HEWING A STATION 
 OUT OF 
 
 THE AFRICAN JUNGLE 
 
 by 
 
 P. H. J. LERRIGO 
 
 Published by 
 
 The Board of Missionary Cooperation 
 of The Northern Baptist Convention 
 
 for 
 
 The American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 
 
 276 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
 
Hewing a Station out 
 of the African Jungle 
 
 WO axes, a saw, a hammer, a box 
 of nails, two bales of cloth, and 
 ten sacks of salt comprised the 
 working equipment with which 
 Dr. W 7 . H. Leslie hewed Vanga 
 out of the primitive African jun¬ 
 gle. W 7 ith this meager outfit he 
 attacked the tangled mass of un¬ 
 derbrush and interlacing creepers which bind together 
 age-old jungle giants and form with them Congo’s 
 menacing denial to the pioneering onslaught of the 
 missionary. He forced his way up the declivity of 
 the bank of the river Kwilu and, despite brush-nur¬ 
 tured tsetse fly and ubiquitous mosquito, bit by bit 
 pushed back the wild forest until he had won the 
 broad sweep of a splendid plateau from the wilder¬ 
 ness. 
 
 This is not ancient missionary history, for its be¬ 
 ginnings date from the year 1913. The forbidding- 
 mass of vegetation reared itself above the river-bank 
 
 O 
 
 [3l 
 
and cast its heavy shadows over the water. Beyond 
 the fringe of forest skirting the river lay cannibal 
 villages absolutely untouched by the gospel and very 
 little acquainted with the white man and his ways. 
 The first day’s clearing yielded little more than space 
 for the tent on the beach, but day after day the two 
 axes and the saw cut deeper into the intricate mass 
 until the summit was reached, and then the hammer 
 and box of nails came into play. In the brief period 
 which has intervened since its opening, the station has 
 spread over the entire plateau. Its twenty-one wattle- 
 and-mud buildings include the homes of the mission¬ 
 aries, the church, the school, the dispensary, the car¬ 
 penter-shop, the houses for schoolboys, the girls’ 
 dormitory, the printing-shop, and the guest-house. 
 It presents an attractive and orderly village crown¬ 
 ing the rise from the river, with plaza, main street, 
 and pineapple-bordered avenue running backward 
 between plantations of manioc, coffee, and bananas 
 to the main road leading to the native village. 
 
 This attractive base, wrested from endless miles 
 of prevailing wilderness, is merely the starting-point 
 from which pioneer journeys have carried the mes¬ 
 sage far and wide through hundreds of miles of plain 
 and forest, until no less than fifty villages have re¬ 
 sponded to the call and welcomed both gospel preach¬ 
 ing and the establishment of schools. 
 
 [ 4 ] 
 
Eight days distant a main outpost has been estab¬ 
 lished in the village of Moanza which, while depend¬ 
 ent for direction and encouragement upon the station 
 of Vanga, has itself become a center of power and 
 light. Twenty-two additional village schools and 
 preaching services are under the care of Mpambu, 
 the vigorous African leader whose story is told else¬ 
 where. 
 
 The little bush school is a primitive establish¬ 
 ment. Its home is usually a grass-thatched native 
 hut, its equipment a few slates and a primer or two, 
 and its presiding genius a young lad whose own men¬ 
 tal furnishing takes him little beyond the Bible 
 stories and long division; but it is these little village 
 schools which furnish the introduction to the mystery 
 of letters, awaken the desire for a fuller life, and 
 point the way to better and larger things. The trail 
 which leads the missionary over the hills and plains 
 to the cluster of native huts with Bible and school 
 book, turns back upon itself when the unrest of un¬ 
 tried possibilities takes possession of the heart of the 
 youth of the village, and one day a group of boys 
 manifestly not urban in their appearance, equipped 
 with a yearning for knowledge and little else except 
 a piece of cloth varying in size from a few inches 
 to a yard draped artistically amidships, make their 
 appearance at the main station to enter the boarding- 
 
 [5] 
 
BUILDING THE MISSION HOSPITAL AT VANGA 
 
 school. These lads receive an invariable welcome 
 and as they are perfectly capable of working for a liv¬ 
 ing they do not become a charge upon the mission, 
 but vary their wrestlings in the schoolroom with 
 equally strenuous exercises in the forest and manioc 
 patch. The physical equipment of the station, 
 houses, shops, roads, fences, gardens, owes itself to 
 the industry of the schoolboys in their desire for 
 learning. And every new enterprise becomes a new 
 educational factor. If houses are to be built lumber 
 is required, and the white man goes into the forest 
 with saws and men, emerging with a supply of sawed 
 planks and a company of expert sawyers. Bricks are 
 needed j he takes another group of lads, locates a 
 
 [61 
 
clay bank, and dabbles in it. Perhaps to the mission¬ 
 ary himself the task may have been little more than 
 an academic theory previously, but slowly forms are 
 made, kilns are erected, and bricks materialize, while 
 brickmakers and bricklayers are produced in the 
 process. 
 
