Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1882-12-21
Christmas In Central Africa.
larper's Magazine.

Christmas is a delightful season in
! Christian lands, especially when the bal
ance of presents and dinners is in ones
favor, and the tin horn crop among the
children has been a failure. Very diff
ferent is Christmas in heather lands,
where the uses of the stocking are un-
known, and Christmas trees are hung
with unfortunate travellers and unap-
preciated missionaries instead of glitter
ing and showy.presents. Think of Christ
mas in the region of the north pole,
where the night lasts for six months, SO
that even the ablest of the Esquimaux
can not distinguish Christmas-eve from
Thanksgiving night, nor Christmas
morning from Washington s Birthday or
Decoration day! Even more depressing
is Christmas in Central Africa, as dis
tinguished English traveller once discov-
cred to his mingled sorrow and danger.
The traveller was a good and noble
man. He was engaged in discovering
fresh lakes, new kinds of cannibals, and
original sources of the Nile in the heart
of Africa, and his only desire was to do
good to the human race, and to prove
that the maps made by other travellers
were all wrong. He had been three
years in the Dark Continent, and, hav-
ing suffered necessarily from fever,
starvation, the rude embraces of lions
and elephants, the bites of deadly SER
penis, and the cruelties of native kings,
was nearly worn out. He arrived late
one afternoon on the shore of a mighty
lake which no other white man had ever
seen, and which was at least five hun
Il ~ mt of ri
Gus localities in which European map
makers had previously placed it. He
lay down under the shadow of the trees,
faint with all the various things that
predispose man to be faint in Central
Africa, but exulting in the thought that
he would compel the map-makers to
place Lake Mjambwe where he wanted
it, and not where they selfishly i'm
agined that it would present the most
picturesque appearance. Suddenly he
remembered that it was the oath of
December, and that Christmas-eve
would naturally arrive in the course of
the next two hours. The thought sad
dened him. He glanced at his bare
feet-for his supply of stockings had
long since given out-and he thought
of the happy homes in England, where
the children were preparing to hang up
their mothers largest stockings, while
he must spend the blessed Christmas
season among savage heather and un-
trained animals. He felt at that mo-
ment that he would give his new lake
for an hour in his English home, and
he covered his face with his hands and
sobbed himself asleep.
When he awOke it was broad day
light. The woods were vocal with par
rots who necessarily remarked, polly
wants cracker" and ostriches, and
other tropical birds, each singing at the
top of its voice. On the bosom of the
lake foated immense native canoes
bearing parties of excursionists, the
music of whose accordeons aud bcnjoes
came over the water to the wearied
traveller. He was hungry, and felt in
his pockets for his quinine pills, but
they were all gone. He tried to rise to
his feet, but he was too weak and rheu-
matte to rise without help. so he sank
back murmuring, "'Tis ard, ard in
deed, to die on Christmas among the
'eathen."
The sound of women's voices reused
him. Three native women, clad only
with the tsetse and ponb0 worn by their
sex in that part of Africa, emerged from
the forest on their way to draw water
from the lake. They saw the traveller,
and one of them, moved with compass
sion, sang, in low, mournful tone:
1.-THE poor white trash done come TO
| Africa. He hasn't no mother for to fry
hominy for him, nor no wife for to send
to the store with a Jug" Enfeebled as
he was the traveller knew that this was
wrong, tor he had read Mango Parks
Travels and he could not help remark
ing, you women don't sing that song
as it ought to be sung"
Sing it yourself. them retorted the
singer in a cold, heartless way, and
thereupon the women passed and left the
wretched white man to perish.
The cruelty of the woman made the
traveller so indignant that he resolved to
make one more tremendous effort for
life. He managed to rise, after painful
exertions and the use of many scientific
terms, and hobbled slowly toward a ma
tive village about q quarter of q mile
away. He had scarcely reached it when
he was seized by two gigantic cannibals
and dragged to the kings palace, where
he hoped that either death or breakfast,
he did not. much care which. awaited
him.
The palace consisted of one large
room with an enormous throne extend