10 On to the Interrior
Chapter 10 ON TO THE INTERIOR January— August, 1892 WITH each year the course of the colonial government added something to the strength of conviction in the mission that their only way out was by the transfer proposed. Dr. Good’s position was clear. The transfer must take place:
1. To save Christians and the prosperous churches in the Ogowe from falling to Roman Catholics. American missionaries were liable to be ultimately expelled from the river; unless evangelical Frenchmen could take possession of their stations, Jesuits would.
2. French Protestants had decided to come to Congo Franais; rival stations were not to be thought of.
3. Economy of mission funds demanded it. French schools in the Ogowe could be conducted at half the cost of American schools, because granted a much larger subsidy; government also discriminated heavily in their favor in custom duties. The Board of Foreign Missions in New York had for many months seriously weighed the question of their duty when the transfer should be consummated. A section of the mission force in Africa would then be set free for new undertakings. Where did wisdom and the providence of God point as the proper location of this force! As usual, Dr. Good’s views were constructive. He saw a great stretch of inland savagery reaching up to the very door-stone of the mission. There was the place to begin. " While we hold the coast we have the key to a great interior which we ought to open or give somebody else the key." The work "grandly begun" on the coast could not be abandoned, and it pointed to the next step, eastward from Bata and Batanga. " In such a work we ought not to act as if we were trading horses, but rather see what will, in the long run, most hasten the coming of the kingdom." As to distance: " We cannot expect the interior to come closer to the coast than one hundred miles. To reach Stanley Pool is a land journey of twenty days over fearful country." At the opening of 1892, mission requested Dr. Good, should the Board endorse and authorize the same, to select an associate and make a trip of exploration into the country adjoining Batanga district on the east, with reference to a future occupation in those parts. At this point the Africa Mission takes up afresh the old cry which had been raised by voice after voice from the beginning of its history:
" If the providence of God [Wilson, 1843] shall continue to smile on this mission, we may hope that Christianity will have a favorable door of entrance in the interior." " Before a mission can be established in the interior [Report, ’49] the acquaintance of intermediate people must be made. The line of communication must be in the hearts of the people." " Ten years have passed [Bushnell, ’54] since we first came in view of these Ethiopian mountains,... with feeble ranks we have been detained upon these lowlands. Oh, when shall we be permitted to unfurl the banner of Immanuel there? " Ogden’s dying words (’61) had never been forgotten: " Who will go? — will you go? — who will go to preach on the mainland? " " We looked up the lovely Benito [George Paull, ’64] to the great blue mountains beyond, and thought of the plenty, plenty people’ waiting... to catch some tidings of salvation. We are encouraged to hope that ere many years those dark hilltops shall shine with the glory of a brighter dawn." " It is the country far back from the sea [Report, ’74] that our mission must consider. There dwell the myriads of Africa. Every door that may be opened by Providence inland should be at once entered."
Doors had been entered from time to time; some after opening had closed again; now the mission was looking eastward and asking whether again they saw the door. At Kangwe Dr. Good awaited marching orders from the Board; but the expected instructions were mysteriously delayed. Mail succeeded mail, and no reference to the all important subject. Had their plans collapsed? With each passing week the rains approached so much the nearer, when exposure in travel must be proportionally increased. With soldierly obedience, he would not stir from his post to anticipate orders by a day. He plunged into work industriously. All spare hours, early, late, while waiting for other people, now and again a steady pull for a week, he bent over the Mpongwe New Testament which was begun two years before. At length, as the last line of revision was complete, the long-awaited letter came, June 16. It had been mailed three months before.
Arrangements were at once made for proceeding to Batanga, his family to be left meanwhile at Gaboon. A substitute at Kangwe was obtained in the missionary from Talaguga, which station was formally turned over to the French in the following month.
Dr. Good preached as usual on the last Sunday, taking no formal farewell of his people. The journey on which he was bound could at present be treated only as an experiment, and he expected, for shorter or longer, to come again to Kangwe. In truth, the books he left standing on their shelves he never touched again. The road on which he was started now would never lead back to the scene of those seven rounded years of manful toil; its goal lay far north, in a region untrodden by white man’s foot. On the Fourth of July — auspicious day — the little party, all unknowing, looked their last towards their home, buried among feathery palms and orange trees, as the boat turned southward on the oft-traversed river course. Ten years’ experience in Africa forbade this step should be taken lightly; no one more sensible than Dr. Good himself what hardship and risk were certain, how much might he involved. From this time forth there appears in his letters, always marked by freedom from hackneyed pious expressions, an unwonted note of gravity which repeats itself, with simple urgency, again and again: " Praying that we may all be divinely guided in this new enterprise." Yet it was with ample courage, and not without some exhilaration, that the intrepid missionary turned down the Ogowe page to open upon a new chapter.
