogy are provided for the men. The women are in school three hours a day, and are 22 Our Work on the Congo allowed a nurse-boy or girl to care for the babies during schooltime. We try to make them thoroughly familiar with the story of Jesus, also some of the Old Testament stories, so that they may tell them to the women and chil¬ dren in their towns. They have reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, and are able to assist in the conduct of the village schools when they return to their towns. Instruction in the care and training of their children, and in the privileges and duties incident to Christian wife¬ hood, motherhood, community, and church-membership is given. The broadened outlook on life, the new per¬ sonal responsibilities which enlightenment brings, a new comradeship in the husband’s life and work, are among the worth-while results which are beginning to appear among the women trained at Kimpese, and the institution promises much for the future development of the Congo churches. The Congo Conference has recommended that board¬ ing-schools of grammar grade be established at Banza Manteke, Sona Bata, Ikoko, and Vanga, and the Wo¬ man’s Board is now seeking six trained teachers to go out in the immediate future to assist in the development and conduct of such schools. It is commonly thought that anybody, however inadequately trained, provided only that he is zealous, may be sent to work among so primi¬ tive a people as the natives of Central Africa. In the homeland we set our best-equipped educators the difficult task of training the backward and deficient. We can af¬ ford to do no less when we send teachers to the Congo. CHAPTER V Medical Work The Congo knows very little about anatomy, and has no sane notions whatever concerning physiology, hygiene, pathology, or therapeutics. With his animistic notions he attributes all his physical and mental ailments to spirit interference through an intermediary or to direct inter¬ position. In dreams his own spirit wanders apart from the body, and if too rudely awakened may fail to return. To dream of the dead gives rise to great anxiety, and much importance is attached to interpretation of dreams. Whenever serious illness occurs, the person bewitching the patient is sought, and before the white man interfered trial of witches was frequent and usually fatal. Delirium is greatly feared; another spirit than the sufferer's is in possession and speaking strange things. Epileptic seiz¬ ures, insanity, and all mental aberrations are diagnosed as due to direct spirit possession. Witch-doctors and fetishes were their chief reliance in sickness. A few native drugs and concoctions are used with more or less skill, principally less. Accidental poisoning through overdosage is common. Scarifying and blister¬ ing, red pepper and other irritants blown up the nostrils and into the eyes, plasters compounded of leaves and mud, are frequently resorted to. As the crisis approaches, pneumonia patients are often drenched with cold water. Aching teeth are dug out, abscesses evacuated with sharp- 23 24 Our Work on the Congo ened sticks, and bloodletting is a favorite treatment for fevers. Into this maze of ignorance, superstition, and fear has come the medical missionary with his marvelous power to alleviate pain and suffering, with his strangely confident but often effective methods of combating disease, and his uncanny, persistent way of looking death squarely in the eyes and holding him at bay. As a mission we are rich in doctors, but almost desti¬ tute of medical and surgical equipment. Doctor Sims, with his splendid record of achievement covering a third of a century, is our senior physician. Up and down the old caravan road he traveled, from his headquarters at the Pool, in the early days before the railroad was built, saving many a missionary’s life when living in the Congo was far more hazardous than it is now. During the last sixteen years he has served as mission treasurer and as business agent for a number of other societies working in Belgian Congo, besides conducting a very large medical practice and caring for the Matadi Church. He has a convenient and good little dispensing-room, but no hos¬ pital accommodation. Doctors Leslie and Lynch have each a quarter century record of service behind them. Doctor Lynch has spent all his years at Mukimvika, where he has the only hospital worthy the name in our mission. His services have been greatly appreciated by his numerous Portuguese patients, and his name is a very familiar one on the “ coast.” Doctor Leslie spent many years at Banza Manteke, where he took an active part in the general and educational work as well as the medical. He is lovingly remembered by the natives as the good physician, mighty hunter, and Medical Work 25 intrepid traveler. He built a good frame dispensary and the little two-room corrugated iron shed, which by cour¬ tesy has been called the Banza Manteke hospital