The New Missions to the North

Some changes of plan had to be made. It was evident that the hope of Mary Livingstone meeting her husband at the Zambezi was too uncertain to be counted upon, and she returned to the Cape. Ashton, so long Moffat’s colleague at Kuruman, was transferring his service to the Griqua Mission at Philippolis, and left in the month of May. He had been called in the month of February to suffer the irreparable loss of his wife, the partner of his work for sixteen years.

Mackenzie had decided not to accompany this expedition to the Makololo in the first instance, but to follow a year after.

Robert Moffat to his brother Richard.

“June 22, 1859. *’ A short letter at any time is better than none, and as it will be the last I can address you before leaving for the interior, I embrace this opportunity. The dark cloud which has for a time hung over our prospects has to all appearance dispersed for the present, and within a month we all hope to take our departure for the Matebele and Makololo Missions. We have been put to much trouble and expense as well as delay from the threatened attack of the Transvaal Boers on the Kuruman, on account of the removal of goods to the Colony, which have only just been brought back. The Boers appear to have been shamed by letters from the Governor, as well as by influence exerted by others, into the abandonment of their purpose. Whether they will attempt to prevent us from passing their assumed territory remains to be seen. The subject has called for fervent prayer to God, here and in Cape Town. These prayers have been heard, and to God would we give all the praise. We also consider it an omen for good, believing that He who has thus dispersed the threatening storm will still make our way plain in carrying the light of the glorious gospel to the dark regions beyond. If all go well, I shall in all probability remain about a twelvemonth among the Matebele, or at all events until I shall see that, under the Divine blessing, the mission is established.

“I think it is since I wrote to you that Mrs. Ashton died. Not long after, John’s son, born at Beaufort, died. That was soon followed by the death of Mrs. Sykes and the child to whom she had given birth. Since then Mr. Ross, at Lekatlong, has lost a daughter, so that death in our missionary band is warning us to be also ready. I am much as usual, but the worse of wear; and have been, ever since our return from the Cape, worried almost to death with cares and engagements — now, with all the preparations of myself and others, getting to a climax. Mrs. Moffat is not nearly so strong as she was, but, like our late beloved mother, will be doing.”

On the seventh of July, 1859, the first division of the party started from Kuruman. They were Mr. and Mrs. Helmore and four children, and Mr. and Mrs. Price. There was Tabe, a native teacher from Lekatlong, who had determined to accompany his old missionary, and there was the usual staff of native attendants. Every one was impressed with the gravity of the occasion. The end of the journey was a point a thousand miles farther into the interior, to which none of those now going had ever been except a couple of the native servants, who had accompanied Livingstone on one of his former journeys. All were happy in the thought that a start was really being made, but there was a calm and subdued feeling which befitted the occasion. They went out, knowing not whither they went, and what was in store for them; but they went in faith. It was just a year and a half after this that Roger Price returned, bringing with him two orphan children of the Helmores; and they, with the broken remnant of their Bechwana followers, were all that remained of the missionary band. The story of the failure of the Makololo Mission is well known — failure in one sense, but not in the highest, for such episodes leave behind them influences which can never die. For some years nothing was done, but latterly the work has been recommenced. Arnot, of Glasgow, has been for a time alone, verily a pioneer of apostolic mould; but the Coillards and their niece, with their colleague Jeanmairet, have now gone to establish a mission for the Paris Society.

A week after the Makololo party had started, Mr. Thomas and John Moffat, with their wives, left, to be followed speedily by Robert Moffat and Mr. Sykes. Once more Mary Moffat was called to part with her husband, and with her two daughters was left in comparative solitude; there being, for a time, no one left even to carry on the public services on the station, except the native elders of the church, until the Mackenzies returned from their visit to the colony.

Robert Moffat overtook his own company at Sechele’s, but the H^lmores and Prices were too far on their way; and although some communications took place by letter, at Shoshong the roads diverged and the Matebele party turned to the north-east, and saw their companions no more.

