11 Pioneering in Bululand
Chapter 11 PIONEERING IN BULULAND August 1892― January 1893 ON setting out for the Bulu country the second time, Dr. Good wrote: " My plan has never had in it anything grand or romantic. If I can this year find a good site for our first station, and assure myself of a large population beyond, I do not see the need of doing more at present." This journey was begun August 30, and ended October 4. It had been thrown forward into all the disadvantages of the rainy season by delay in transmission of the letter of instructions. No one would have regarded Dr. Good as recreant to duty if, placing the responsibility upon that delay, he had postponed his journey until the good weather of December. But in January mission would convene to take action upon all its affairs for the ensuing year. Unless his report were laid before that meeting, no recommendations could be made, and the advance movement might be retarded a whole year. Such wastefulness of time, especially in uncertain Africa, was not to be thought of; therefore, into the bush without hesitation! The start was south from Batanga, avoiding the forest belt, then east and southeast, passing through Mabeya villages and farms, to the Lobi River. Twenty-five miles of tramping brought them to the most westerly Bulu town; thence, by a forest path of twelve miles, they emerged upon a line of towns called Kokwa, which suggested itself as an excellent location for a Bible-reader. "He could reach thousands of souls within a day’s journey." All the Bulu encountered the first week belonged to the same clan, and there are over one hundred clans. The vicissitudes of travel were varied. Several nights were spent in the forest, " sleeping with nothing but a mosquito net of cheese-cloth between me and all out of doors, and I felt no ill effects." Two blankets at night were occasionally necessary, and it was rarely hot except at noon. But a twenty miles’ march in tropical rain, "sometimes pouring down till the air seemed full of water," would be followed next day by pouring rain again, and for days following by "rain pouring as usual." There were no roads, only crooked African paths worn trough-shape by water, their center six inches deeper than the sides. Bridgeless streams must be crossed, often every mile or two, or bogs several hundred yards wide, through which our pioneer went barefoot. " I have read what Stanley says against a white man’s letting natives see his bare feet, and I consider it all nonsense. The African has a great deal more respect for a white man who can take care of himself than for one who has to be carried like a baby." Near the towns constant obstructions, such as fallen tree trunks, which Africans always go around, ― never remove for the public benefit, ― made fearful work for carriers. On either side, the narrow path was often lined with a dense growth of weeds and grass, always wet with dew, if not rain, till ten o’clock in the forenoon, and the white traveler, disadvantaged by his clothing, was soon wet to the hips. Worst of all, the paths, habitually dropping along the course of streams for a mile or more at a time, required constant walking in and out of cold water, the misery increasing at every step from sand and quartz pebbles which gathered in the shoes.
Occasionally a town banded together, refusing food unless at exorbitant prices. Then the caravan fell back upon rice, which had been brought in their loads for such emergencies. Now and then a churlish chief offered no welcome, or promised them robbery and murder at the next town on the road. At one place the question of plundering their loads was openly discussed, but abandoned at the suggestion from their own elders that the white man must have a " powerful fetish " or he would not venture so far from his people. " I could not help thinking how easily they could take our all if they had the courage." But though at times surrounded by hundreds of armed men, they generally met a friendly reception. The only arms in the party were Dr. Good’s old single-barreled shot-gun, loaded with bird-shot, and a revolver which he carried out of sight, and displayed, with apparent indifference but a wholesome effect, on one occasion only. It was enough. The fame of the " small gun " was thence forward their avant-coureur. Scores of times he was asked to show it, but always sternly refused, thereby heightening the mystery. This he called a "silly ruse" which might answer for once, but would not do when the white man became a familiar object. It would be safe to recognize the limitations to exploring among unknown savages. " Establish one station; from this explore for the next, choosing the best seasons and going only one hundred miles at a time."
