MISSION WORK AT WILMINGTON, N.C.
MRS. A. E. FARRINGTON.
During this month I have held my weekly meeting with the women, taught my Sunday-school class, sometimes numbering fifty, all under ten years of age, held sewing schools for a part of our school-girls, made twenty-five calls and arranged a library of nearly three hundred books, which have been sent to me from various places at the North. These are none of them new books, but are such as I think will interest and instruct the children and young people. Tuesday evenings I open my mission room for a reading room, having papers and books for them to read while there and take to their homes. By the kindness of friends at home last summer I obtained the “Library of Universal Knowledge,” which the older scholars use and appreciate highly; and those outside the school are learning to consult it also as they come in Tuesday evenings.
We are rejoiced by the conversion of two young men of much promise, one of whom will unite with our church next Sabbath. The other is sick now and has been for weeks. We hope he may be spared to do good among his people, but fear he may not. Both have been in our Sunday-school for years. The work here seems to us to go on very slowly, but I feel that the truth is taking deep root in many hearts, and the fruits will yet be seen in upright Christian lives.
AFRICA.
MR. LADD’S JOURNAL.
Friday, Dec. 16.—“Mourgan! Mourgan!!” Before it is fairly light, the stars still shining brightly, everybody yells “Mourgan!” Breakfast is the first thing thought of. At 7 o’clock we are mounted, and on our way. It takes about two hours every morning to get ready. The desert all the morning has been wider. As we emerge from the narrow pass of Hashmilbal we come upon the dry bed of a river. All along here the guides have set up numerous landmarks. There are a number of apparent graves. We have passed the bodies of hundreds of dead camels. We pass over a thousand a day. There are more than ten thousand lining the desert-route from Korosko to Aboo-Hamed! whose bones lie bleaching in the sun. If one lost the way he could easily find it again by the carcasses that mark it. We lunched at Hashmilbal. Then we left the mountains and launched out upon the boundless desert, an ocean of sand. The mirage is now all about us. Lakes in all directions, and not a drop of water to drink, except what is in our “boot-legs” and skins. To say that it is hot does not begin to express the truth. It is blazing hot! like a fiery furnace! The sand shimmers and glows in the scorching rays. We can see the heated air rising in great waves. Now we know what a desert is! The doctor has a hard headache, but we push on and he stands it bravely. We pass a mountain with a hole right through it. We have made fully three miles an hour to-day, and do not stop till we have been at it 12 hours. We go into camp about 7 o’clock at a place called El Mahdood. The water holds out well. I am feeling remarkably fresh.
Saturday, Dec. 17.—Started at 6.40 this morning. We are still on a boundless desert, and the heat is fearful. Mirage all about us. Meet the mail and send back postals written on our camels. We make an unusually long morning stretch of it in order to reach a rock, under whose refreshing shade we take our lunch. This region is named Bahr El Hattab. A slight breeze in the P.M. makes the intense heat a little more endurable. The mountains in the horizon do not seem to grow nearer. Our camels now have to be whipped and urged along. About 4 P.M. we sight the tops of the mountains in the region of Murrat. On and on we go in the darkness and silence of the night, till finally, after about 13 hours of hard riding, we pitch our camp in a sort of valley called Ettella. Mousa is about used up, and is found crying.