From Sechele’s town to Shoshong, the headquarters of the Bamangwato, the road crossed a corner of the Kalahari Desert. The country consisted of slightly rolling plains of deep white sand. In one part of this there was an interval of sixty miles without water. It was a hard struggle to get the train of six heavily-loaded waggons across this thirsty desert. Progress was slower than usual. On former occasions Moffat had travelled this road alone, with the object of spending a few months only in the interior, but now it was a question of carrying requisites for the permanent settlement of families. When civilized people put together what they need for two or three years to come for residence among utter barbarians, seven hundred miles from the nearest shop, they make the discovery — if they have not made it before — that their wants are neither few nor simple. By dint of hard work by day and by night the desert was crossed, and the waggons were drawn up under the shadow of the Bamangwato mountains.

From this point onwards the sand ceased, and the course lay through a wooded region, which continued the same in character to the end of their journey. The country onwards had by this time become better known than it was when Moffat first groped his way through it five years before; but as yet there was no beaten track. Each traveller made his own way, and left but little trace behind him. So when we had coasted round the eastern end of the hills, and had set our faces to the north-east, there lay before us a region, as far as the eye could reach, almost level and of a dark colour, on account of the unbroken woodland. Day by day the waggons followed in line. Two or three pioneers had to walk in front seeking the most easy path. Fortunately, as a rule, the forest was not dense. The trees stood fairly a part, the undergrowth being mostly long, rank grass, through which the foremost waggon ploughed its way as through a field of corn, each succeeding vehicle finding progress easier, until, when the whole train had passed, there was something like a beaten track. Her a and there ant-hills, some of huge size, had to be avoided, and occasionally great stones or slumps lay hidden in the grass, and sorely tried the wheels and axles of the heavy waggons. Occasionally the forest was found too dense, a halt had to be called, and all who could chop, white or black, had to fall to, until, by their united efforts, a way had been cleared. Foremost among these would be the veteran himself, who would never allow the younger men to get the better of him in any form of activity. Hour by hour this slow progress would go on; for days no clear view of the horizon could be obtained, or indeed any view more distant than a few hundred yards. Now, again, the way would be barred by one of the many channels in which water flowed only after the summer rains. The river-beds were full of white crystalline sand, and under this sand water was to be found pure and cool. It often took a good part of a day to get the waggons down and up the steep banks and across the expanse of sand, often eighty or a hundred yards broad. Each day as the sun began to sink behind the tree-tops a halt would be called, a space sufficiently open would be fixed upon, the waggons were drawn into a circle, the oxen unyoked and allowed to graze, while all hands were again at work felling mimosa bushes, dragging them to the waggons, and making a kraal. Some would be collecting large heaps of firewood. As the shades of evening fell, the oxen would be enclosed in the kraal, the fires would be lighted, cooking would commence in real earnest. When the travellers were ready for rest a call would be sounded, all would assemble at one fire, a hymn would be sung where no such sound was ever heard before, prayer would be offered, and in another hour nothing was to be heard but the chirping of the beetles, the snoring of the sleepers, and the occasional inarticulate sounds by which the tired oxen showed that they were contentedly chewing their cud.

Very litde disturbance was experienced from wild beasts. The season was dry; the game had moved to more favoured localities, and the lions had followed suit. Occasionally the distant roar of the latter was to be heard during the silence of the night, but it was not unpleasant at a distance. The occasional dismal howl, or rather yell, of the prowling hysena, who used to hang about the outskirts of the camp, was not much regarded; and still less the cheerful yelping of the jackals. Not often a sudden hubbub at one of the fires made night hideous, when it would be discovered that a snake or a larger scorpion than usual had insinuated himself among the sleepers round the camp-fires. The nights were always still; even if it blew during the day the nights were calm, and at this season of the year cloudless, so that there would be a bright moon, or starlight. As the dawn crept up the sky the camp would awake to life, the still burning fires would be replenished, the oxen turned out to graze, and the coffee kettles put on for a hasty breakfast before the start. Once or twice there were forced marches for want of water, meat would run short on account of the scarcity of game, an axle would break by a waggon running against a stump or rock; the energy of the leader rose over each impediment. He seemed to have the strength of three men, and was here, there, and everywhere in turn.

At length, twenty-six days after leaving Shoshong, signs began to appear of approach to the land of the Matebele. The first outposts of the Makalaka, a tributary people, were reached, and from this point onwards, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles to the headquarters of the chief, the journey was through an inhabited country.