Plans had not been deferred until the time to start. In looking for a mission location, he proposed to avoid the German government road, with the chance of becoming involved in government conflicts with natives. He determined to travel with the fewest carriers possible, not only to save expense, but because every additional man would increase the danger of a breakdown; the sickness of even one carrier would delay the whole party. In response to a charge from the Board to use caution: " I shall try to have a [missionary] companion, and shall prepare as carefully against all emergencies and dangers as I know how; but the emergency against which I shall most carefully provide is failure." He ventured no prophecies. "It is difficult to speculate about fields one has never seen. A road is hard or easy according to a man’s idea of what a hard road is. The German gave a rather dark picture of the road for the first seven days; but, as I looked at him, I decided in my mind that he was not a man of great physical endurance, and his picture may be too dark."
West Coast men are not, like the Zanzibari, trained carriers; they are not equal to a load as heavy by twenty pounds, and are afraid to enter the country of a strange tribe. The greatest vexation which Dr. Good encountered this summer was in securing his few necessary guides and carriers. Trade goods, which, instead of money, would purchase food, must be transported; the weight of every article had to be calculated, anything not absolutely essential being rigidly excluded; and then, had it not been for four boys from the Ogowe who could be implicitly depended on, men could scarcely have been found for even the seven loads. When, on the sixteenth day after leaving Kangwe, all was ready at Batanga, and none of his brethren, though willing, was thoroughly available for the journey, Dr. Good started alone at the head of his modest caravan. In this preliminary exploration, which lasted twenty-three days, he reached a point about one hundred miles inland. No report of it was offered to the mission, because the population found was not sufficient to justify opening stations on this route. Trinity Church, however, received a letter which, besides details peculiar to this instance, unfolds several features common to all exploration in Equatorial Africa:
" Now a word as to this country into which I am about to lead you. The Batanga people live on the sea shore. Just back of them are the people called here Mabeya, Dibea, by some Osyeba, but who call themselves Kwasiwo. Their towns are within ten or fifteen miles of the beach. Among Batanga people the gospel has taken a strong hold. Among these Mabeya scarcely anything has been done; but the devil has been busy among them, and many of them are slaves to drink.
" When we had passed the last Mabeya town we found ourselves in a virgin forest, through which we had to travel from sixty to eighty miles before we reached the inhabited interior. This meant that food must be carried for from five to eight days, according to the rate of march. There are, of course, no roads, only narrow winding paths; no bridges over streams, no swamps filled up, no hotels, only low rude sheds under which travelers may sleep on beds of poles with a fire on each side, but affording little protection from rain. The natives dislike climbing hills, and so these roads are fairly level; but, unfortunately for white men, they do not have the same dread of mud and water. We had hardly gotten into the forest when the path dropped down into the bed of a stream, which it followed for a hundred yards or more.
" We tried each day to start soon after six in the morning. By half -past ten or eleven we stopped to eat, and by three or four in the afternoon everybody was tired enough to stop for the night. Beyond this there is little to say of our tramp through the forest. There were a few birds in the trees, usually too high to be shot. We saw a few deer, or rather antelope; but I got only one chance for a shot, and that time my gun missed fire. There were many traces of elephants and occasionally of buffaloes, also wild hogs. We saw many monkeys, some of them very large; but the trees were so enormously high that shot would not reach them, and the forest was always so dark that it was impossible to shoot with a rifle with any accuracy. Even where trees were neither very high nor very thick it seemed unaccountably dark. Most of the time the sun was clouded, and the effect was as if twilight had already fallen, even at noonday. Even when the sun came out, it seemed to have no power. In fact, African sunlight is in some way of an inferior quality. As Mr. Stanley has said, it is more like moonlight than sunlight.
