Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1903-12-17


tive tongue giving instead mongrel stuff
known as Kitchen Kaffir
But the boy who came to me was from
another tribe though he knew and spoke
the Chickaranga Yet even he. not know
ing what wanted to learn (and it was six
months before could get the name Of the
language spoken here) taught me Kitchen
Kafir which I learned at first in sublime
ignorance until ] had become quite fluent
in it. Then lad it all to unlearn, by far
the haFder thing to do. However, in
about three months time, he got so that
he knew my wishes and, together with his
own ambition to learn English. proved in
valuable, So at the end Of eight months,
had succeeded in arranging alphabetically a
list OF more than 700 words.
This prepared the way for kraal work
and on June 4th, 1902, left Hartzell
Villa and taking with me native girl
Shakeni, and my cat, went to Chikong
kraal where spent profitable two weeks.
was treated ny the little Chiefess as an
honored guest and invited to dance at a
garden breaking and threshing bee at all
three Of which beer was the great attrac-
tion for my royal hostess. To properly
understand the meaning Of "howling
drunk, = one needs to be solitary white
woman in an Africa kraal when everyone is
engaged in dance wi5hin stones throw
Then one Of our missionaries went up to
Mtasa, the king of all Manicaland, and
found him very sick. In reply to re-
quest for permission to bring the Gospel to
his people, the old man sententiously re-
piled that he would prefer some medicine
for his body first and then be would con
slider the other matter. had already
earned something Of reputation as a doc
tor, SO l had to go up. Never will for
get those nine weeks in that filthy, noisy,
wicked capitol where we danced attend
ance on his royal highness who admitted
us when he pleased and kept us out when
be didn't, he being at such times usually
too drunk to be reasonable. When we.
were admitted, it was to almost craw into
a tiny, dark, stuffy hut where we had to
kneel on the earth floor beside glowing
fire and in an atmosphere which verify
seemed as if it cou d be sliced. 1t was so
dark that candle was always needed.
One day after I had worked dressing
those putrid sores for longer time than
usual my companion, holding the candle
SO close to my face that it nearly scorched
my hair; after we had emerged into the
blessed air and sunshine and, on reaching
our tents, | had dropped into chair to let
my interior organs revert to their proper
places, my fellow-worker suddenly brought
me out Of the slough Of nausea in which /
was foundering, BY saying, AT least, no
one can ever say l can't hold a candle to
you"
At the first, we had to give the old man
treatment twice day, then once day and
then when he had recovered SO as to be out
and around he became very irregular and
though we went to him, be would put us
off till the morrow. In vain did we ex-.
plain that his life depended on faithful
treatment and abstinence from excesses; be
would not listen and two weeks after we
left. be died.
Once more returning to Hartzell Villa,
threw myself with redoubled energy into
the language work and am now beginning
to see some reward for my labors. But
more Of that another time
And now for the coming year, God will.
| ing, shall have charge of the school which
now numbers 81 boys and two girls. AS
the boys work on the farm mornings, use
that time for language, writing, etc.
School begins at one O'Clock and continues
until half past five. They are learning
English, reading and writing, Chikaranda
reading, with a little of all other things as
we can put them in. For we have to teach
them everything from the very beginning. It
is slow work, this Of lifting nation and is
not to be accomplished. But the strides
these boys make would astonish you.
A month ago, two Of them were baptized
by the Bishop. They had been under our
care and teaching for years and gave every
evidence Of being fitted spiritually and in
tellecsua " for the step which they were
taking for we do not want any superficial
work. II we did, we could have bapsised
score instead Of two