On their progress through Bechwanaland it had been necessary for some of the party to buy oxen with which to fill up their dwindling teams. It proved that these were infected with “lung sickness,” a disease which had ravaged South Africa, but which had never reached the dominions of Mosilikatse. Moffat saw that it would not do to run any risk of connecting the advent of the gospel among the Matebele with that of such a scourge as a pestilence among the myriads of their cattle. On his arrival at the firsts outposts he sent forward messengers explaining this to the chief, and proposing that the draught cattle of the expedition should be left in quarantine, whilst Mosilikatse might supply his own oxen to bring the party to headquarters. A second message had to be sent before the chief could be brought to see the merits of the case; and then he gave orders that the oxen were to be left as proposed, but that as his own draught oxen were “all dead” he would send men to drag the waggons. Moffat knew well enough what value to attach to the statement about the oxen, but it was best to let things take their course, and to fall back on patience, a commodity without which little can be done in the interior of Africa. In due time a band of warriors appeared, but they were only eighty in number — not half enough for the task of dragging six heavily-loaded waggons over hill and down dale, through gullies and brushwood, for upwards of a hundred miles. After ten days’ valiant struggle on their part, the slow progress made convinced the despot that his whim could not be gratified, and at last the oxen — which he had kept back for reasons best known to himself — made their appearance.

Unfortunately, though originally trained, it was years since most of them had been in the yoke. A whole day was taken up in compelling the unwilling submission of a sufficient number to drag three of the waggons, and progress was but slow. At last, however, on the twenty-eighth of October, the party approached the chief’s camp — some waggons drawn by oxen, others by men.

Mosilikatse, with a very small number of people, was encamped in a dense, gloomy forest on the banks of the Impembezi.

He received his old friend with his usual cordiality, but as time wore on it became evident that something was wrong. The younger missionaries, who had come to settle in the country, and to whom it was of importance to provide for the future by getting seed into the ground, as the rainy season was commencing, were naturally eager to get to work. In this their senior and leader fully sympathized, and many were his earnest representations to the chief that it was desirable at once to point out a place for a Jtation. From day to day he was met with evasions and delays. The days became weeks. The summer advanced, and the wayworn travellers had to endure days of tropical heat, with a succession of equally tropical thunderstorms, with no better shelter than the canvas tilts of their waggons and the tents that they had pitched. Happily their camp was on a slope of hard ground, which did not get muddy. It was a trying time to all; not least so to the older missionary, who could not understand the change that had come over the chief, and who began, not without reason, to suspect that he was repenting of the permission he had so freely given for the establishment of a mission in his country. This suspicion proved to be correct. During Moffat’s visit to the Cape in the previous year Mosilikatse had sent messengers out to visit Mahura, then chief of the Batlaping, at Taung. These were present when the Boer attack upon the Batlaping took place; and the Batlaping, soured against all white men, had sent a message that missionaries not only destroyed the old customs, such as polygamy, but that wherever they came the Boers followed in due course. The experience — which the Matebele had not forgotten — of the advent of the American missionaries at Mosega, followed so closely by the attack of the Boers, gave colour to this charge j and now that this large party of new-comers were actually on the spot, not merely as visitors, but to settle in the country, the fears, perhaps more of his people than of the chief himself, were aroused, and the question was in actual debate as to whether the settlement should be allowed.

This suspense was not even relieved by the consolation that the missionaries were in contact with the people, for there were scarcely any people on the spot, it being Mosilikatse’s own encampment, and not a town. As time wore on things got worse instead of better. At the beginning of December the chief, without a moment’s warning, broke up his camp and removed with his waggons to a town at some distance, telling the missionaries that he would send people with them to the spot where they were to settle, and where he would join them afterwards. As he did not supply them with oxen for their waggons, it was difficult to understand what he meant, and for a fortnight longer things seemed as gloomy as they well could do. Day after day the missionaries waited, their waggon supplies diminishing, and the chief having apparently forgotten that they were dependent upon him for meat, for there was no one from whom they could buy.