 There are now more than two hundred boys and 
 young men at Vanga Station. Both school building 
 and chapel are filled to their capacity with classes, 
 and those who cannot find accommodation within 
 pursue their scholastic work on a bench out under a 
 tree. There are classes of small boys and girls learn¬ 
 ing to read from charts in monosyllables, ba, be, bi, 
 bo, bu. There are others beginning to add and sub¬ 
 tract. There are larger youths struggling with the 
 mysteries of the first reader in their own language 
 or languages, for three are in use. The classes in 
 mathematics occasionally go as far as fractions, and 
 the subject is then known as “the study which causes 
 trouble for the head.” Each of these classes is under 
 the leadership of a more advanced scholar who may 
 not be either the largest or eldest by any means. 
 Most astonishing of all is a group of "young men who 
 are grappling with French, and who repeat in quite 
 understandable manner such profound phrases as 
 Ou est mon chapeau? and Le chat est sur le table. 
 Far from despicable progress has been made by some 
 
 [7] 
 
of them, and knowing, of course, nothing of their 
 native tongue, the writer had the satisfaction of com - 
 municating directly with some of them by means of 
 the simple French sentences they have learned. 
 
 Educators everywhere will agree, however, that 
 all of education is not comprised in the schoolroom, 
 and even primitive educational institutions are not 
 exempt from the disturbances caused by love’s young 
 dream. The young men gathering at Vanga speedily 
 made known to their teacher that they were betrothed, 
 and moreover that they were anxious that the village 
 belles, upon whom social custom and the wishes of 
 their uncles had decreed that their youthful affections 
 
 THE GIRLS’ DORMITORY AT VANGA 
 
should be set, should receive similar educational ad¬ 
 vantages to those which they themselves were en¬ 
 joying. 
 
 This presented to the missionary a serious prob¬ 
 lem, but in the fashion of missionaries everywhere 
 he immediately recognized in it a new opportunity, 
 and at the opposite side of the village under the pro¬ 
 tecting wing of the home of the single woman mis¬ 
 sionary, Miss Grage, he caused to be erected another 
 building of the prevailing bamboo-and-clay type to 
 shelter such young girls as the missionaries were able 
 to induce to come to the station. There are now 
 fifty-five of these young ladies and all of them en¬ 
 gaged. Let the imagination dwell upon it. Fifty- 
 five engaged couples upon one station with Cupid 
 panting from overwork and fatigue under a tropical 
 sun. But these young people have other matters to 
 occupy their attention than love-making. The day’s 
 activities begin at sunrise or a little before. The girls 
 are led in companies to their work in the gardens 
 which they weed and plant with manioc. The boys 
 and young men have previously done the heavier 
 spade work and are now away at their house-building, 
 brick-making, or other tasks. The girls continue 
 through the day, alternating industrial and domestic 
 studies with book work in the schoolroom. What 
 with the busy activities of the day, the work, the 
 
 [9] 
 
CHRISTMAS DOLLS IN BELGIAN CONGO 
 
 study, the preparation and consumption of the meals, 
 and in the afternoon the merry games in which all 
 join, the boys in their own precincts and the girls in 
 theirs, the complications of propinquity are avoided. 
 Moreover, it may be noted that the girls range from 
 ten years old upward. Proper occasions for meeting 
 between the boys and girls are arranged under suit¬ 
 able oversight. The boys have the satisfaction of 
 knowing that the future partners of their joys and 
 sorrows are being cared for and trained against the 
 day when they are ready to take a wife, and the girls 
 
 [ 10 ] 
 
blossom happily into a richer and fuller life than 
 ever could have been theirs under the social condi¬ 
 tions of the heathen village. 
 
