# Central African Mission - its Past and Present Prospects

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CENTRAL AFRICAN MISSION
ITS PRESENT STATE AND PROSPECTS
BY EDWARD STEERE, LL.D.
London
RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE
| HIGH STREET | TRINTY STREET |
| Oxford | Cambridge |
1873
PREFACE
As the Universities Mission seems to have arrived at a crisis in its history, it is desirable that a clear account of its present position should be laid before those interested in its work. Such an account I have, therefore, endeavoured to draw up. We are actually at work in three distinct places: at Magila among the heathen: in Zanzibar itself we have a Girls' School, a vernacular service with an Exposition of the Gospel every Sunday afternoon, daily prayers in Swahili and in English, and a weekly Evening Service with Sermon, and Holy Communion twice in the month for the European residents. At Kiungani, close to Zanzibar, we have our Boys' School and College for Mission Students. There are, of course, regular services in the Chapel in English and in the Vernacular. We have a Printing Press at work, from which we have just issued, as the first of our school series, a Swahili Spelling Book. An Elementary Arithmetic and a First Reading Book are now in the press. We have also just begun to print Mr. Pennell's Version of Saint Luke's Gospel. Some Hymns, a First Catechism, and the Litany in Swahili, have been printed since my arrival in March 1872. Some of the boys work a saw-pit ​and help in carpentering; the rest are engaged in bringing the land into order and cultivation.
The special subjects on which our friends will look to us for information are probably the nature and prospects of our directly Mission work—the results and present state of our school work—the share we can take in the crusade against Slavery—and the propriety of remaining at Zanzibar in spite of our many losses.
I have tried to deal with these several matters as briefly and clearly as possible, and have subjoined an account of the property belonging to the Mission. Upon the data thus furnished, our friends at home will, I hope, be able to form a tolerably good judgment as to the results of past work, and the best form in which to proceed for the future.
EDWARD STEERE.
CENTRAL AFRICAN MISSION
1. Mission Work on the Mainland.
A STATION has been established at a place called Magila, one long day's journey from the coast. It is now occupied by Samuel Speare, Missionary Student and Subdeacon, and Francis Mabruki, native Subdeacon.
This site was selected chiefly with a view to health and convenience. There is much talk in England about "healthy highlands," but so far as we can learn there are none such. The truth seems to be that the fresh cool air of any elevated region has for a time a very invigorating effect, and therefore everyone who stays only for a few days or weeks feels that the situation must be a healthy one. Such an opinion, however, is not confirmed by longer experience. It will be found that the spots described as unhealthy are chiefly those where some European has made a prolonged stay, and those described as healthy are those which have been visited for a short time only. There are, however, manifest advantages in an elevated location in such a climate as this, and as our experience on the Morumbala showed that a mountain swept by winds that had passed over a large swampy ​district was not exempt from the usual marsh fevers, we looked out for high land as near the coast as possible, in order to avoid the miasma. The most promising in every way seemed to be the mountain district known as Usambara. The mountains there come nearer to the coast than in any other place within the scope of our Mission, and they are so near as to be in very clear weather visible from the town of Zanzibar. Besides this, Dr. Krapf had always pointed to the Shambala country (Usambara) as peculiarly eligible as a Mission field, and we had had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a singularly sensible and intelligent man, named Munyi Hatibu, who lives at Neworongo the landing-place where the shortest route into the Shambala country leaves the coast. All these considerations determined Bishop Tozer to attempt a first mainland station among the mountains. A vocabulary of the Shambala language was collected, and, as soon as circumstances permitted, the Rev. C. A. Alington was sent up with two native boys as interpreters and attendants, to choose a site.
After long delays and much unsatisfactory negotiation, the King of the country sent him to Magila, as the best or only place within his dominions where he would at that time allow him to build or to make any settlement.