all these years. From Banza Manteke Doctor Leslie did a deal of exploratory and pioneer work. For several years he and Mrs. Leslie lived at an isolated far-away post on the Kwango River in Portuguese Angola. The medicine- chest and surgical-kit often proved an open sesame as he sought wayside hospitality among hostile and cannibal tribes. Five years ago the Leslies opened our newest sta¬ tion, Vanga, on the Kwilu River, a week’s steamer trip above Leopoldville. Doctor Mabie, who soon will have completed her second decade of Congo service, served her internship with Doc¬ tor Leslie in the Banza Manteke hospital, and for many years had charge of the medical work in that district. She also assisted in the general and educational work of the station until, in 1911, she became a member of the faculty of the Congo Evangelical Training Institution at Kimpese, believing that it offered greater opportunity for the dissemination of such knowledge as shall help the native to cope more successfully with his health problems. Classes are held for the men in physiology and hygiene, special emphasis being placed on town sanitation, source of water supply, etc. The causes of their more common diseases, and sources of infection, such as mosquitoes, ticks, tsetse flies, infected water, etc., are taught. With the women there are more intimate studies of the body and its functions; the physiology of gestation, parturi¬ tion, and the care of children are dwelt upon. The large dispensary practice which has been regularly conducted at Banza Manteke gives plenty of clinical material for 26 Our Work on the Congo such demonstration as is profitable at this stage of in¬ struction. Doctor Ostrom, who recently returned to Ikoko to begin his second term of service, made a fine record dur¬ ing his first, despite the fact that he had no proper equip¬ ment ; and much is expected of him in the future develop¬ ment of our upper-river work. Doctor King has proved himself an invaluable member of the Banza Manteke staff during his first term, and withal is a jolly good fellow. And so we are six, but should be seven, for Sona Bata must have another doctor. The Boards recently voted to equip the Congo Mission with four new modern hospitals, costing four thousand dollars each, and to be located at Banza Manteke, Sona Bata, Ikoko, and Vanga, and Doctors Leslie and Ostrom succeeded in raising the necessary funds for their erec¬ tion before returning to their stations in 1916. The women are seeking for six fully qualified trained nurses to go out in the near future to' assist in the newly planned medical work. Doctor Mabie also is to have a little maternity and children’s hospital at Kimpese for train¬ ing purposes. A new day is dawning for our Congo doctors. Many of the diseases prevalent in our own country are common in Congoland, such as mumps, measles, whoop¬ ing-cough, chicken-pox and smallpox, bronchitis, pleu¬ risy and pneumonia, rheumatism and inflammatory trou¬ bles, besides a number of tropical diseases. Sleeping sickness is perhaps the best advertised among the latter. It has been a terrible scourge throughout both East and West Central Africa. Its etiology and transmission by tsetse flies has been determined. No treatment yet found Doctor Mabie conducting a baby clinic at Banza Manteke Medical Work 27 is very satisfactory. Smallpox has been about stamped out of the lower Congo country by vaccination. A few years ago just a rumor that smallpox was devouring across the river brought crowds for six or seven weeks to Banza Manteke seeking vaccination. Such a howling, smelly mob I have never before or since been engulfed among. A number of mothers with twin babies were in the crowd, and several requested that little images tied about baby wrists and representing dead twins should be scratched lest the spirits of the dead be jealous and the remaining children die. Twin mothers and twins are no longer driven out and exposed as formerly, but many superstitions still gather about twin births. Malaria is an ever-present menace. Most missionaries take from three to five grains of quinine daily as a pre¬ ventive measure. The native children have invasion on invasion, and many deaths result. It is less prevalent among the adult population, who seem to have developed a partial immunity in childhood. The white man’s dead¬ liest foe, hemoglobinuria, or black-water fever as it is commonly called, does not often appear in the native. Both white and black suffer much with dysentery and various intestinal infections. The natives are depleted by the ravages of hookworm and intestinal parasites. The death-rate is high, infant mortality extremely high; few live to be sixty. The problems which the medical mis¬ sionary faces in Central Africa are appalling and test his nerve and courage to the utmost, and sometimes almost daunt his optimism, but it is his wont to keep a stiff upper lip. Missionary furloughs come oftener than in the