Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-09-03
PRISONER IN AFRICAN WILDs
Missionary Held for Twenty three
Years by q Negro Napoleon.

roars py negro Napoioon.
After twenty-th three years peril in
the heart of Africa much of the time a
prisoner in great black Babylon
where nameless horrors were commit
ted every day, where were hills Of
skulls and where patches of slaves
were butchered for the mere joy Of
the sight Of blood, Daniel Crawford,
missionary connected with the Ply
mouth Brethren, has returned to Brit
ain on furlonch and has Just been
given an officia' reception at his ma
tive town Of Gre enook
How he penetrat ID from the western
coast to the great ltatanga country. In
the southeast corner Of the Congo
country, north Of Rhodesia, forms
strange chapter in his life's story. At
first he was with two other mission
aries-Fred Arnot and Mr.. Lane,
(the well-known Free Churchman)-
and he said to a representative Of the
London Chronicle, I'VE had to bore
our way in. For hundreds Of miles Af-
rica Is blocked by impudent chiefs Of
the Rob Roy type, whose only motto
Is own up and pay up You go fif-
teen, seventeen, twenty stupid little
miles, perhaps you merely cross q riv-
er, and another Rob Roy McGregor At
ricanus meets you with extortionate
demands. He looks at your jacket and
he wants your jacket; he looks at the
shirt underneath and he wants your
shirt"
The two missionaries whom Mr..
Crawford accompanied soon penetrat-
ed as far as they desired, and to solve
the difficulty Of getting right into the
heart Of the interior. Mr.. Crawford at
tached himself to a slaver's caravan.
Along the coast" he says, there are
any number Of these Portuguese slav-
ers, but they employ lot Of black cut
throats who load the caravans up with
powder and fiintlock guns, and over
the hills and far away they 60 on their
pacific penetration of Central Afri-
ca!'
And it was then I saw the horrors
Of the slave trade. All along the path
We saw the shackles and the yokes Of
slaves who had died on the way down
to the coast. To prevent the slaves
escaping at night the legs Of each four
Of them are tightly punched together
in wooden shackles. Dozens of
shackles were found along the same
route in 1909; not old shackles, but
green shackles, shackles still wet with
the sap of the tree. Though Britain
prevents slaves being shipped to ia
maica or elsewhere in Africa, there Is
always any amount of slavery up the
back path. Africa lives on slave labor.
1T was the nightmare Of my life in
the interior. At all hours of the night
natives came to me saying, Sir, sir,
we are all killed. and they would tell
me Of attacks by the slavers. Of wo-
men dragged off, Of men killed. Often
the slavers were led by white men,
men sporting false names, and there
names of towns wiped out, names Of
all the victims, but have not got the
name Of the Portuguese leader. These
men put on the mask Of a false name,
and under the shield Of it they do the
DEVILS work In Central Africa"
The caravan to which Mr.. Craw-
ford attached himself to get into the
interior, however, was bound for a
place where there were always slaves
to be obtained cheap-the capital Of
the great Emperor Mushidi.
Years before" says Mr.. Crawford,
"Mushidi journeyed into the interior
with his wife. Kapapa, and two slaves.
total Of four, and this terrible quar-
tette smashed up all the tribes Of
Central Africa. Mushidi was a veri-
table black Napoleon Of Central Afri-
ca. His brain worked with the preci-
sion Of a machine. Tribe after tribe
fell under his sway, and thus was
evolved a great black Babylon, where
all the tribes formed a seething mob and
where slaves poured in by hundreds
and thousands.
1T was a city Of scores Of thou
sands Of people, certainly over 10000.
And there for years was kept prac-
tically prisoner, for Mushidi. refused
to let me go. 1t was case Of VIII
you walk into my parlor?' said the
spider to the fly. Partly. perhaps, it
was a case of pride, for Mushidi want
ed his enemies north, south. east and
west to know that he had caught a
white man.
Life there was awful" and Mr..
Crawford shuddered as he recalled
the scenes. Hills Of skulls all over
the place, and drastic executions daily
in full swing. Blood, blood, and yet
more blood; blood Of babes, blood Of
women, blood of old men. And there