Assaba is the residence of the Agent-general of the Company, and there is a hospital there for the use of the employés. When the French mission of the Pères du Saint Esprit left Lokodja it established itself at Assaba.
A missionary was waiting for us when we landed, and I went at once to his house. The situation is beautiful enough, but what a hard life the Fathers lead! They are, I believe, rather harassed by the Company, as much because they are French as because they are Catholic, and as a result their tale of converts is not very long. Some Sisters of Charity work in connection with them, and make their way on foot from village to village in the interior, marching at night to avoid the heat of the sun, and visiting the Christian natives far away from the river.
A few hours’ walk off, the Fathers told us, are some big, very big, villages, into which alone they are able to penetrate, not without considerable danger to life sometimes. Terrible scenes of human sacrifice and cannibalism have been witnessed by the devoted Sisters. Such atrocities would never be tolerated in the French Sudan.
But what does all that matter to the Company as long as it can buy its palm-oil at the market-price, a price fixed by force?
That evening we had to dine with us the only Father of the mission just then at Assaba, and two Sisters, one the Superior, Sister Damien, a pale-faced Italian, whose hands had become almost transparent, and whose features were wasted through successive attacks of fever. For all that she still eagerly pursued her vocation. I know nothing finer than the life led by these women at the extreme advance guard of civilization, exposed to the heat of the sun, to fever, to all manner of fatigue, to the indifference of the negroes, and sometimes, as if all that were not enough, to the malice of the whites.
I imagine that it was long since the Father and the Sisters had enjoyed themselves so much. Unfortunately a tornado burst upon us in the middle of dinner, and at eight o’clock we had to take refuge in Father Hacquart’s rooms, through the cracks in the roof of which, however, the rain poured in torrents.
We escorted our guests back to the mission house through the rain.
That same night the long-expected Mr. Wallace, Agent-general of the Company, arrived on the launch Nupé. I went to call on him the next day. After congratulating me on our successful journey, he renewed the assurances already made to me by Carrol, Festing, and Drew. I heard later that Mr. Flint, another important member of the Company, was also on board the Nupé. But he preferred to avoid us.
When we left we were able to rejoice the hearts of the missionaries of Assaba, with a few bales of stuffs and knick-knacks, with which they could reward their faithful natives. We wanted to stop at Onitcha, the cross of the mission of which we could already see, to give a greeting to the Pères de Lyon stationed there, but the captain of the Ribago told us he had been ordered not to go there, although Mr. Wallace had assured me to the contrary only a minute before.
Avoiding Onitcha, therefore, we went to anchor for a few moments, first at Illuchi, and then at Abo, where the Ribago was to leave us.