"The work of white men's hands," he remarked, "does not seem to prosper on the shores of the lake. Ujiji, for instance, is smaller to-day than it was in Livingstone's time; Niamkolo is a mound of bricks hidden in the grass; Kigoma, since we took it, grows smaller every year....
The history of the ruined tower that filled Norah with such foreboding, I never heard. Whatever the doom, it fell before my day. Still, it is not hard to imagine the birth and death of the station. Think of the arrival of the French Fathers....
With heavy rosaries hanging below their untrimmed beards, wide hats on their heads, clad in white robes of coarse cloth, they had sailed from some elder station on the lake into the unknown.
Think of the start of their voyage in a home-made boat of clumsy lines, whose unpainted white wood planks showed the roughly-nailed joints. Overhead on a light framework was stretched an awning to shield them from the sun of indefinite days.
The Father who built the boat came with them to the edge of the water, a carpenter's apron over his white robe, and stood shading his eyes beside the little red fire on which he had warmed the pitch to give the seams a final caulking. The other Fathers stood in a group under the mango trees at the top of the shallow brick steps that led to the lake, silently speculating on the fate of their brothers whom they might, or might not, see again.
For many days the adventurers were rowed by native Christians to the singing of Catholic hymns learnt in place of the melancholy water songs of their ancestors. At last the canoe stopped at a fishing village that once populated the bay.
Long beards and robes won for the Fathers the respect due to wizards. Moreover, there would be hope of their help against the Arab slavers, who at that time led a train of bones and blood across Africa, whose dhows were familiar in passage up-lake to Ujiji, whence they drove their wares overland to Bagamayo for shipment to the markets of Zanzibar. Had starvation and hardship unduly reduced their cargo, the loss was soon made good from the lake villages.
In return for protection from this menace, the villagers would be willing to build a church. They were simple folk and glad to help those who seemed kind and good men.
So, as the seasons succeeded each other, a group of buildings sprang up on the lake shore. The layout would be like that of the other lake missions. A monastery would spread its length ..."
"Ross," I interrupted, "have you ever read a book called Sandford and Merton?"