13 Roughing it in the Bush 1893

Chapter 13 ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH

1893 IN anticipation of introducing the coming recruits to the interior, there was much to be done: studying Bulu when nothing else; casually picking up Banaka speech, useful with carriers; especially making more trips inland by which to win the confidence not only of Bulu, but also Mabeya, who were afraid this passing beyond through their towns meant losing their trade. On each reappearance among them, the white man was greeted with diminishing suspicion. Few now asked the question, "What are you seeking for? " But as he came closer to the people, notwithstanding all his previous knowledge of Africans, Dr. Good was profoundly impressed with their unspeakable immorality. " I cannot lift the veil." That the gospel is the power of God was his only confidence. " Of one thing I am certain. There is no remedy but God’s great remedy for sin. And that that will avail I have already been permitted to see. The Galwa of the Ogowe, while less savage, were once much more superstitious and hardly less immoral than these Bulu. I did not see them until they had been greatly changed by the influence of the gospel, but I had abundant testimony as to what they had been. And I have seen hundreds of those Galwa come to Christ and become, if not saints, at least as different from what they were as darkness is from light. The degradation of the Bulu has shocked me, because I have seen it in all its shameless nakedness. Pray that I may be permitted to see even these brought to the feet of Jesus and clothed in his likeness." The first bush for the new station was cut June 5, on the hill afterwards named, at the suggestion of a Bulu woman, "Efulen" ― a mingling. The missionaries had come to settle all palavers and bring together (mingle) all kinds of people. Within a few weeks after it was occupied, Batanga, Mabeya, Banaka, Galwa from the Ogowe, and Bulu were all working together on Efulen Hill.

Batanga men were first set to making a small clearing, and then left to put up a bark house, native style, for a first temporary shelter. The Bulu promised, on their part, to build the indispensable palaver house, which serves all the purposes of restaurant, club-house, court, and city hall; in this case it was to be also the house of prayer. The expected three men for the interior having arrived. Dr. Good wrote to his strong backers in Montclair: "They all seem well adapted for the work to which they have come. Pray for them, as you have prayed for me, that they may be long spared to work for the Master, a blessing to Africa and her perishing millions." And, about to march up-country, he wrote to the Board: "You cannot move too fast for me. I see no obstacle to our establishing three or four stations as fast as the men can be gotten out." In Africa there are always obstacles. The new doctor was at once detained at the coast, and within two years both the professional members of the party were in America, on the resignation list. But that event was for the present hid from their eyes.

Mr. Matthew Henry Kerr and Rev. R. H. Milligan went up with Dr. Good and reached the mission clearing July 22. The one-roomed little house with earth floor was ready for three educated white men, and a tent for dry weather; after that, they had nothing but their hands and tools and the rich primeval forest surrounding them, from which huge tree-trunks lay felled in the clearing. The station possessed neither table, desk, nor chair, and was equally destitute of furniture for preaching the gospel. There was not a page of the Bible in Bulu, nor one hymn. Only one of the trio could even imperfectly convey the message of God’s Word. He was struggling with gaps in the savage language. How to express the idea of the Holy Spirit to a people whose only notion of " spirit " is the shadow of a living man or the ghost of one dead! There were two words in Bulu for " town," but only one and the same verb for "to believe," " to trust," and " to have faith." Mr. Kerr began at once getting out planks with a pit-saw, and whenever it was in motion he was the center of a curious and smiling circle of Bulu. After six weeks the Station were able to elevate themselves off from their earth floor, so dangerous in malarial Africa, and to move, though still in one cramped room, into a new residence built on posts three to four feet high, with bark walls and roof of bamboo thatch. It was completed by the middle of October, affording a private room for each missionary, a store-room, and one general living-room, which occupied the center of the house and opened on a porch at each end. The floors were plank. There was neither sash nor glass, but open window-places, protected by shutters. Their dining table was a true antique ― a circular slice of a virgin forest tree, with the bark left on, supported on stakes for legs. A clay fireplace was constructed in the "parlor," where the weather permitted of a fire burning most of the time. Fuel bills were at zero, and no taxes to pay. Dr. Good, by dint of perseverance, built himself a bedstead and stuffed his mattress with native corn-husks. The poor hard soil was worked, a variety of vegetables planted, and banana and other fruit trees were started.

Efulen commanded a crystal stream of water, and, on those sides not walled in by forest, a distant view of grand mountains. Workmen were paid wages of sixteen or eighteen cents a day, and the house, sixteen by twenty-eight feet, cost $52.80. In this way Dr. Good’s purpose to give an object-lesson to the people was realized.