Mr. Alington was shortly after called back to England by a summons that could not be resisted, ​and then the charge of the Shambala Mission was given to the Rev. L. Fraser. Mr. Fraser preached in the villages within his reach, and instructed the children who were willing to be taught. His holy life and conversation had a great effect upon the natives with whom he came in contact, and his lessons are well remembered. He was hoping soon to have had some natives prepared for baptism, when he was called away during the frightful prevalence of cholera in this part of Eastern Africa. He was to have been succeeded by the Rev. O. Handcock, after whose sudden and premature death Magila remained unoccupied,—except that it was visited twice by Bishop Tozer,—until October, 1872, when the two subdeacons were sent up with instructions to occupy the post, and carry on such work as they could until a clergyman could be found to superintend it. Their last letters spoke of themselves as settling down and making arrangements for commencing a school, and some kind of public catechizing or preaching.
The Mission has an iron house and two large thatched native huts; the subdeacons proposed to set up another as a school and temporary church.
The prospects of this Mission cannot be well understood without a short account of the country and its government. The coast is occupied by the Swahili, a mixed race of Arabs and negroes. They hold only the villages or small towns on the sea, and the gardens and plantations adjoining. The ​Swahili are all Mahommedans, chiefly of the Shafi sect. Behind their plantations lies a strip of country covered with long grass and very scantily supplied with water. It is partly occupied by a negro tribe, the Wadigo, who have their chief settlements to the northward. Where the hills begin to show themselves distinctly, lie the villages of the half-Swahili people, called by the coastmen, Washenzi, i. e. wild folk, and by the people of the mountains Waboonde, i. e. valley people. They talk a dialect of Swahili much mixed with Shambala words and phrases. The mountains themselves are occupied by the Shambala, but there is at least one large valley running up among them, which is occupied by the Zegulas, who are their next neighbours to the southward.
Mr. Alington was very much disappointed at being sent back from Yuga, the chief town of the Shambala, to a place so near the coast as Magila. The reasons which swayed the native counsels seem to have been partly superstitious and partly political. The Shambala are a very shy and separate race. No foreigner was allowed to enter their chief town, and every means was ordinarily used to keep them at a distance; it happened besides at this particular time that no place in their own country would have been really a safe one.
In Dr. Krapf's time they were ruled by an old king, named Kiraweri, who had a very extensive influence. On his death, great confusion followed. ​The mountain people chose a grandson of his, who took the name of Kimweri, and was in possession of Vuga at the time of Mr. Alington's visit. The lower country behind the mountains, that is, to the westward, was held by a son of old Kimweri's, named Semboja, and there was constant war between the two claimants. Before Mr. Alington left the country, young Kimweri died of small-pox, and was succeeded by a brother named Chenyegera. The war became more and more embittered, and Semboja, finding that the Shambalas would not receive him, encouraged all the neighbouring tribes to prey upon them. Chenyegera and his great men, finding themselves without money or arms, began selling their own people to the coast Arabs as slaves. Vuga was taken by Semboja and burnt, and a great part of the mountain country was depopulated, and relapsed into forest land. At last the people rose upon their chiefs and killed most of them, and so a peace of exhaustion has come at last. Semboja is in possession of most of the country and is rebuilding Vuga. He is a Mahommedan, and has been supposed throughout to have had the silent support of the Zanzibar Arabs. Chenyegera is among the mountains not very far from Magila. This last place itself has not been touched by the war, being geographically and politically in the Shambala country, but in language belonging to the valley people. These last have lately been at war with ​the Digos, so that just now the coast Swahili are carrying on all the trade with Magila, the valley people being afraid to venture through the country of their enemies. There is now no actual fighting, and probably there will be no more for some time to come, as all parties are thoroughly worn out. The Shambala wars are said to have increased the population near Magila, many of the mountain people having come coastwards for safety.