Asiatic missions, for there are no hills of sufficient height 1 to afford a yearly recuperation as in China and India, c 28 Our Work on the Congo White children may not be kept more than about two years in the country. This necessitates the leaving of all children in the homeland whenever missionaries return to their work, and is one of the most serious problems of missionary endeavor in Central Africa. It is not a white man’s country, and it is imperative that we should raise up a trained native leadership as soon as possible, who shall lead their own people into more abundant life. Thus far we have not been able to train young women as nurses. The girls all marry young, and if widowed remarry. The trained nurse as we know her would not fit into the primitive stage of civilization existing in the Congo town. We doctors all have trained boys as com¬ pounders and dispensers and general assistants, and have found them invaluable. The wives of students under in¬ struction at Kimpese for three years seem to offer the best substitute for the trained nurse. Their husbands will be the leading men in the district, in many instances will be more influential than the chiefs themselves, and as teachers and preachers will be interested in the general welfare of their people and will encourage their wives to make use of whatever training they may have received in first aid and nursing. To give them as much training along this line as possible seems a possible temporary solution of the nursing problem worth trying. The medical missionary is splendidly equipped to dis¬ sipate the fog and mists in which the animist lives and moves. In no way is the foolishness of superstition oftener demonstrated than in his treatment of disease. Even the heathen mother who wants not the doctor’s faith learns that quinine cures malaria much better than cutting and burning the baby, and comes for medicine. Many Medical Work 29 who would not otherwise be approachable come for aid when sick, and we doctors have many an opportunity to prescribe for spiritual as well as for physical indisposi¬ tions. Humbly, in His steps who went about doing good, we follow. CHAPTER VI Is It Worth While? The long hot season, when for many months the mer¬ cury had registered well up in the nineties, and frequent heavy tropical downpours had kept the atmosphere satu¬ rated with moisture, was drawing to a close. Kimpese with its well-kept lawns, its broad paths bordered with citronella grass and coconut-palms, its fine roses and flowering shrubs, never looked lovelier. But two more weeks of the school year remained, and everybody was tired. Old Sol had been up for a half-hour when the six-thirty bell summoned the students to the first test of examination week. Immediately the paths were alive with men and women hurrying to their respective class¬ rooms and teachers scurrying across the compound. The session had been a good one, and everybody had worked hard, and the faculty were confident that most of the students would hand in good papers. Prospective students had begun arriving to take their entrance examinations the next day, and were making the most of their opportunity to secure medical advice for themselves, their families, and townsfolk. For days the students had been receiving letters from their home districts, detailing the ailments of half the inhabitants and charging them to buy medicines from the doctor to bring home with them. The students themselves wanted medi¬ cines for all the possible sicknesses which might super- 30 Is It Worth While? 3 i vene during the months they would be away from their doctor. These were unusually busy days for the tired doctor. Twice during the night she had been disturbed by a student and his wife with a baby in convulsions induced by improper feeding after a sharp attack of dysentery, and against which they had been repeatedly warned; and now she was conducting a simple test in physiology with a class of women and wondering if, after all, it was worth while. On returning to the house she found a little group of strangers sitting on the veranda waiting for the doctor. One of them, a big fellow, arose and offered two fowls. “ How much do you want for them? ” asked the doctor. “ They are a gift, nengua dokuta. Do you not know this woman, my wife?” bidding her come forward, where¬ upon I recognized a little woman, a stranger who several months before had come for medicine for her baby. I had suggested the removal of an unsightly tumor from her lip, and after more trouble than anticipated had sent her back to her man decidedly better-looking, and here was a bit of gratuitous appreciation. When the students had gone could not the doctor visit their town, teach them, and heal their sick? Would they provide free carriers for her and for her loads? Yes. Well, perhaps next month. The rest of the people seeking assistance were sent over to the dispensary and told that after attending station prayers their