" On Tuesday, the sixth day, about 2 p.m., suddenly the forest grew light before us, and a few moments later we came into a clearing close to a small Bulu town called Bieti. Here for the first time in seventy-five miles we were able to see out and look about us. We were well received by the people, according to their ideas of hospitality. The old chief was very friendly, and gave me a fowl and my people plantains, although food was scarce. After some time a house was provided, and glad was I to be under a roof, even if I could hardly stand erect under it. I had known that the Bulu people were closely allied to the Fang; but I soon found that, while many words were the same in the two languages, the differences were so great that little that I said was intelligible to them. How was I to preach to them — for preach I must? Our guides had told them that we are not traders but teach people the words of God, and the whole town was anxious to hear what was our message. They all came together, and the palaver house was packed with men, women, and dogs. Fires are always kept burning in these houses, and the smoke was very affecting, often moving one to tears; but it had to be borne. I talked in Fang, which my Mabeya people understand a little better than the Bulu people, so they helped me to explain what I could not express clearly. But they added a good deal to what I said, being anxious to display their knowledge, and I was not quite sure that what they said was always orthodox.
" Among the Bulu I was on new ground and had to begin by finding out what they call God, and I got a new name for the Creator of all things — Nzambe. The Mpongwe call God Anyambie; the Benga and Batanga people, Anyambe; the Mabeya, Njanibe; the Fang, Nzam; and here the Bulu call him by a name evidently related to the others and yet different enough to be confusing.
" A scene here was repeated daily for the next two weeks. I wished to impress upon them the truth that God is not far from any of us and can hear us when we pray. So I explained the meaning of prayer, and requested them all to keep quiet while I rose and began. At first there was only a little noise, but three or four shouted out, ’Keep quiet! ’ To make matters worse, the Mabeya shouted, ’Shut your eyes!’ So unusual a performance convulsed some with laughter. Some mothers thought closing the eyes was an important matter, and so held their hands over their children’s eyes. Of course the youngsters screamed. Some women became frightened and bolted for the door, laughing and screaming; and the dozen or more dogs that had been asleep around the fires, roused up by the unusual excitement, began to bark. I need hardly add that by this time the prayer was effectually interrupted.
" At Akok, the village of Ndum, we spent a most interesting Sabbath. The chief killed a large sheep, and did his best to make us comfortable. People came in from the surrounding country, and I preached, or tried to, rather, to a large audience. I kept my notebook in hand constantly, and set down every deviation from the Fang which I noticed. Sabbath morning I got on fairly well, and Sabbath evening the people encouraged me by declaring that they understood everything I said. Some of them stood around and questioned about what I had preached till late at night. One thing especially pleased me. When I said I must go on the morrow they seemed sorry, but made no effort to hinder me. On the whole, I liked the Bulu. They resemble the Fang but are more civil and humane. I may be mistaken, but it seemed to me they had the good qualities of the Fang and not all of their faults. But I must add, they could lie almost as well as Fang."
Dr. Good tried to find out how far north of the Campo River he was, and as a specimen of the difficulty in getting geographical information is the variety of answers he received: " We don’t know." " It is very far. No people live between here and the Campo. There are no roads." " It is one day’s journey." "It is ten days’ journey." "It is three or four days’ journey." "The country between here and the Campo is inhabited by Fang; some of their towns are quite near." " The country between us and the Campo is inhabited by Bulu, but none of them live within three or four days’ journey."
Sabbath, on the rapid march home, was spent in the edge of the forest. "What a Sabbath! It rained most of the day. My hut was so low I could not stand in it. The people were noisy and offensively curious, but withal meant well. I could make myself understood, and many seemed interested. They begged me to come soon again, and were sure, if I would stay and preach to them, they would all become Christians. Poor people! How little they realize the strength of the chains with which the devil has bound them! " In the interval between his first and second exploring journeys, and while mustering carriers again, Dr. Good was copying his Mpongwe manuscript with exceeding care for the diacritical marks, as it would be put in type in America by printers of course ignorant of the language. The Board having asked for suggestions from all missionaries regarding the " Manual," about to be reissued, he addressed to them some of his matured views on practical points. They related largely to the subject of expense. In regard to voting in mission meeting, he urged that lay missionaries, men and women alike, should vote upon all questions; that employees of the mission should be appointed missionaries " after long, approved service "; wives should be "associate missionaries," without a vote but with a voice in mission affairs whenever they chose. " To refuse the vote to laymen is to wrong men and women who, in all but ordination, are the equal of their ministerial brethren."