Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary Part 24

FIFTH PHASE

l9l0-January 1915. Age 62-66.

ONWARD STILL

"_It is a dark and difficult land, and I am old and weak--but happy_."

I. IN HEATHEN DEEPS

The new sphere to which Miss Slessor felt she was called, had been occupying her attention for some time. During one of the minor military expeditions into the interior, the troops were suddenly attacked by a tribe who fled at the first experience of disciplined firing. A lad who had been used by the soldiers was persuaded by some of their number to conduct them to the great White Mother for her advice and help. When they appeared at Use, she and they talked long and earnestly, and they returned consoled and hopeful. Some time afterwards the guide came down on his own account, bringing a few other lads with him. Her influence was such that they wished to become G.o.d-men, and they returned to begin the first Christian movement in one of the most degraded regions of Nigeria.

She knew nothing of the place save that it was away up in the north- west, on one of the higher reaches of the Enyong Creek, and a two days'

journey for her by water. The lads lived at a town called Ikpe, an old slave centre, that had been in league with Aro, and the focus of the trade of a wide and populous area. It was a "closed" market, no Calabar trader being allowed to enter.

On her return from Scotland the young men again appeared, saying that there were forty others ready to become Christians, begging her to come up, and offering to send down a canoe. She disliked all water journeys, and even on the quiet creek was usually in a state of inward trepidation. But nothing could separate her from her duty, and she responded to the call. For eight hours she was paddled along the beautiful windings of the Creek; then a huge hippopotamus was encountered, and frightened her into landing for the night on the Ibibio side, where she put up in a wretched hut reeking with filth and mosquitoes. Here the Chief was reaching out for the Gospel, holding prayers in his house, and trying to keep Sabbath, though not a soul could read, and the people were laughing at him. As the Creek made a bend she left the canoe and trudged through the bush to Ikpe. She found the town larger and more prosperous than she had antic.i.p.ated, with four different races mingling in the market, but the darkness was terrible, and the wickedness shameless, even the children being foul-mouthed and abandoned. The younger and more progressive men gave her a warm welcome, but the older chiefs were sulky--"Poor old heathen souls," she remarked, "they have good reason to be, with all they have to hope from tumbling down about their ears." The would-be Christians had begun to erect a small church, with two rooms for her at the end. That they were in earnest was proved by their att.i.tude. She had eager and reverent audiences, and once, on going unexpectedly into a yard, she found two lads on their knees praying to the white man's G.o.d.

She made a survey of the district, and came to the conclusion that Ikpe was another strategic point, the key to several different tribes, which it would be well to secure for the Church, and she made up her mind to come and live in the two rooms, and work inland and backwards towards Arochuku. There was the Settlement to consider, but that, she thought, she could manage to carry on along with the occupation of Ikpe.

Her bright and eager spirit did not reckon with the frailties of the body. When she returned, she entered on a long period of weakness. Now and again deputations came down to her. Once a score of young men appeared, and before stating their business said, "Let us pray." She made another visit, saw the beginnings of the church at Ikpe, and another at Nkanga on the Creek bank, three miles below Ikpe, and, what affected her more, heard rumours of a possible occupation by the Roman Catholics. "I must come," she said to herself.

On one journey she was accompanied by Miss Peac.o.c.k, who rose still more highly in her regard on account of the resolute way in which she braved the awful smells in the villages. On another, Mr. and Mrs. Macgregor shared the hardships of the trip with her. When these two arrived at the landing-beach for Use, a note was put into their hands from "Ma,"

to the effect that she had not been able to obtain a canoe, and they had better come to the house until she saw what the Lord meant by it.

They remained at Use some days, "Ma" suffering from fever, but refusing to postpone the trip, saying that if she had faith she would be able to go. They were to start early one morning, but her guests sought to keep her in sleep until it was too late. They succeeded until 1 A.M., when she awoke, gave directions about packing, and rose. "What do you think of her?" they asked of Jean. "She is often like that, and gets better on the road," she replied, which was true. As "Ma" herself said, "I begin every day, almost every journey in pain, and in such tiredness that I am sure I can't go on, and whenever I begin, the strength comes, and it increases."

The party left at 3.15 in the moonlight, and soon afterwards were in a canoe. For hours they paddled, past men with two-p.r.o.nged fish-spears fishing, by long stretches of water-lilies of dazzling whiteness, by farms where the fresh green corn was beginning to sprout, by extensive reaches of jungle where brilliant birds flitted, and parrots chattered, and monkeys swung from branch to branch by a bridge of hands. They stopped for lunch, and Mr. Macgregor was interested in watching her methods with the people. A chief wished to see the Princ.i.p.al, and said he was anxious to place two more boys with him in the Inst.i.tute. She told Mr. Macgregor to say he would see him after they had eaten. The business-like Princ.i.p.al thought this a waste of time, but she held that he must not cheapen himself--if he made food of more importance than the education of their boys they would think him dignified and respect him. And she was right.

By and by they came to a tortuous channel as narrow as a mill-dam, and it was with difficulty that the canoe was punted through. They swept on under trees, hung with orchids, where dragon-flies flashed in and out of the sunlight. This was the country of the hippos, and the banks were scored by their ma.s.sive feet; it was also, as they found to their cost, the haunt of ibots, a fly with a poisonous bite. After pa.s.sing over a series of shallows they reached Ikpe beach towards dark, and camped in the unfinished church, "Ma" in the "vestry," and the Macgregors inside the building.