 This system of wife and husband training has al¬ 
 ready been working at Vanga for some years, and 
 not a few young couples have been graduated into a 
 happy home life and useful Christian service. It 
 has given rise to another unique institution. Behind 
 the mission station a little farther up the hill, sepa¬ 
 rated from the compound by coffee and manioc 
 patches, is a model village built by the graduate 
 young couples. No one is permitted to locate in the 
 village except Christian young couples who have gone 
 through the schools. Each young man builds a house 
 for his bride. They are on a uniform plan, square 
 in outline, have two commodious rooms, are con¬ 
 structed of wood and clay, and have properly fitted 
 doors and windows. The roof is of grass. Each has 
 its own enclosure with a garden where grow paypays, 
 bananas, sweet potatoes, manioc, peppers, and other 
 vegetables. Chickens are found in almost every yard, 
 and there is an occasional goat. The houses face each 
 other on the two sides of a wide, cleanly swept 
 street. The interiors of the houses are neat and clean 
 and are furnished in some cases with tables and chairs. 
 All have beds and mosquito-nettings. Considerable 
 effort has been put forth by the owners to make them 
 
 [HI 
 
attractive. Behind each house is a small cook-house 
 of lighter materials. When the young people marry 
 they join the village and commence their married 
 life under favorable Christian surroundings which 
 enable them to avoid entanglements from the first 
 with the old vicious customs of the heathen village. 
 Seme of these young couples are even learning to 
 eat together, a very great departure from ancient 
 custom, but a practise which will do much to favor 
 the establishment of the Christian home as we know 
 it. 
 
 After some consideration the boys chose the name 
 
 COMING HOME FROM KINDERGARTEN 
 [ 12 ] 
 
of Beige for their little village. They look forward 
 to establishing their houses there with a great deal 
 of pleasure, and it proves an incentive to good work 
 during their school career. The young couples are 
 encouraged to remain in Beige only for a year or 
 two, until family habits are established. They then 
 return to their own village, carrying with them the 
 riches of a new understanding, an enlightened heart, 
 cleanly habits, and better methods of living. 
 
 The situation at Vanga has been described in 
 some detail as it is a fairly typical instance of the 
 creation and development of a mission station. It 
 must be borne in mind, however, that similar efforts 
 varying only in manner and detail are now being car¬ 
 ried on far and wide throughout the Congo territory. 
 There are now 534 missionaries at work in the terri¬ 
 tory covered by the General Conference of Protest¬ 
 ant Missionaries, and all of them are devoting them¬ 
 selves to the establishment or development of such 
 stations. The significance of the movement is diffi¬ 
 cult to gauge. Unquestionably it is profoundly affect¬ 
 ing the life of the country. Social abuses such as 
 cannibalism, fetishism, polygamy, are being greatly 
 mitigated, the power of the witch-doctor is waning, 
 the poison ordeal is disappearing, tribal wars are far 
 less frequent. New moral ideals are being estab¬ 
 lished, ideas of cleanliness are replacing the older 
 
 [ 13] 
 
filthy living conditions, the native is raised from a 
 mat on the floor to a chair, books begin to unfold 
 their secrets to the child mind of the people, and 
 above all a positive, sin-conquering, Christ-revealing 
 faith is taking the place of the ancient religion of 
 terror and degrading superstition. 
 
 Since the foregoing was written much progress 
 has been made at Vanga station. Dr. Leslie’s own 
 son, H. Richards, has spent three years at the station 
 and with his trained engineering knowledge has re¬ 
 placed some of the mud-and-wattle buildings with 
 permanent brick structures. King Albert of Belgium 
 has appointed a sleeping-sickness commission, which 
 after thoroughly investigating the Kwangu area, has 
 removed many of the villages which lay in the lower 
 regions infested by the tsetse flies, to higher areas. 
 Dr. Leslie has cooperated with this government com¬ 
 mission in its valuable work on behalf of the natives 
 and as a result of his long service to the Congo peo¬ 
 ple was recently decorated by King Albert as a Chev¬ 
 alier de l’Ordre Royal du Lion. 
 
 Following in the wake of the sleeping-sickness 
 commission Dr. Leslie visited every one of the new 
 villages and established a native teacher or preacher 
 at each point. More than 1 50 villages are now cared 
 for in this way. 
 
 It has been found possible to place at the outpost 
 
 [ D] 
 
of Moanza an American missionary family, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Thomas Hill, and the elforts carried on so 
 heroically for a decade by Samuel Mpambu are now 
 being reenforced and extended. Mr. and Mrs. Hill 
 have given more than 30 years of successful effort to 
 the work in Congo and Samuel Mpambu himself, 
 the pioneer at Moanza, was one of the young men 
 who came early under their teaching. 
 
 The staff at Vanga has been reenforced so that 
 it is now possible to carry on a much more vigorous 
 evangelistic and educational work in the entire 
 Kwangu area. Dr. Leslie’s recent letters report a 
 new spiritual awakening among the people of that 
 section. 
 
Reprinted by permission of the 
 c^merican 'Baptist 'Publication .Society 
 from 
 
 “Rock Breakers,” by P. H.J. Lerrigo. 
 
 i i67-I-5M-Sept. 1925—10 cents