The station at Magila may be viewed as the first station among the Shambala, or as a starting-point for Missions among them, and an actual occupation of the Boonde, or low country. Any station nearer the coast would be surrounded by Mahommedans. Through the Shambala country lies the road to the Wateita, Wapara, Wachaga, and other tribes about Kilimanjaro, the great snowy mountain. It may be worth consideration whether anything could be attempted among the Digos. The next tribe to the northward are the Nyikas, where the Church Missionary Society has long been at work, and the United Free Methodists have also a station. In my own judgment we should do better to attempt the tribes to the southward.
South of the Shambala lie the Zegulas, a very warlike and very barbarous tribe. Next to them the Zagaras, through whose country lies the direct road to Ujiji and the great lakes. The chief tribe in this direction are the Nyamwezi, though many ​smaller ones lie on the road to them. A Nyamwezi vocabulary has been collected in case it should be determined to make a bold plunge towards the central tribes. At present, however, a war of very uncertain result is going on between the native Nyamwezi and the Arab and Swahili settlers in their country, and nothing could be reasonably attempted until that war has been concluded. Indeed, the road to Ujiji is practically closed to any but special expeditions.
South of the Zagaras, the Grindos or Grendwas, and below them the Portuguese coast begins. Among the Gindos, not far from Lindy, between Kilwa and the Hovuma, a body of Yaos have settled, and are giving the coast people much trouble by receiving runaway slaves, and occasionally plundering the coast traders. Behind the Grindos, between them and the Lake Nyassa, lie the Yao, and beyond it the Nyassas and the Bisas. I mention only the most important tribes, and that by their usual names. The Yaos are the Achawa of our earlier reports, and the Manganja were Nyassas.
It is in this direction that our work ought most naturally to develope itself, and Bishop Tozer has always contemplated a journey to the Lake Nyassa. The great hindrance has been the devastation of the country by the Maviti, probably the Mazitu of Dr. Livingstone's earlier books. They have swept the country up to Kilwa, plundering and murdering everywhere. Their chief seats are said now to ​be on the Rovuma, having suffered severe losses in their attacks upon some of the more powerful Yao chieftains. A great stretch of country on the road to the Nyassa is now a wilderness.
As a starting-point on the road to the lakes, the caravans usually cross to Bagamoyo for Ujiji, and go down to Kilwa for the Nyassa. Bagamoyo is occupied by an extensive settlement under the care of a French Roman Catholic Mission, which has also houses in Zanzibar itself. At a short distance to the south lies Dari Salaam, which the Sultan of Zanzibar's predecessor intended to make the starting-point for all caravans going into or coming from any part of the interior. From Dari Salaam to Kilwa the coast is little known, and is reputed to be very unhealthy. South of Kilwa there are many good harbours, the coast is often hilly, and there are many convenient landing-places. I have always myself thought of Lindy (south latitude 10°) as one that might well be chosen. The farther south one goes, the shorter the land journey to the Lake Nyassa becomes. In contemplation of Mission work in this direction we have collected a vocabulary of the Yao language, and hope some day to be allowed to use the very complete dictionary of the Nyassa language, compiled by the Rev. John Rebmann of Kisulutini, near Mombas, which now only exists in a jealously-guarded MS.
I don't see any reason why stations should not at once be planted among the Zegulas, the Zagaras, ​and the Grindos near the coast, or among the Yaos and Nyassas near Lake Nyassa, or among some of the tribes on the road to Ujiji. I feel sure that Missionaries would be safe anywhere, and all the more so if they were known to carry no arms whatever. Negroes are very seldom violent unless they are frightened, and, besides, there is nothing so tempting to a native thief as European fire-arms. It was a well-grounded boast of Dr. Krapf that he went with only an umbrella where others dare not venture fully armed. I believe myself that arms are a cause of insecurity, and can never be of any use to a Missionary. The idea of founding a settlement by force ought not to be entertained for a moment. One may fight one's way through a country, but one can never hold it by violence; besides that, the secular business of a fighting chief would soon swallow up his Missionary character. A king must tolerate many things which a bishop is bound to denounce.
