XV
A LITTLE SCHOLAR
The following letter, with some slight omissions and alterations, was written on board the English steamer Volta to a little circle of friends in America:
S. S. “Volta,” Aug. 7, 1900.
It is three months since I left Gaboon for a health-change on the sea, and I am just now returning. I had supposed that I would be away only a few weeks; but the time was prolonged by the sickness and death of an African boy whom I called my little scholar, of whom it is the purpose of this letter to give you some account.
Since the regretted resignation of Mr. Boppell on account of ill-health, I have had charge of the Gaboon Church at Baraka, with the work among the Mpongwe, besides my work among the Fang. You will remember that the Mpongwe is a coast tribe, among whom our church has had a mission-work for many years, while the Fang is the interior tribe (now, however, extending to the coast), among whom the work is quite new. The strain of so much additional work in such a climate greatly overtaxed me, and after four months it became necessary either to take a furlough home, or a health-change on the sea. The furlough was out of the question, for there was no one to take my place. Accordingly on the 16th of May I left Gaboon on this steamer expecting to go north as far as Fernando Po and return on the next south-bound steamer, which would give me a vacation of a month.
Being in miserable health, I took along with me one of my Fang schoolboys, Ndong Mba, the smallest and brightest of his class. I thought I needed him to wait on me. And besides I intended to improve the idle hours in talking Fang with him. But a week after we had left Gaboon Ndong Mba was the patient and I was the nurse. The weeks and months that have intervened, instead of being a period of rest and pleasure, have been the most trying in all my African experience.
Ndong Mba was born in a town not far from Angom. While he was yet a mere baby his father and mother died leaving him to the care of their relations. However willing such relations may be to assume parental authority over a child, they are not so willing to assume responsibility for his care, for the parental love is absent. Moreover, Ndong was very frail; and such a child is not attractive to the African woman, except his own mother. He was therefore heartlessly neglected, until my predecessor, Rev. Arthur W. Marling, finding him hungry and crying, and knowing his miserable plight, took pity on him and carried him in his arms to the mission. Ndong often told me about the kindness of the missionaries. But there was a long interval when Mr. Marling was away on furlough; and then he was dependent upon distant relations who made him thoroughly acquainted with hunger and hard work. He continued frail and was very small, appearing, when I afterwards knew him, several years younger than he was really was.
He attended the school at Angom which was well kept and well taught under Mr. Marling’s administration; and at an age when most children do not know their letters he could read. I, who did not know him until the beginning of this present year, have regarded him as an intellectual prodigy. His knowledge of the Scripture and his understanding of it was astonishing in one so young. The whole Gospel of Matthew, the only one which has been translated into the Fang, he knew almost by heart, besides a considerable acquaintance with the other Scriptures through the Mpongwe translations; for he knew Mpongwe almost as well as Fang. He was baptized and received into the church at a younger age perhaps than any other child has ever been received in our mission; and through the years that have since passed, amidst degrading surroundings of which you in the homeland can scarcely conceive, this little boy kept the faith which he then professed, and grew up pure, truthful, unselfish and affectionate.