" On the coast we import everything, and the natives conclude that to be civilized they must have foreign food, foreign furniture, etc, and thus native industry is discouraged. The Bulu think God has given us our wealth, and scoff at the idea that white men make cloth and furniture. If we build and furnish our houses and spread our tables from the resources of their own country, we are pointing them in the only direction in which there is hope of bettering their condition. If we set out to have foreign supplies, the report will go through the land that white men have come with inexhaustible wealth; but if we make the least possible display of foreign goods, raise our own food and make our furniture, the story will be rehearsed far and wide that the white men work with their hands, even make gardens. This will do more to correct their absurd ideas of white men than years of preaching." The population around Efulen was not stagnant. Native traders were coming and going. Strangers appeared from distant places, so that preaching at Efulen was like preaching to the inhabitants for a hundred miles east and northeast.

Development of the station was going on smoothly when news from his wife compelled Dr. Good to hasten to the beach. He had been there but a week when a pursuing messenger brought tidings that Mr. Milligan was very ill. This was one of the times of dilemma when the missionary discussed within himself " whether my duty lies there or with my invalid wife." He left Mrs. Good in bed, under the doctor’s care, and, with the roads at their worst, made a forced march ― a " terrible " journey even for him. The only way he could cross some of the swollen, rushing torrents was by climbing trees and swinging himself from interlacing branches of one tree to those of another on the opposite bank. But difficulties of the journey were naught compared with the anxiety in his breast. His patient was five weeks in bed with typhoid fever.

Itineration being thus prevented, Bulu manuscript multiplied. A dictionary was growing fast. By October two hymns would " go " and the first consecutive passage from the Word of God was read to the Sunday audience (October 1). It was a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. What conception did those bloody men receive from the novel proclamation, " Blessed are the poor in spirit," " Blessed are the peacemakers "? At this stage in mastering the language. Dr. Good’s method was to set a Bulu man to talking and stop him with questions whenever he used a new word. That would result in gaining a general idea, spread over three or four terms. The hinge of the task was then to extricate the exact meaning in each of these terms. What should be done for a word to express thanks and thanksgiving? The Bulu had no word. Christian ideas had no expression, because they had no place in the heart. " Give them the ideas, and they will soon find expression for them." It was therefore his purpose to translate the gospels as soon as possible, and stop there. Some development of religious language might be counted upon within two or three years, when translation of the whole New Testament would be in order, to be rounded out with a revision of the gospels. The Bulu tongue, however, was well equipped with terms for sense-perceptions. A race standing guard, through suspicious generations, against human foes and lurking beast and viper in the twilight of the forest had developed five or six synonyms for the phrase " to see." " For all forms of evil they have a wealth of names that completely discounts the English.... It is intensely interesting to stand by and watch the regeneration of a language." His young brethren looked on admiringly as from the lips of a wild Bulu, however repulsive his personal presence, his enunciation changing and indistinct, his intellect however dull, word by word, idiom by idiom, was captured. Ask the expression for "my gun," and the answer is given; then ask for " my guns," and the man declares, "I have only one." It is no use to press him further. He is ready to call all his wives and brothers to testify that he has " only one gun." Half a dozen Bulu would be successively played out in a morning under his fire of questions, while " Dr. Good would toil on till night, never once losing patience, to my knowledge.... His understanding of the African people and his discretion in dealing with them commanded my continual respect and admiration.... He could learn the truth from them when they told him nothing but lies. He might ask the road to some particular town, and they would tell him the boldest lies; but without betraying suspicion he would continue to question, keeping his attention apparently fixed upon the chief speakers, but hearing every word spoken by others aside. At last, when they had finished, he would start off in the right direction, leaving them amazed and saying among themselves, This white man has very powerful charms.’