2. The Slave Trade and Released Slaves.
The complete suppression of the Slave Trade and slavery can only come about by the Christianization of the Africans themselves. The coast slave trade is by no means the only one existing. Slavery is found everywhere; and its mild character in the interior arises only from the same cause which makes Arab slavery lighter than slavery ​to Europeans, and that is the smaller difference morally and socially between the slave and his master.
Slavery may be attacked politically or religiously. Politically we may attack it by treaties with native powers, enforced by armed intervention. Religiously it can only be attacked by self-sacrifice, and by acting upon the minds of those who uphold it. The two methods require very different men to carry them forward, and cannot both be attempted by the same persons with any reasonable chance of success.
The way in which slavery was actually destroyed in Christendom was by elevating the slave, while still a slave. Christian slaves were such extraordinarily good slaves, that the masters and mistresses began to see a Divine power working in them. It is to such a result that St. Paul points continually, and such results did actually follow. Meanwhile Christian masters became ashamed to use the powers which they by law possessed. A suppression of slavery brought about in this way must be final.
Leaving, therefore, to our political leaders the task of external repression, it belongs to us Missionaries to aim at the internal work. As things actually are in Eastern Africa, our first thought will naturally be given to the released slaves set free by English cruisers. It seems that politicians consider that their work is done when the gift of ​political freedom is complete. We know that very much more is needed.
It is sometimes assumed that to put released slaves under the superintendence of Englishmen or Scotchmen is all that is needed. I wish it were so; but a little experience shows that, just as a European can be much better than a negro, so he can be much worse, and that when possessed of absolute power, and free from the immediate control of home opinion, he probably will use the negro only to serve his own selfish ends, and cast him off as soon as he has served them. Neither by example nor in any other way are such Europeans as ordinarily settle in remote places likely to do any great amount of good to a negro.
Politically, the protection of the English name may save a released man in Eastern Africa from being forcibly re-enslaved; but in order to do him much good, he must have a means of livelihood opened to him, and must be brought at least within hearing of Christian teaching.
So much has been said lately on this subject that one need only point out as the duty of this Mission to be ready to give all such help as the men and money at its command may allow to any and every scheme for the benefit of the slaves, and released slaves, within the district in which it works. It must not be forgotten, however, that Missions in the interior are, after all, the chief means by which the regeneration of the negro must be accomplished. ​We have taken in as many boys and girls as our funds allowed, and Bishop Tozer bought some land with a view to planting out on it grown-up persons; whether more is to be done in this direction must depend on our subscribers at home. I think myself that, in our present poverty, the feeding and lodging of any except very promising children, who are likely to become Missionaries or teachers, are not proper charges on the Mission funds.
3. Mission Schools and College.
The schools at Zanzibar were formed by Bishop Tozer for the purpose of educating Missionaries and teachers and their future wives, for work among the inland tribes. The scholars are now beginning to attain an age at which they may be actively employed. Three of the boys have been set apart as subdeacons; of these one was lost by the cholera, the other two are both married; one, John Swedi, is at present acting as a sort of assistant chaplain at the school at Kiungani; the other, Francis Mabruki, is working at the Shambala Mission station at Magila.
It was always hoped and intended that these schools should be filled by the children of converts, or by promising young people from the Mission stations among the inland tribes. The only scholars we have yet had answering to this description were three Nyika lads from the Rev. John Rebmann's ​station, near Mombas. They stayed with us about two years, and then returned to their friends. For the rest we have been obliged to depend upon the captures made by English cruisers, and seizures made by the Sultan of Zanzibar. There is of course always a question how far children so chosen may turn out to have any fitness for Missionary work. Our experience has been as follows:—
Our first pupils were five boys taken from a slave dhow by Seyed Majid, the then Sultan. Of these three were chosen as capable, and declared themselves desirous of becoming Missionaries; they were the three subdeacons mentioned above. The fourth boy showed no aptitude for learning, and is now in Dr. Christie's service in the town. The fifth, after many fluctuations, stole some money from the housekeeper, broke out of the schoolhouse at night, and ran away. We are not without hope of his repentance; but, of course, we can expect nothing more for him than that he should get an honest living by his own work.