needs would be attended to. This was the doctor’s morning to take prayers, and scarcely time for eating breakfast remained before the half-past eight bell rang. At nine o’clock the dispensary opened to applicants from the district round about. A crowd of half-naked, 32 Our Work on the Congo dirty, heathen mothers crowded about the door with their sick babies; there were children with yaws and itch and other skin diseases; abscesses needing the knife; men with childless wives seeking children or with wives whose children all die. An old man whose excesses had stamped themselves upon his face, seeking renewed vigor, is given a tonic and told that the wages of sin is death, then pointed to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, and assured that whosoever believeth in him should have everlasting life. A sorrowful woman whose eleven children had all died in infancy sought something to preserve her unborn child alive after its birth. She was advised to bring the child immediately it appeared un¬ well, and marveled as she heard of the divine Shepherd who carries the lambs in his bosom. The white woman said she too might go to him, through faith in his name. Yes, she would come again to hear more. Would her child live? Silently the doctor commends her to Him who, seeing the multitude, had compassion upon them. Just as the dispensary is closing a party of well-dressed natives arrive by the down train, wanting immediate at¬ tention so that they may presently return by the up train. These are able to pay well for treatment. It strikes noon, and station activities cease for a couple of hours. The afternoon brings more pilgrims in search of heal¬ ing, also its duties in the primary division of the practice school. Out of fifty beginners eight months ago, more than half are reading, writing, and doing simple combina¬ tions up to ten. Even the cunning little “ kindergart- ners ” know a few words. All are thinking of vacation and home-going these last days. How much the Chris¬ tian environment of Kimpese will mean to these children The Children’s Hour,” conducted by Doctor Mabie when on an itineration Is It Worth While? 33 segregated for three years from the evil associations and open wickedness of the native town, only the future will reveal. On her way home the doctor drops in to see a new baby down in the student quarters, and finds the happy mother surrounded by a group of student wives busily picking open squash-seeds, shelling peanuts or beans, and, like mothers everywhere, admiring and discussing the new baby, telling whom it looks like, etc. Its name is Kiesi, “ Joy,” which leads us all to reminiscencing. Three years before, Mona Meso had come with her husband and four children very unwillingly. Her people were heathen and greatly opposed to her going so far away from home. Something dreadful would surely happen, somebody die. Save for the fact that her husband could not enter with¬ out his wife and family, she would never have come. Just as they were beginning to adjust themselves to the new life a child sickened, and despite every effort in its behalf was dying. Early one morning the parents came, saying they were going. With difficulty I had persuaded them to return to the house, where we sat down on the floor, the mother with the dying babe in her arms, and I trying as best I could to show her that dimly lighted, misty pathway that leads down through the dark valley and on and up to the gates of pearl, the path that never again can be altogether dark to us who have seen it glow with the passing of our Master’s feet, but she couldn’t see it. They stayed, and we buried the babe with a hymn and a prayer. Everybody was kind to' Mona Meso; the wo¬ men cooked her food and brought her wood and water. She was persuaded to bathe and wear clean clothing, and within a few days, returned to classes. All through the 34 Our Work on the Congo year we tried to help her grasp the verities of our faith. On her return to her town, her people all said, “We told you so. Of course you will never return.” But she did, and the next session another baby was born, and another died. There was nothing said about “ going,” and they were very much quieter in their grief ; the valley was be¬ ginning to glow. As w-e were preparing for the burial the mother said, “ But what shall I say to my people ? ” I replied, “ I don’t know, Mona Meso; just talk to them out of your own heart.” On her second return to her village, all her relatives and the townsfolk came out to meet her, howling and wailing as those who go to a burial. As soon as she could she stopped them, saying, “ Don’t; we Christians don’t mourn that way. Our baby isn’t dead.” “ Isn’t dead? Where is it then? You wrote us that it was dead.” “ Yes,” she replied, “ we buried her, but she is not dead. Jesus is keeping her in his arms until we come, and so we do not cry as we used to do.” Just a little bit of heaven had gotten into that poor wo¬ man’s soul and shone through. Wasn’t it worth while, after all ? Commencement week with its senior banquet, class-day exercises, stirring Sunday sermon by a visiting trustee, and the final gathering about the Lord’s table in remem¬ brance of him whose we are and whom we serve, was over, and the station, seemed strangely silent and de¬ serted save for the dispensary folk who kept coming. The call of the wild kept stealing over the hills and would not be silenced until bed and bedding were snugly rolled in their ground-sheet, chop-box packed, bath filled with dishes, cooking utensils, etc., a tin trunk filled with old clothes and some colored picture-rolls, medical and surgi- Is It Worth While? 