" One day a Bulu chief called Ngombair, a powerful man, came to our station storming furiously against the white man. He had been sending many persons for medical treatment without paying anything for medicine. Other natives paid something, but he presumed upon his importance until, at last, we had sent his patients back to town without treatment. He cursed us to the workmen upon our own premises and roused them against us, using very abusive language. Dr. Good heard it without any show of indignation. Then, with a quiet smile, turning to another native, he asked: Is this Ngombair who talks in this way? Is this the wise chief of Nkonemekak? ’ Already the chief began to feel ashamed. Dr. Good talked to him a few minutes in a friendly way, and soon sent him home cheerful and praising the white man. So skilful was he in controlling and quieting their savage passions." The illness of his wife detained Dr. Good at the coast for some weeks towards the end of 1893. " All goes well at Efulen," he wrote; " but so long as I alone have the language, the evangelistic side, the most important side, of our work must depend mostly on myself. And yet I sometimes suspect that if I should never he able to go back, the Master could find others to carry on this work! " From the Ogowe Dr. Good had written to his wife in 1888: " This separation is to be the last, or I can’t help it." And to the secretary: "As a rule, I am utterly opposed to such separations; only the weakness of our force could have induced me to consent." Yet, ever since, temporary separations from his family had been constant, and, at the opening of 1894, he was again face to face with the alternative. Mission meeting was at hand; their trunks were packed to take the invalid to America; the steamer would soon arrive. Some of the brethren conferred together, and begged him to stay behind. Affairs in the interior were not in a condition to be left without him. It was true. With prayer and searching of heart he consulted his wife. When she gave her full consent for him to remain, he said, "You are really helping the work more than any one else." He sent her and their son, in company with a missionary lady, to Grand Canary, whence, as the season advanced towards spring, she might safely go on to America. He watched the disappearing steamer, and plunged into the bush.

Already, only six months after the station was opened, its influence had begun to tell. There were certainly no converts yet; there was not even one of whom the missionaries could hope that he would soon take hold on Christ; but there were good signs.

Every Lord’s day brought a company of people to Efulen Hill; and instead of staying away after their curiosity was gratified, the most attentive hearers were those who had heard most. The part of the gospel message which the Bulu seemed to grasp first was what they eminently needed ― " peace among men." Walking through a town where a palaver was being talked, Dr. Good asked in jest if the palavers were not all finished yet. " Can palavers ever finish? " one of them replied; but added, " Were we ever before so long without killing people as since you came? " " And, thinking over the matter, it is true. In towns about Efulen there has been no attempt at bloodshed since the station was opened. Women have eloped or been carried off under circumstances that in the old days would have led to bloodshed; but, in every case so far, it has been avoided out of deference, so they say, to our teachings." A man from the Ntum tribe, three days south on the Campo, said that the "Word" had gone all through the Ntum country, and people were " settling their palavers." The comparatively subdued behavior of Efulen audiences was realized only by the contrast in towns outside, where usually two or three young fellows would keep up running comments on the preaching, not intending to be disrespectful but frequently giving to it a ludicrous turn. Or, one would notice something about the missionary’s person that struck him as odd and nudge his neighbor. Eyes in all directions would quickly take the hint, till suddenly the whole audience, who a moment before were listening intently, would be lost in gazing at the speaker’s hair or shoes. And they would laugh at everything, especially when the eternal punishment of the wicked was mentioned, no matter how carefully and seriously. A babel of voices would remind one another that that was for them. If stealing or other immorality were mentioned, side-glances and ringing laughter not only played havoc with the thread of discourse, but indicated how prevalent such sins were. It was usually impossible to hold attention in new places for more than ten minutes. The missionary could never explain the reason why towns differed in their reception of his message; for in some places he could talk without interruption for half an hour. Of the draft there is upon one in presenting divine truth to such people, Dr. Good had ample experience this year. In February he tramped twelve days, back and forth, on a preaching tour southeast from Efulen, in the region where it was hoped to locate a second station. Every day he preached in from five to eight towns. A specimen experience must be given in his own words:

" Frequently after I have ceased speaking, the chief or some other man of influence will harangue the people and urge them to receive and obey the words God has sent the white man to teach them. How he will tax his people with lying, stealing, robbery, immorality! To hear him remind his neighbors of what they may expect in the world to come, one would think he himself must be an angel of light, with nothing to fear from the events of the last great day. And yet that man is passionate, cruel, always ready for a fight or a foray, probably a robber and murderer many times over; his avarice is insatiable, he is a beastly glutton. But as he stands forth, dilating on the shortcomings of his forty or fifty wives and on the faults of his neighbors in general, he seems utterly unconscious of the fact that he is probably the greatest sinner of them all. How exceedingly human all this is! and how I long for the day when the Spirit of truth will give them such a view of their own sins that they will forget those of their neighbors! " The responsibility resting upon Dr. Good for the health of his younger associates and of the whole great enterprise was keenly appreciated. " You will not be surprised when I tell you that I sometimes tremble. I understand now Paul’s anxiety, so often spoken of in his epistles, lest he should be ’put to shame.’ I can only pray that God will glorify his great name."