FERRY OVER NKISI RIVER. MRS. LEWIS IN CANOE.
HOME OF MR. AND MRS. LEWIS AT COMBER MEMORIAL STATION, KIBOKOLO (1903).
“At Kibokolo we are surrounded by a very large population, and we shall have our hands very full with work. As yet the people are a little afraid of us, and they find considerable difficulty in understanding why we have come to Africa at all. They understand the business of a Government official or of a trader; but they cannot account for the purpose of a missionary in coming to them and not buying either rubber or ivory. When we tell them that we bring them the good news by which they may be saved, at first it gives a fine scope for their superstition to work. The general opinion among these people is that we come to take their souls away, and especially those of children, to be made into white men in the white man’s country. They believe that it is our subtle way of carrying on the slave-trade. This is the common belief; but of course many know better, especially the men-folk, who go to sell their rubber, &c., at the coast. As the people become accustomed to us and to our ways they will see things in a different light, and this is so with not a few of them already.
“Mr. Pinnock has made good use of his two months’ residence here, for several of the leading men in this town are on very friendly terms with him, and will do anything for him. When the food for workmen is short, he has only to speak to the chief and he gets it. It is wonderful what influence he has, when we consider the short time he has been among them. Nearly all his time has been spent in putting up a grass-house, which is to serve all three of us for the present. We are now living in this house, which is very comfortable. It has two rooms measuring 18 feet by 15 feet. Mr. Pinnock occupies one, and my wife and I the other. At one end we have a ‘lean-to,’ which serves for a dining-room. The furniture at present consists principally of cases of provisions and bales of cloth, with some tin trunks containing our personal apparel, &c., which we have brought with us from San Salvador. The rainy season has just commenced, and we are thankful to be under a rainproof shelter before the very heavy rains come. We shall live in this condition until next May or June, when I trust we shall be in a position to commence building our permanent houses.”
CHAPTER XII
LIFE AT KIBOKOLO
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis began their work in Kibokolo, Zombo, in October, 1899, and left it finally seven years later, having spent the year 1901, and the first half of 1902, in England on furlough. Those seven years were lean and hungry years which would have eaten up all the joy of former harvests if the hearts of the workers had not been nourished and cheered by unfailing faith in God. It was their business and that of their colleagues, in fact and in figure, to clear the ground, and transform a patch of wilderness into fields capable of bearing plenty. Their new neighbours were a wild, shy, suspicious people, and life at San Salvador with all its crudities seemed like civilisation when compared with the unmitigated barbarism of Zombo.
The people had invited Mr. and Mrs. Lewis to come among them, but they had done so, moved by considerations which were of the earth earthy, and it was inevitable that they should experience a measure of disappointment. The missionaries were of course prepared for this, and entered the open door with a good conscience, assured that in the end their mission would secure for the people even greater earthly blessings than those they had forecast.