The next party consisted of nine girls and five boys. Of the girls three were found too old for our work, and they returned to Seychelles. Three others are married to young men from the boys school, and three are still in the girls' school. Of the boys, one (Owen Makanyassa) is the chief worker in the printing office; another (Connop Makunjila) is employed in out-door work on the Mission land; another (Yernon Baruti) is in ​Captain Fraser's service in the town; one is still in the school, and one turned out an incorrigible thief, was taken on board a man-of-war, and ran away from his ship at Bombay. None of these boys, except Yernon Baruti, showed any capacity for the work of a Missionary, and he has lately decided not to undertake it. Most of the boys who have since joined us are still too young for us to speak decidedly as to their future. A few seem to show sufficient steadiness and capacity to give us good hopes of their ultimate usefulness in our work; some give us grounds of apprehension, and two have gone utterly astray. Since we opened the school, fifteen have died—nearly half during the cholera time, and the rest within the last nine months. Forty-four are now actually in the school, two more are with Bishop Tozer, and two with the subdeacons at Magila. The ill-health which has been so fatal during this year has not entirely ceased; twelve are at this moment in the infirmary—four with a troublesome skin disease, the rest with obstinate sores on the leg. Three of the cases may easily become dangerous.
Among the girls four have died since the opening of the schools, all within the last twelve months. There are now twenty-one actually in school, and one is living in the house of the subdeacon who assists at Kiungani.
The details of school management having been entirely disarranged by the effects of the cyclone, the death of the Rev. R. L. Pennell, and the ​sickness of the Bishop and of Miss Pakeman, our present order is merely a provisional one. The boys' school is under the care of Mr. Morton, who avails himself of the assistance of the elder boys, especially of Acland Sehera and Penrise Nawakali, who are two of our most promising scholars. The girls are taught general subjects by B. Hartley, one of our Missionary pupils, and by the elder girls, and their needlework and general order are supervised by Miss Tozer; but these arrangements are also of a provisional and interim character.
The future of the schools must depend upon the sources from which they are to be supplied with scholars. If we have the choice of promising boys and girls from our Mission stations, we may hope to be able to lead them on to a much higher style of training than has been as yet possible. If, on the other hand, they are to be filled from the slave dhows, it will be necessary to introduce a much larger industrial element. In any case we hope to give all alike first a plain education in Swahili, for which the necessary books are in course of preparation, and then to give the best scholars a thorough grounding in English. We are anxious to increase the number of girls, as otherwise our lads, especially the duller ones who will have to get their own living by daily work, will be sorely tempted to turn Mahommedans as the only means of obtaining wives.
After the work which one regards as merely Schoolwork is completed, there will remain ​something of college work, intended exclusively for the future Missionaries. It was with a view to this that the house at Kiungani was begun, and the proceeds of the Wells Tozer Fund, and the grant made by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, were applied towards the cost of its buildings. It was intended here to join with the native students others from England, who might thus be enabled to make themselves acquainted with the language and manners of the East Africans while still pursuing their general studies. Two students have already joined us, and under Mr. Pennell's care were making good progress. It has become necessary for a time to employ them elsewhere, but their studies are not wholly interrupted, while the great object of becoming familiar with the details of Mission work in East Africa is only being the more completely carried out. This college work is one of very great importance, and it ought not to be difficult to secure efficient help in it, as any clergyman who could leave England for a few years could undertake it, all the scholars being either English or English-speaking natives. We have had an earnest hope that some of the young incumbents of small rural parishes, who feel that they are in danger of getting rusty for want of real work, might be willing to leave their charges for a time in the hands of well-chosen curates and come to our assistance; and that the heads of the Church ​would encourage them in so laudable an undertaking. The Bishops have power to grant licences for absence on such works as these, and it is surely better that an active young man should be so employed than that he should be held strictly to such pastoral work only as a cure of two, or one hundred, or even fewer souls may supply him, under the penalty of giving up all hope of a home for his more advanced age.
