an insurrection. To save his worthless life he fled from his kingdom, and his older brother, Kiwewa, succeeded him. Because under his rule the missionaries were again in favor, Kiwewa was soon forced to abdicate before an insurrection incited by the Arabs, whom the policy of his brother had brought into the kingdom, and in which such of his own subjects who opposed the missionaries cheerfully participated. While about a score of missionaries escaped unharmed, all missionary property was destroyed, many native missionaries were murdered, the Arabs became dominant in Uganda, and the kingdom, it may be for several years, is closed against Christianity. The living missionaries have quite recently been ransomed.
“What is to be the influence of this new Arab kingdom in Central Africa? This, with many, is a pressing question. In answering it we must remember that these so-called Arabs really have in their veins no Arab blood. They are coast Arabs of the lowest classes, and the proud and strong Uganda chiefs will not submit for any considerable length of time to the rule of any such men. They may use such men; they will never become their slaves. The country is more likely to be broken up into hostile sections. These may wear themselves out in wars against each other, and thus may be realized the hope that the British East African Company, from their new territory between Victoria Nyanza and the coast, would push its influence and its operations over Uganda, and the whole lake region of Central Africa. These Arab slave-traders are certainly not the men to construct or reconstruct an empire. Those who know them best see no prospect that they will be able by intrigue, which is their only agency, to sustain themselves in Uganda.
“The character and habits of the Uganda people seem to forbid their enslavement. They are the only people in Central Africa that clothe themselves from head to foot. Besides their own ingenious utensils for housekeeping, the chase and war, thousands of European weapons and implements are found in their possession, and being ready workers in iron, they immediately imitate what they import. They are apt linguists, and their children have rapidly acquired the French and English languages from the missionaries. They have neither idols nor fetishes. They have no affiliations
with Mohammedanism, and are not likely to become its subjects for any considerable time. There is still good reason to hope for a better future for Uganda.”
TINDER-BOX, FLINT AND STEEL.
The London Missionary Society has ever been forward to enter new fields of labor. On Livingstone’s return to England, after his great journey across the continent of Africa in 1856, he urged this society, in whose service he had previously been engaged, to establish a mission on the banks of the Zambesi, with a tribe of natives known as the Makololo, with the view of reaching other tribes in the interior through them. A mission was organized accordingly, which was to start from the Cape of Good Hope direct for the interior. This journey was to be made in the usual South African style, namely, in wagons drawn by long teams of oxen. Livingstone himself went round by the eastern coast, purposing to meet the missionaries in the valley of the Zambesi, and to introduce them to the chiefs with whom he was personally acquainted. The missionaries selected for this purpose were Revs. Helmore and Price, the first of whom was a middle-aged minister, with a wife and family,
and had labored in South Africa for several years previously, whilst Mr. Price was a young man recently married, and was entering upon mission work for the first time. The incidents of the journey, as well as the issue of this mission were the most afflictive and distressing. The mission wagons had scarcely passed the boundary of the Cape Colony when water and grass for the oxen became scarce, and their progress was accordingly slow and dreary. Many of their oxen died and their places were supplied with difficulty by cattle purchased from the natives. When they came to cross the outskirts of the desert of Kalahara their sufferings were terrible. They at length reached the valley of the Zambesi where they had an ample supply of grass and water; but they soon found themselves in a low, swampy, unhealthy country, and when they reached their destination in the Makololo country, they did not meet with the cordial reception from the chief and his people which they expected. Dr. Livingstone, who was engaged in exploring the lower branches of the Zambesi was moreover unable to meet them as he intended. They naturally became discouraged; and before they got anything done of consequence in the way of teaching the people, the chief still withholding his consent to their movements, the country fever broke out among them with fearful violence. Mr. Helmore’s four children, who suffered so much from thirst in the desert, were smitten down one after another and died. They were buried but a short time when graves were made beside them for both their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Price began to think of retracing their steps to the Cape Colony, and at length with heavy hearts they yoked the oxen to the wagons and started toward civilization. But in crossing the desert Mrs. Price also died, so that Mr. Price was left to return alone.
BOUND FOR THE INTERIOR DURING THE RAINY SEASON.