Ten miles a day was a " hard " march, but nearing home a "tremendous" march of twenty-five miles was once covered. As Dr. Good proceeded from town to town, a crowd of several hundred followed at his heels, adding to his natural fatigue and anxiety the loud jangle of their untamed voices. He laid a mental tax upon himself by continually watching for new Bulu words and idioms, which were straightway transferred to the little note-book in his side pocket. In searching for an appropriate station site, some towns which had been recommended (by Africans) proved disappointing. True, Minkale was more than two thousand feet above sea-level, surrounded by mountains from three to four thousand feet higher, with a bracing air; but it was too isolated. The group of seven towns on the watershed between the Kribi and Campo rivers had friendly people, and an elevation of two thousand feet, but was too far from the sea. The valley of the Muile, " fertile and level as a Nebraska prairie," was densely populated, but promised to be unhealthful. Biyemyem was a town a mile long and would be a fine center as regarded population, but lacked wood and water. There was a right place.
" I was especially attracted by a long line of almost continuous villages called Nkonemekak, where the people seemed to swarm on all sides. This line partly encircled the base of a, hill which struck me as an admirable site. The elevation of the town was only sixteen hundred feet, but this hill is two hundred feet higher. Here is, in my opinion, the site for our first interior station. By the crooked path we must travel, the distance from Batanga is not less than seventy miles; but this is the first large center of population we met with on elevated ground, and the largest within one hundred miles of the sea. This point can be reached from the west by two or three different roads, and we can go eastward by two roads. This is an important consideration in a country where any chief who imagines he has a grievance may close the road against us. Food is reasonably abundant, though not very cheap. I found the people ready to listen to the gospel wherever I stopped long enough to preach." The method by which the minds of those wild Bulu listeners were brought into contact with the divine message, which for the first time was conveyed to their race, is pictured in one of the letters to Trinity Church.
" I never failed to announce that I was not a trader. I went out of my way to prove this. Many times, when invited to go and see the house full of ivory of some chief, I really wanted to go; for I had often heard there were houses full of ivory in interior towns, and was curious to know whether this meant a room with ten tusks in it or fifty or one hundred. But I was being so carefully watched that if I even went to look at their ivory the news would follow me wherever I went, and the impression produced would be that I was a trader in disguise, spying out the riches of the land. So I always pretended utmost indifference to questions of trade. At times I would go into a long explanation of how only a few white men were traders, and these not the greatest men with us. I would disgust them especially by telling them that my father was a farmer, and before I learned the work of the Book’ I myself hoed corn and potatoes. Among them such work is only performed by women, or men of no standing. They wanted to almost worship me, but this confession shattered their idol. Many a time I could have gotten on more comfortably by a time-serving policy. Often I would have preferred to pay an exorbitant price for something rather than go without it. But I expected to come back sometime, and preferred to have my difficulties at the beginning, and to leave no precedents that might make trouble for some one else. Sometimes they intimated quite plainly that they wanted a white man who would make them rich buying their rubber and ivory, not one who came with nothing but words.’
"In nearly every case the gospel seemed to make a profound impression, at least for a time. The truth of what I said was rarely questioned. You will wonder at this in a people who never before heard even a rumor of divine truth, until you understand how wonderfully the truth we preach harmonizes with and supplements what they already believe. They believe in an eternal Being who has made all things, to whom all men return at death, but they do not think of this Being as observing their actions, or that after death he may call them to account for deeds done in the body.