To be obliged to give up all prospects elsewhere in order to help in such a Mission as ours, is a greater sacrifice than it is quite reasonable to expect any great number of English clergymen to make, although as Christ's soldiers they ought not to be unwilling to adventure it. Even those trained in Missionary colleges are likely to prefer healthier and better known spheres. It becomes, therefore, a very necessary thing to give men an opportunity of testing their health and their fitness for the work without robbing them of valuable time. This our Mission pupil scheme specially provides for, by occupying, in mingled study and work at Zanzibar, the years between sixteen and twenty, which a young man with a Missionary vocation finds it so difficult in England to employ to any advantage. While the Missionaries of the future are thus growing up, we must have temporary help from special English sources. There are hundreds who could give it to us without any real danger to themselves.
4. Zanzibar and its Unhealthiness.
There is no act to which the credit of Bishop Tozer and his advisers is more distinctly pledged than to the choice of Zanzibar as the point of departure of the Central African Mission. He was very severely censured for this choice, in words, by Dr. Livingstone, but was absolved by that great traveller, in deeds, when he himself chose Zanzibar as his starting-point whence to revisit the river Shire and the Lake Nyassa. The matter is not one on which Missionaries have any real choice; the centre of any considerable missionary operations must be the centre fixed beforehand by the many circumstances which together have determined the position of the chief city. Missionaries must travel along the usual roads, and their lines of communication can only be those created by commercial intercourse. The great objection made to Zanzibar is the unhealthiness shown by so many deaths among the members of the Mission. This is a very startling consideration, and one naturally asks oneself, how can so unhealthy a place be so great a centre of commerce, and how can it be that European merchants consent to live there, as they undoubtedly do? The answer is a remarkable one; it is that the great mortality is confined to the members of the Mission. There have been a much larger number of other Europeans residing in the town, but the Mission has lost five members while they have ​lost only two or three. Ill-health is common, but death is very rare. One Frenchman, who had been settled here more than twenty years, died lately, but except this the deaths have all been among British subjects; in fact no German, American, or French merchant has died within memory. And yet the merchants are more exposed to the sun than we are, and are less temperate livers. The only mortality to be compared with that of the Mission has been among the persons employed by the firm of H. A. Fraser and Co., and nearly all those deaths are directly attributable to accident or to intemperance. The only obvious difference between the Mission and the mercantile houses is that the merchants seldom remain more than three years in Zanzibar without a change. Only one of those Missionaries, however, who have died had lived in Zanzibar nearly as much as three years. It seems to follow that there must have been special causes at work, and it remains to discover, and, if possible, to prevent them. In Mr. Pennell's case, the disease of which he died must have been of long standing, though unsuspected. Mr. Fraser died at a time when the cholera was carrying off thousands; and it was remarkable that the disease generally attacked those who moved from one place to another, and not those who remained in their old quarters. Ships were in several instances healthy while in harbour, and full of cholera cases as soon as they got out to sea. Mr. Handcock's death may ​have been accelerated by haste and unnecessary exposure to the sun while on his journey into Usambara, and no doubt Mr. Pennell's health suffered severely during that journey. The deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Drayton are not easily accounted for; no doubt the dysentery of which he died was aggravated by his grief for her, but the fatal termination in both cases may fairly be attributed to the climate. The sicknesses from which our men have suffered have given way to a change of climate, such as a year's leave of absence would suffice for.
It seems thus to follow, not that Zanzibar should be abandoned as hopelessly unhealthy, but that very special care should be taken to avoid any known danger to health, and that frequent leave of absence should be given.
