Their mode of work is undoubtedly the true one: to get a certain number of negroes, isolate them as much as possible from the licentious society of their heathen brethren, and hope of them to form the nucleus of a future Christian population.
The Church of England has a mission at Zanzibar, and has also some settlements on the mainland; and as I had several friends there, I know something about it from personal observation, and regret that its members are not Catholics, for a more devoted set of workers it would be hard to find. They have a house on a shamba, or estate, two miles from the town, in which there are a number of liberated slave boys, who are instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and are taught such trades as carpentering and field labor. Dr. Steere, the third bishop of this mission, which was set on foot by the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge at the instance of Livingstone, is a linguist, being the authority on Swahili, the language commonly spoken at Zanzibar and on the coast. He has written a Swahili grammar, and translated into the language great parts of the Bible, prayers, hymns, and school-books, and these are excellently printed in the mission press by some of the pupils, a few of whom he took to England to perfect themselves in the trade at a large London printing establishment. All the printing done in Zanzibar is their work. They have a beautiful chapel, where there are daily morning and evening services, and these are attended by all the establishment; and I am told that many of the boys show great devotion, kneeling for a quarter of an hour together in the chapel. I am inclined to fear, though, that the African Anglican’s notion of religion is something which will propitiate an angry, hostile power—in fact, a relic of demonology. “Our Father” has no meaning to one who had perhaps been sold to an Arab by his parent for a bowl of rice. Two miles beyond the English mission’s boys’ house is a similar establishment for girls under the charge of women. The girls look fatter and healthier than the boys, a large proportion of whom are affected by the terrible skin diseases so prevalent amongst the blacks.
The mission had a devoted young clergyman there some years ago, who, being possessed of large means and wealthy friends, purchased the old slave market in Zanzibar, on which a handsome stone church with groined roof, and different school buildings, were erected. But he sacrificed his life, as most of the workers of this mission have done, by his zeal, and fell a victim to fever; his funeral was attended by parties from the English men-of-war in the harbor, and by some of the Catholic missionaries, and many of the European residents who wished to pay a last tribute of respect to the memory of a brave and devoted, if mistaken, man. He once told me that some of his pupils asked him a very pertinent question: Why, if the Christian religion was one, the French and English missions were not united? He evaded it by replying that they taught in English, but the others in French! When his death was announced in England a young clergyman, who had formerly worked in the same mission, was preaching for it in an English church and exhorting his hearers to give money and, if possible, their personal services to the cause. He was astonished afterwards at a young woman presenting herself and offering herself for the work. Neither pictures of fever, discomfort, nor death could deter her from going to Zanzibar, as I believe she afterwards did.
Bishop Steere used to give a weekly address in the native language in the city of Zanzibar to any who chose to attend, and I have heard that the rich Arabs used to flock to it in crowds, coming to the bishop’s house afterwards to discuss the different Christian doctrines of which they had heard. But if any Arab became a Christian he would probably be assassinated by his comrades, so great is their bigotry. Singularly, the part of the Bible which has most interest for an Arab is the genealogies; for, as is well known, they are most careful in preserving such records, even of their very horses.
The Mahometan residents at Zanzibar and on the coast, both Arab and Ki-Swahili, go to school at seven years of age, and in two or three years learn to write, and read the Koran. They are also taught a few prayers and hymns and some Arab proverbs, and this completes their education. In two points a good Moslem puts ordinary Christians to shame—in prayer and temperance. In the East one often sees even the poorest people prostrating themselves towards Mecca on their praying-mat, and repeating the accustomed prayers at the stated hours, which occur five times a day. I have seen a naked black laborer praying in a coal-lighter during an interval of work. One is reminded of the quaint old Belgian cities, where it is common to see female figures, in their long black cloaks, kneeling before a crucifix in some open space. Temperance the Arab rigidly observes; and how can one expect them to become Christians when they daily witness the drunkenness of white seamen? In fact, this objection has been urged upon me by natives, and the answer which one makes, that our religion does not permit drunkenness, is not satisfactory to them. “If we got drunk,” they say, “our sultan would put us in prison.”
Strict Mahometans are very Pharisaical. We once had great trouble with a Mahometan priest or schoolmaster who visited our ship. He refused the coffee which we offered him because it was made by a Christian, and would only condescend to drink some lime-juice out of a glass which we assured him had never been used, and even this beverage had to be prepared by his own servant. Some Arab gentlemen who accompanied him and dined with us, being prevented from eating anything that we had cooked, could get nothing but oranges.
The Hindis are a sect of Mahometans who are not recognized by the Arabs, but the exact nature of their differences I have not been able to learn. Neither could I arrive at the religion of the Banians. Their mortality at Zanzibar is very great, and you may daily see processions of Banian men going to the beach beyond the town, where they raise a funeral pyre of wood, on which their deceased friend is consumed, the remains being washed away by the rising tide.
On the coast the people are much the same as those who inhabit the island of Zanzibar. There are the lazy, cowardly Belooch soldiers and their families, and these swashbucklers are thoroughly despised and hated. The towns are ruled by headmen, who are subject to the Sultan of Zanzibar, but who enrich themselves by extortion. The Washenzi are day-laborers, and are barbarians from the interior. Banians are always found prospering in trade. The Ki-Swahili—which means people of the coast, degenerate Arabs—are ignorant and vicious. They have a great fear and hatred of the white man, particularly of the English, whom they called Beni Nar—Sons of Fire. They think that, if once the white man’s foot has been placed on the land, he is sure to obtain possession of it in the end; and in this they are not far mistaken. The Wamrina are a coast clan even more debased and vicious than the latter people, and they appear to have little reason. They are cowardly and cautious, but very cunning, and, as most of the inhabitants in those parts, lie habitually, even when there is no object to be gained thereby.
There are a number of small towns on the coast from Magadoxo, a little north of the equator, to Kilwa, the great slave-mart in the south. The chief ones are Brava, Lamu, Marka, Melinda, and Mombas. At both of the latter are Portuguese remains, and at Mombas is a Protestant mission which at the time of my visit had been established thirty years, and had cost a large amount of money, but had apparently done very little good. The celebrated Dr. Krapf, who had been four years in Abyssinia, was the first to go there, starting from Zanzibar. This was in 1844. He was the first to draw up a Ki-Swahili grammar, in which he was assisted by Dr. Rebmann, who arrived two years afterwards. Their journeys from Mombas, which is situated in 4° south latitude, are well known. They discovered Kilima Njaro, a snow-clad mountain 22,814 feet high, only 3° south of the equator, and what they heard from the natives of vast lakes in the interior, where nothing but sandy deserts had hitherto been supposed to exist, led to the famous travels which have exposed a new world to the wondering eyes of men and opened up new fields for the glorious labors of the missionary.
Dr. Rebmann was living near Mombas at the time of my visit, though old and blind, and, I hear, has since died. I did not see him, though I started to do so with one of the missionaries. I was so disgusted by this man’s narrow sectarianism in the midst of heathendom—he commencing to abuse the mission of his own church at Zanzibar—that I preferred to spend the night on the river in a boat with our seamen rather than, with my friends, accompany him to the Rabai Mission. We came across a pamphlet written by them for their English supporters, containing a lot of pious texts: “Come over and help us”; “The fields are white to the harvest”; “A wide door and effectual is open,” and so on; but it struck us as being great nonsense. However, I am told that they have since that started a large establishment of liberated slaves. The Wesleyans have a mission in the neighborhood, but of them I know nothing, as we did not visit them.