“As soon as Sam began to inquire for the owner, others began to compete with him as bidders for it, so, to avoid the peril of delay, he bought it at the earliest possible moment, and had it deeded to himself, and has held it in good faith for the mission. During my recent visit to Malange, I offered to refund Ardella’s money with interest.
“Sam and Ardella laid the subject before the Lord, and returned answer, that, having given themselves and all they have to God for his self-supporting missions in Africa, they refuse a refund; but will immediately deed the farm and all the appurtenances thereunto belonging to the Transit and Building Fund Society, to be held in trust for the self-supporting missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. I put the matter into the hands of Brother C. W. Gordon, our legal attorney, and the conveyance will be made, no doubt, before this MS. can be printed.
“The building of the new house has absorbed a large proportion of the stock in trade of their little store. They were quite disinclined to allow me to help them stock it up a bit, but I prevailed on them to accept the small amount of $214.
“As Willie Mead is a noted mechanical genius, on the short-cut-cheap-line, adapted to a country like this, and as Malange has greatly the advantage of any of our other Angola missions in timber supply, and the farthest inland, he should have an outfit of tools and machinery for a few branches of industry well adapted to that locality. This need has been in part provided for. Our Committee has sent a new supply of farming implements and carpenter’s tools for Malange, soon to arrive.
“I have, on my return trip to the sea, ordered them a turning lathe from Nhangue; also a farmer’s outfit, the gift of Thomas Walker & Sons, of England; and have sent from Dondo a blacksmith’s anvil, vice, tongs, etc. What Malange yet needs is a small steam-engine, of four or five horse-power, with ‘arbor’ and belting,
and other appliances, and a thousand feet of small piping for pumping water, to run by steam, (1) their sugar cane crushing mill; (2) their corn meal grinding mill; (3) their turning lathe; (4) a small circular saw of eighteen or twenty inches diameter, also a small circular cross-cut saw, the saw to be sent from home with the engine, belting, and water-piping. We don’t want for Malange a saw mill, big engine, or anything costly or too heavy for easy transport on the heads of natives 150 miles from Dondo to Malange. Willie Mead did not ask for these things, but needs them for mission industrial teaching, in connection with his powerful preaching in the Portuguese language. He was proposing to sell his little property in Vermont, to use the money derivable from the sale of his homestead, to buy the engine, etc., as above, for Malange Mission, but I protest against that. Such men as the Meads are just the men we can afford to help with certainty of broad self-supporting missionary independency and wide-spread efficiency, without danger of dependency. Wm. Taylor.”
RETURN FROM MALANGE TO DONDO.
“I was planning to leave Malange, Monday, 24th of June, but ‘Magady was dying,’ so I yielded to the request of our brethren and sisters, and postponed till Wednesday, the 26th. Magady was a ‘Labola boy,’ who, as a little fellow, gave himself to Sam and Arda, nearly four years ago. He was very black, but pronounced by some as ‘the most beautiful boy they ever saw.’ The people on the south side of the Coanza, from its mouth up for 250 miles, are called Kasamas; thence on for 200 or 300 miles, a similar people are called the Libólos. Neither will allow the Portuguese people to travel through their country.
“Magady’s story was that his parents were dead, and that his uncle treated him so badly he ran away from his country, and became cook for the Malange mission. He was taught to know, to fear and to love the Lord, and to sing our hymns. For about two years he was a consistent Christian. Then, through the intrigues of an influential, designing, bad man, he was enticed into bad company, and forsook the Lord. Then he was visited by a disease of
his head. He would be walking along, and fall as suddenly as if shot by a Remington rifle, and lie some time in a state of insensibility, but that was as nothing compared with severe and sudden pains in his head that caused him to scream aloud at all hours, day and night. None but himself attempted to diagnose his case. He said ‘Gan N’Zambi’ sent it on him for his wicked departure from Him, and would destroy his body, but had forgiven him, and washed his spirit, and that he was sure he would soon go to live with God, and was anxiously waiting for the call of the King. About 2 P. M. Monday, June 24th, he died. Willie Mead made him a hard-wood coffin, and lined and covered it with white cotton cloth, and he was laid in a grave six feet deep in our own mission burial-ground, where dear Edna Mead sleeps. I conducted the funeral service, about thirty persons being present—a ‘brand snatched from the burning,’ our first Angola representative in heaven.