About the middle of the month there was a sudden change in the whole aspect of affairs. One morning two headmen arrived with beaming faces. They seemed to have had a load taken off their minds. Mosilikatse was on his way to Inyati, and had sent two teams of oxen, with which the missionaries were to go and join him there at once. No time was lost; tents were struck, waggons packed, and a start made. The distance was about twenty-five miles, but it took a week’s hard work to get to the end of the journey. Owing to the rains, some parts of the country were little better than a morass. On the twenty-second of December, after almost incredible exertions, the whole party was assembled on the outskirts of the kraal of Inyati. All was settled. A spot which looked well for a station, about a mile from the town, was pointed out; and after spending Christmas Day together in their camp, the last mile was travelled with no little satisfaction, and the new-comers felt that they had reached home. Each selected for himself a tree under which to pitch his tent, until he should have raised a more solid dwelling. Moffat had now accomplished one stage of his undertaking. To him the experience of the previous two months had been perhaps the sorest trial of faith that he had known in his life. At one period even he had wavered in doubt whether it would be possible to establish the mission: and yet, while harassed with doubt himself, and chafing under the suspense and enforced inactivity of these two months, it was necessary for him to prop up the weaker faith of his companions, who had never seen Mosilikatse under any more favourable aspect, and, not having the same strong personal bond of friendship, were inclined to think that whilst other doors were open to the gospel, it was wasting time to press its acceptance upon a chief and people so unwilling.

Mary Moffat to her Brother-in-law,

“Feb. 23, 1860.” My dear Brother Richard, — It is now so very long since we heard from you, that we hardly know how things are with our Scotch friends. So many of our contemporaries are dropping off one after the other that we scarcely expect to receive a post without some such information, and we cannot help feeling it will soon be said of us too, ‘They are gone.’ Well, the grand thing is to be found prepared when the summons does come, having our loins girt about and our lamps burning, waiting the arrival of the Bridegroom. If I had not felt it before, I should do so now, that all earthly things are vain and trifling, except we are enabled by Divine grace to use them to His glory. My strength is gone, and I begin to feel myself of so little use in the world that my affections are more and more loosened from it, and I feel that I could very willingly leave it; for I know in whom I have believed, and, when heart and flesh fail. He will keep that which I have committed unto Him. I have very little hope of meeting you on this side Jordan, but if we may meet on the other side it will make rich amends for all the pain and separation here. Your brother, my dear husband, is much more likely for life than I am, yet I think he feels very much as I do on the subject — that is, he lives under a conviction that his time here may be short. He has been called to an arduous duty, that of commencing a new mission amongst a thoroughly barbarous and naturally unpromising people, because under the dominion of an absolute tyrant, to whom they yield all the powers of body and mind in the most abject subjection. Nothing short of Almighty power can make them dare to receive that instruction which is now offered to them; but the Saviour who said ‘Go,’ has also said, ‘All power is given to me in heaven and earth.’ As you will perceive from Robert’s letter, they have had their discouragements from the very outset, though eventually light dawned upon them. It was especially painful to him, who was expected by his influence to have ensured for them a more cordial reception. The enemy had been at work, and fears had been excited. We can hardly wonder that subjects of Mosilikatse, after remaining with the enemies of the gospel in this quarter for some months, should have imbibed notions such as they did, and should take them to the ears of their master; and then he had so many months to con over them before they could be counteracted.

“Nearly the same thing took place in the commencement of this mission. After Mr. Campbell had promised to send teachers, the enemy crept in and said, ‘Do not receive them; they are agents of the Cape Government, just coming to tame your young men, who will then be taken to become soldiers.’ Had your brother urged the commencing of this mission he would have had more painful exercises than what he had; but he had not done so, but went in obedience to the wish of the Directors, though much to his own satisfaction, for he and I had often wondered together what end was to be answered by all the intercourse he had had with that people, and the extraordinary attachment of that poor savage to him. When, therefore, the proposal came from London, the question seemed to be answered, and we both stood ready to make any sacrifice to which we might be called for so great an object. I feel much for him at his age, for though yet strong, he is not what he once was, and it costs him more to labour so hard and endure privations than it did in middle life; and I know him too well to suppose, whatever be his resolutions, that he will not have much hard labour and consequent fatigue while he does remain.”