35 cal supplies packed and the old hammock tied to its pole, and the last night spent in a quiet, comfortable bed-cham¬ ber, and we are off in Indian file over the hills, far away from the routine of station life. In God’s great out-of- doors weariness is forgotten, and time is less measured. Lunch is eaten beside some wayside stream, while we chat with the carriers. But the news has spread that the doctor is passing this way, and at the next crossroads a little group of folk in need of medical attention is met. The carrier with the medicines is behind, and while await¬ ing his arrival the cases are diagnosed. One who needs surgical attention is advised to follow on to the night’s camping-place, and all are told of a three days’ halt in a not distant town, where some special meetings are to be held and a temporary clinic established. Before sunset the bed with its mosquito-curtain has been set up in a native house, the chop-box hung beyond the reach of ants, and over an open fire the cook is pre¬ paring “ chop,” while his mistress is looking up the in¬ valids tucked away in little dark smoky grass-huts. After supper all gather out under the stars for a little meeting. After a few gospel songs and a prayer, the teacher says, “ Tell us the story of Elijah and the idolaters.” So we tell them the ancient story, tell it as though the lonely prophet might have been a Congo man of God left stranded in some backward lapse of his people into old heathen customs, till they see him standing alone with God, over against him the erring people and their false teachers. How eagerly they listen as the story ap¬ proaches its climax! Truly the Lord he is God, they echo with Israel’s hosts. Perhaps it had seemed to some of them that they “ only ” remained true to the Lord God, 36 Our Work on the Congo and the old story renews their faith and courage. Fol¬ lowing the meeting there would be matters of various sorts that the teacher and his wife had been waiting to talk over with the missionary. After a night disturbed by mosquitoes, crying babies, dogs baying at the moon, pigs and goats nosing and prancing about the town, it is time for the early morning town prayers after which the school must be inspected, then breakfast with the little children standing shyly at a distance watching the strange white woman eat. I have never found the villagers discourteous or unduly familiar, and having traveled hundreds of miles with native car¬ riers of various sorts, have never known them to be guilty of rudeness, and have often wondered at their con¬ sideration for my welfare. After breakfast the medicine- chest is opened, and people with bottles begin to gather about the dispensing-table, usually more than enough to last until dinnertime. After a couple of hours’ rest, per¬ haps with a good story for diversion, the children must have a story. As some lesson-roll pictures are shown, per¬ haps of Daniel and his three stanch companions, the boys and girls, all eyes and ears, hear of the boys who dared endure for the sake of the Name. Until the missionary brought them such stories provocative of courage and high resolve, they had been without all such inspiration which has counted so much in the development of Chris¬ tian character among us. There may still be time for a little talk with the women before they begin getting sup¬ per, and then another evening meeting for all. The next day camp is made in another town. In the third it has been arranged to gather the Christians from all the sur¬ rounding towns for a two or three days’ conference, with Is It Worth While? 37 three Bible lessons a day, besides attending to their sick. If ever the servant enters into fellowship with his Lord as he saw the people as sheep having no shepherd, it is when on such an itineration as this out among our Congo villages. Two or three weeks of such holidaying, and home with its promise of a good hot bath and quiet, comfortable, airy bedroom, to say nothing of the privacy of one’s own breakfast-room, looks good to the doctor. Life has regained its zest, and it all seems so very much worth while that she only wishes she could multiply her¬ self by a half dozen, all to spend and be spent in disin¬ terested service among the Lord’s black sheep. i /