“Saunders sent over the junga for Beryl, so that she was able to cover the six miles in comparative comfort, while I paddled furiously behind upon an antediluvian bicycle. For the benefit of the uninitiated I should perhaps explain that a junga is anything which moves upon wheels. Originally it meant a bicycle, but in this particular instance it refers to a marvellous construction, balanced upon one wheel, which has been built by Saunders himself in the Kapembwa workshop out of some old packing cases and gas piping, and which has to my mind solved the question of locomotion in this country.”
We stayed for two nights at the Mission house at Mpolokoso with Dr. McFarlane. On account of the small*pox it was impossible to visit the schools or to meet with the people, though on the Sunday night some half-dozen of the Mission staff, who do not live in the village, met us and presented us with a generous offering to the L. M. S. of £4 12s. 6d., made by the infant Church, which consisted of nine members only, a welcome token of the missionary spirit of the newest and smallest of the Central African Churches.
Travelling eastward from Mpolokoso we reached Kambole, near the south end of Lake Tanganyika, after three days’ journey. On our way we had our first view of this great lonely lake, eight miles away through the trees, probably from the very spot where Livingstone saw it for the first time. As we approached the station the people ran beside the bicycle and bush-car shouting their salutations and showing their joy in welcoming us in many other ways.
Kambole is the centre of a very widely-scattered district, and is in an isolated position. The nearest village is an hour and a-half’s walk away from the station-village, and some out-stations lie three or four days’ journey distant. It takes the missionaries five weeks’ continuous travelling to make a circuit of the district.
Many branches of missionary work are carried on at this centre. We attended crowded services in the Church, and meetings with the classes for hearers, catechumens, teachers and women. Some ninety-six youths, who were teachers at the schools in the outstations, at which there are 1,800 scholars, gathered at Kambole during our visit to attend the school for the training of teachers, which is held twice a year at the head station and lasts for about two months. Mr. Stewart Wright, one of the Kambole missionaries, carries on an extensive out-patient work at the dispensary near the wattle-and-daub church. Mr. Ross, the other missionary, is engaged in manifold activities and has charge of the industrial department which was established and carried on so successfully by Mr. Bernard Turner, who is now at Mbereshi. The prolific mission garden is another indication of the practical value of Mr. Turner’s work. It is excellently irrigated by the construction of water-furrows. Palms, limes, bamboos, bananas, yams, pineapples, guavas, grenadiloes, coffee, wheat, tapioca, rice, rubber, and many vegetables and flowers flourish abundantly.
Half-an-hour’s walk from the Mission House, along an eight-foot road cut through the forest for a mile and a-half, at a total cost of £2 10s. 0d., takes one to the edge of the Tanganyika Plateau, where there is a sheer fall of from 400 to 500 feet. On the right is the river, which descends in a series of beautiful waterfalls, arched over with foliage and rock, to the level of the lake below. In front the lake stretches away into the distance extending for 400 miles northward. It is bordered on the left by the mountains of the Belgian Congo and on the right by the hills of German East Africa. At the foot of the precipice is a fertile valley, once thickly populated but now uninhabited, owing to the sleeping sickness, and through this beautiful valley flows the river Lovu.
At Kambole we came across a cripple, by name Kalolo, whose history affords an illustration of the sort of missionary work which is being carried on in our Central Africa Mission.
Mr. Ross found Kalolo at Katwe, near Kambole, in 1906, destitute and emaciated, cowering over a few embers of fire, his feet a mass of putrid ulcers, which had not been washed or dressed for many a long day. He seemed to have no relations. Mr. Ross brought him to the station at Kambole, and on his arrival prepared lotions for him, and put him in charge of another youth, also a cripple, whom he told to wash Kalolo’s sores. Cripple No. 2, by name Nundo, was afraid and demurred. Mr. Ross took him into the house and read to him the story of the Good Samaritan, and told him to go and help Kalolo. He then consented, and assisted the missionary to attend to Kalolo for a long time. Mr. Ross had taught Nundo to repair boots and shoes, and this work he did for some time, but ultimately disappeared while Mr. Ross was on furlough. Mr. and Mrs. Ross did their best for Kalolo for five years, thus bearing witness to the people of the compassionate spirit of the Gospel they had come to teach. The Mission doctors when visiting the station treated Kalolo, but at last (in 1910) Dr. Wareham, after vainly endeavouring to cure his tedious ulcers by palliative measures, amputated both feet. When Kalolo returned to consciousness he was so depressed that he tried to destroy himself. He still bears a scar on his forehead caused by dashing his head upon the ground in his despair. He was, however, brought through that crisis, and when he had recovered he was sent back to Kambole station. A wooden waggon was made in the joiner’s shop to enable him to get about. Then he was taught boot and shoe repairing, as the Europeans in the neighbourhood all sent their boots and shoes to Kambole to be repaired. Kalolo was highly delighted to have a means of making a living, and became a most useful man at that station. Later, when Mr. Ross wished to find employment for two blind men who came seeking work, he put them with Kalolo to grind wheat. They proved to be a most successful trio at this work, and in sawing up timber with the cross-cut saw, at which employment they were engaged during my visit. Kalolo came to Mr. Ross long ago to say that he wished to join the Enquirers’ Class, and was enrolled. He afterwards came to the missionary and offered to help to dress the repulsive sores of another unfortunate occupant of the little station hospital. Thus the light of the Gospel is spreading in Darkest Africa, and the Native torch-bearers are lifting it high, and passing it on from hand to hand until “the beauty and the glory of the Light” shall illumine the people that are now sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Accompanied by a large crowd of people, who escorted us on our way for two or three miles, we left Kambole, still travelling eastward, for Kafukula, a mission station near the south-eastern corner of Lake Tanganyika, staying for a night at a village to which some of the people on the lake shore had been moved in consequence of the sleeping-sickness. It was amongst these people that Livingstone stayed for some weeks when he first visited the lake. The exterior of many of the huts was decorated with charms in the shape of snail shells. Nearly all the women of the village had holes, about the size of five-shilling pieces, in the lobes of their ears, in which large discs of wood, decorated with grotesque specimens of native art, were placed.