The existence of any really healthy site on the mainland of Africa is exceedingly doubtful. Healthy highlands in the interior are often spoken of, as though their position were well known, but this is only because the geography of this part of Africa is very little understood. The centre of the continent is, as we now know, nothing but a huge swamp. From the coast the land rises very gently to the watershed, and then drops very gradually to the great swampy central basin. Groups and ridges of mountains are scattered about without any distinct connection with the general rise of the land. There is nothing analogous to the terraces described as existing in Natal, nor is there any ​particular district of which it can be said that it is high and healthy. These facts were the ground upon which Bishop Tozer based his great plan for training native Missionaries. There is no use in dissembling the fact that Eastern Africa is exceedingly unhealthy, and that not on the coast only but in every part. It is only now and then that a man can be found with a constitution so adapted to the climate, that he can live safely in it for more than a few years at a time. Even in the case of those who are not attacked by any distinct disease, languor and incapacity for mental exertion are sure after a while to show themselves. It follows clearly that a white Missionary's proper work must be to train and to superintend native preachers. They must be the permanent Missionaries, and the regular pastors of the negro church. So long as it is expected of our Missionaries that they will stay, say ten years at least, in any particular district, so long, very possibly, the terrible mortality we all deplore may continue. We must arrange for frequent changes, and that place will be the best fitted for our centre of operations in which good medical advice, good lodging, and the comforts that are needed in sickness, are most easily obtainable; and, above all, from which it will be possible for the Head of the Mission to send away in time those who will surely die if they stay in Africa, and surely live if they can get to a more temperate region. These advantages are nowhere to be found so ​certainly as in Zanzibar. There is nothing we should be more glad to find than a healthy location, and even a comparatively healthy spot would be at once occupied. In any case, however, so long as Zanzibar remains what it is, the Mission must have a home there of some kind. It is very probable that if, as has been often proposed, the British Grovernment should establish a colony of freed men near some convenient port, the town which would soon grow up might supplant Zanzibar as a commercial centre, in which case the Mission would, as of course, remove thither its head-quarters.
5. Mission Property.
The Mission property consists of land and houses for the use of its members. We have:—
1. In Zanzibar itself, a large house in the part of the town called Shangani, used as a girls' school and a portion capable of separate occupation as lodgings for the Bishop. The house is close to the sea and a very fine one, the rooms being large and very lofty. It was procured cheaply, owing to its having been abandoned by the natives from fear of a spirit which was supposed to haunt it. Not having been occupied for some time, it was in need of much repair, and many alterations were necessary to adapt what might be described as an Arab palace to our purposes. Although so very large, we found only six rooms available for use. It was at one ​time proposed to purchase this house for the English political residency, and it may be worth consideration whether, if a good price were offered, it might not be well to accept it, and to find or build a more convenient schoolhouse for the girls elsewhere. The question as to where the Bishop will for the future fix his general residence, is of course most important in this respect. Extensive repairs were rendered necessary by the cyclone, and are still in progress.
2. A very small house a short distance behind the larger one. It has been used as a lodging for guests and others for whom there was not room elsewhere, and when necessary as a small-pox hospital.
3. A piece of land (perhaps about eight acres) about two miles out of the town, known as Kiungani, or among the natives as Kiinua mguu, on which stand the buildings occupied as a boys' school, and sometimes called St. Andrew's College. It is admirably situated for health, but the soil is very barren. Extensive repairs are going on here also.
4. A small piece of land, perhaps about two acres, containing the mud and thatch house occupied by the subdeacon, John Swedi, who cultivates a portion of it. It is near, but not adjoining to the larger Kiungani premises,
5. A piece of very fertile land (about thirteen acres) nearly five miles from the town with a small ​stone house upon it, known as Mbweni. The house is in very bad repair, and the value of the property was almost entirely destroyed by the cyclone. Out of 600 cocoa-nut trees, only 19 were left standing.
6. At Magila an iron house and some native buildings. The land is occupied under a special authority from the then King, which is almost the only right in land capable of being acquired among the Shambalas.
7. At Mworongo, the landing-place for Magila, we have helped Munyi Hatibu to build an upper room to his house, on condition that we have the use of it on our journeys to and fro.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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