" The fundamental truths which they hold seem like fragments of a broken chain, which they are too thoughtless to connect; but when the missionary comes along and connects these severed fragments, they cannot help seeing how they fit together. I ask who made them and all things, and they reply at once, ’ Nzam? Who gives you all the blessings you enjoy? ’ He does.’ Do you love and worship him and thank him for his goodness?’ ’No.’ ’Why not?’ At once they see their conduct must be displeasing to God. Are lying, stealing, and killing right or wrong?’ ’ Wrong, of course.’ ’ How do you know?’ They cannot tell; they just know it. To the suggestion that these things are written in their hearts, like the words in a white man’s book, they assent at once as a satisfactory explanation. ’ Who wrote those things in your hearts?’ ’We don’t know,’ they say. ’Who made you?’ ’Nzam,’ or ’ Njamle. Both words are used. Then, ’ Did he not write these laws in your hearts?’ Here was a break in their knowledge, but the moment the missing link is supplied, the chain is made complete in their minds. Yes,’ in a chorus; yes, he gave us these laws in our hearts.’ Then I am ready to press home the great truth from which there is now no escape. If God made this law, he must be angry when it is broken. He must see when it is broken, for he made the eye; as he made the ear, he must himself hear what is spoken contrary to this law.’ ’ Yes, that must be so.’ Then, when death calls you into the presence of this Being whose laws you have broken, how will he receive you!’ They attempt no evasion; they admit that God will be angry; and when I tell them of heaven and hell the excitement sometimes becomes intense. Then I lead them on to the blessed truth that God is a God of mercy; and often, when the strange new story is finished, trade and greed, all else, seem forgotten. But next morning or an hour afterwards, when they have talked together a little and repeated to one another what they have heard of me, doubts begin to arise. They call me and want to talk a little more. I sit down, prepared to be questioned. The object of my visit has been fully explained. But no matter; the first question generally was, Where are you going? ’ I do not know exactly. I told you I was going as far as I could and to see as many peoples as I could.’ But who are you going to? ’ I don’t know.’ An astounding statement to them, as they never dare go anywhere unless where they have a friend who can protect them. What are you going for?’ By this time I would be losing patience, and reply something like this: I have told you already; why do you keep on asking the same question?’ ’Yes, we know’ (coolly); ’but tell us now what you are really seeking!’ Several times I thought they did believe me, but was afterwards convinced that, with the exception of perhaps two towns, the people took little stock in my explanations, and by most I was set down as an impostor. Had I come to look for trade, had I killed and plundered, they would have fully appreciated my motives; but that white men want to teach them about God and heaven without money or price, that was incomprehensible. The first great law of heathenism is selfishness, and, tried by this their only standard, you can see how unbelievable must have seemed my statement."
Dr. Good returned to Batanga in health, having traveled over four hundred miles on foot, penetrating the country about one hundred and seventy miles, and having seen the dwellings of from thirty to forty thousand people. He had expended less than half the money granted, had selected one station site and the approximate location for a second. Incidentally, he had acquired considerable fluency in the Bulu tongue and revised the geography of some towns and of the Campo Eiver. At once he prepared a masterly report upon what he had learned, which was presented to his brethren in mission meeting and forwarded to the Board. The contents were arranged in three parts: (1) a general outline; (2) analysis of important features; (3) recommendations for action.
He acknowledged his consciousness of assistance from above:
" Not only my brethren here, but friends in America, must have been helping me at the throne of grace. Again and again my way seemed closed, but always opened just in time. I was turned aside from the course marked out for myself by scarcity of food, want of guides, native feuds; sometimes I was misled by false statements; but although at the time I fumed and fretted, I can now see that I could hardly have laid out a better course than that by which I was compelled to go."
He explained the geographical relations of many tribes; how from interior forest seats the coast trade had beckoned them, and, moved by greed, they had years before begun a march which was gradually increasing in volume and momentum as they advanced. He showed the bearings of this seaward migration upon missionary opportunity. The Ntum people were real Fang from the Ogowe. " They will soon be down to the sea just north of the mouth of the Campo." The Bulu and Upper Campo Fang were practically one people ― " in a few years will fill the region back of Batanga." The greater part of them were still in their old homes, but, as fast as they pushed those in front of them out of the way, were pressing westward. This scramble to reach the sea was demoralizing. Constantly on the move, old industries, such as working in iron, were abandoned, their towns were carelessly built, they planted too little and were therefore hungry some months every year. The whole social fabric was shaken because towns belonging to the same clan became separated in transitu and a central government was therefore impossible. But this very movement would bring hundreds of thousands of souls, before nearly inaccessible, within easy reach of the gospel. The forest back of Batanga would in twenty years, perhaps less, be filled with a dense population; "that is, if we meet these peoples with the gospel of peace and so tame their savage instincts that they can be crowded together without exterminating each other." The vast country from the Campo River north to the Soudan border might be worked as one field, in the Bulu language.
"The bane of mission work in all West Equatorial Africa is the multitude of tribes, each with a distinct language, into which the people are split up. How I have longed for a field in which one language and literature would reach everybody! As I studied the map, the prospect was not inspiring. There were the Batanga people, the Mabeya, the Fang, the Bene, the Yengone, the Yewondo. I said to myself, Which of these tribes shall we adopt?’ I dwell on this that you may realize the thrill of pleasure with which I learned that all these people, except the first two, speak closely related dialects.... When, in conversation of a half -hour with a Yewondo man, I was able to detect only a few slight variations from the Bulu, my last doubt vanished, and I thanked God that we had found our field."
Climate indications were favorable, "if there is such a thing as good climate in Africa; but the man who is willing to go only where the climate is good had better stay in the United States." The Bulu were not cannibals, they held no slaves, had no intoxicating drink, and, "as far as I could discover," there was no true idolatry among them. Their superstition is the fetish. " They have not come in contact with civilization enough to get even a veneer of good manners, and simply acted out their true character ― not that they do not know better. Their moral natures are tuned to the same pitch as ours. They praise the same virtues and reprove (in others) the same vices. But in practice they are shamelessly immoral, dishonest, cruel. They might be worse. I think they are less vindictive than the Fang of the Ogowe. Bulu character is somewhat relieved by frequent streaks of good humor.
" How often the thought came to me that if heaven is to be a happy home for God’s people, it will not do to admit these Bulu! And yet they are material out of which saints may be made. Out of these rough, unlovely blacks might be wrought beautiful images of Christ." The first " recommendation " of Dr. Good’s report was that "we definitely adopt this field. I believe God has assigned it to us and calls us to enter.... I make this recommendation after much prayerful, anxious thought. know that treasure must he expended and lives sacrificed if this region is to be evangelized. But with the difficulties and perplexities in full view, I urge that we. take up this work."
Promptness to act in establishing a first station seemed of the greatest importance, because the German government had promised not to allow Roman Catholics to enter a field preempted by Protestants, and vice versa, Americans would probably have no chance unless they seized it soon. " If we let the Catholics beat us in this race, we ought to go home and quit."
It was recommended that three new men, one of them a mechanic, be sent out to man the first station, others to follow in due time. Were not the proposals conservative? "I cannot bring myself to believe that our great, wealthy church will turn back from this open door. At least, let the work be laid on her conscience.... I have faith that men will be found ready to go, and others will be glad to make an investment for eternity by sending them."
Pending action upon his report. Dr. Good was with his family at Baraka, his pen flying night and day, from epistle to epistle, ― would it never get done? ― copying the Mpongwe Testament.
Mission indorsed the report, and passed resolutions adopting the new field and asking the church for eight men to work it. Dr. Good was appointed to Batanga, from there to superintend opening the first station. On account of his family, he regarded himself as ineligible for permanent location in the interior. He strongly advocated having it opened up by unmarried men, not chiefly on account of difficulty of access and the roughness of a pioneer station, but rather to reduce expenses to a minimum. He considered that for the first years the people, food supplies, climate, all, were on trial. The people might turn against white men and refuse to sell them food. In such cases, if their houses were simply built of bark in native style, nothing to tempt the covetousness of Africans, the missionary would be in a position to control the chiefs by threatening to move on to So-and-so’s town. But if their premises were too valuable to leave behind they would be in the power of the Bulu, and the Bulu would know it. " I opposed taking ladies to the new field chiefly because doing so means building better houses and furnishing them more expensively than I think the unsettled condition of the country warrants. While our plant has little value, the temptation to plunder will be small." For himself, he hoped to perfect his knowledge of the Bulu language, and, living at Batanga, alternate preparation of Bulu books with itineration among the Mabeya and near Bulu towns, thus strengthening the work of the interior at the rear. When the report was received in America, utmost pains was taken to have its contents thoroughly digested by members of the Board of Foreign Missions. The vote of adoption was unanimous, and it is probable that the Board never took a forward step with more perfect comprehension of what was involved. In respect of distance from the sea, the proposed first station did not compare with some which had been opened prior to this time, but there was this difference: all others had been planted upon waterways, where the missionary’s boat made him independent; but from Bululand there could be no way out except on foot, through the bush, across bridgeless streams, or, at best, in a hammock swung upon men’s shoulders.