Mr. Macgregor had seen much of Nigeria, but he had never witnessed such degradation as he found existing here. The girls went without any clothing, except a string of beads, and the married women wore only a narrow strip of cloth. He had again a lesson in native manners. Paying ceremonial visits to the chiefs, they sat and looked at the ground, and yawned repeatedly, and after a time left. To him the yawning seemed rude, but "Ma" said it was the correct thing, and when the chiefs returned the calls he knew that, as usual, she was right.

One of the questions that the chiefs asked was, "Is this the man you have brought to stay and teach us?" "Ma" turned to the Princ.i.p.al with a wry face. "Well," she said in English, "I like that. They'll need to be content wi' something less than a B.D. for a wee while--till they get started at any rate." She informed them who Mr. Macgregor was, and the great work he was doing in Calabar, and that in the goodness of his heart he had come up to see the position of things in the town.

"Ma"--incredulously--"do you mean that this is not the man who is to come and lead us out of darkness?"

"No, he is not the man-yet."

"Ma"--reproachfully--"you always say wait. We have waited two years, and again you come to us and say wait. When are you coming to us?"

There was nothing for it but to put them off once more. But she improved the occasion by extolling the Inst.i.tute, with the result that when they left, two boys were taken to the canoe and consigned to Mr.

Macgregor's care, one decently clad in a singlet and loin-cloth, and the other with only a single bead hanging at the throat.

Mr. Macgregor went exploring on his own account, and came across a Government Rest House perched on the brow of a cliff, with a magnificent view over the plain. Here he noticed that the people were particularly opposed to white men. One of the villages "Ma" had labelled "dangerous," and he learnt that when the Court messengers appeared, they were promptly seized, beaten, and cast out. This, it is interesting to note, came to be the scene of "Ma's" last exploits. He rejoined the ladies at Nkanga, where the little native church had been completed. They held the opening service. The Princ.i.p.al had no jacket; his shirt was torn, his boots bore traces of the streams and mud through which he had pa.s.sed. Miss Slessor wore the lightest of garments. It was one of the strangest opening ceremonies in the history of Missions, but they worshipped G.o.d from the heart, and "Ma" seemed lifted out of herself, and to be inspired, as she told the people what the church there in their midst meant, and the way they should use it for their highest good.

The Macgregors left her at Arochuku, and she continued down-creek. She had been upheld by her indomitable spirit throughout the journey, but now collapsed, and was so ill that she had to spend the night in the canoe. In the darkness she was awakened by one of the babies crying, but was so weak that she could not move. The girls were sound asleep, and could not hear her. Exerting her willpower, she rolled over to the child, whose head had become wedged between a box and the footboard of the canoe, and was being slowly killed. In the early dawn the journey was resumed to Okopedi beach, and thence she crawled over the weary miles to Use.

II. "REAL LIFE"

"I must go. I am in honour bound to go." It was her constant cry. She heard that services were being held regularly at Ikpe on Sundays and week-days, and yet no one knew more than the merest rudiments of Christian truth; none could read. A teacher had gone from Asang, but he was himself only at the stage of the first standard in the schools, and could impart but the crudest instruction. They were groping for the light, and worshipping what to most of them was still the Unknown G.o.d, and yet were already able to withstand persecution. The pathos of the situation broke her down. "Why," she cried, "cannot the Church send two ladies there? Why don't they use the money on hand for the purpose? If the wherewithal should fail at the end of two years, let them take my salary, I shall only be too glad to live on native food with my bairns."

Once more she went up, and once more she stood ashamed before their reproaches. She could not hold out any longer. "I am coming," she said decisively. She was not well--she was never well now--she had bad nights, was always "tired out," "too tired for anything," yet she went forward to the new life with unshakeable fort.i.tude. In a short time she was back with fifty sheets of corrugated iron and other material for the house. "I am committed now," she wrote. "No more idleness for me. I am entering in the dark as to how and where and when. How I am to manage I do not know, but my mind is at perfect peace about it, and I am not afraid. G.o.d will carry it through. The Pillar leads."

She did not care much for the situation that had been granted; it was low-lying, and she was anxious to conserve her health for the work's sake, but she had faith that she would be taken care of. Palm trees bordered the site on three sides, and amidst these the monkeys loved to romp. "These palms," she said, "are my first joy in the morning when the dawn comes up, pearly grey in the mist and fine rain, fresh and cool and beautiful." She lived in two rooms at the back of the church, with a bit of ground fenced off for kitchen, and her furniture consisted of a camp-bed and a few dishes. But she was chiefly out of doors, for she had as many as two hundred and fifty people engaged in cutting bush, levelling, and stumping. Despite the discomfort and worry incidental to such conditions, she was quite happy. The natives as a whole were hostile to white people; they wanted neither them nor their religion; but there was nothing martial or predatory about "Ma," and her very helplessness protected her. And there was that in her blood which made her face the conflict with zest; it always braced her to meet the dark forces of h.e.l.l, and conquer them with the simple power of the Gospel.

Her fearlessness was as marked as ever. One Sunday, during service, there was an uproar in the market. She went out and found a mob fighting with sticks and swords, a woman bleeding, and her husband wounded and at bay. She seized the man's wrist and compelled quiet, and soon settled the matter by palaver. On another occasion the Government sent native agents with police escort to vaccinate the people, as small-pox was rife. They resented the white man's "juju," and there was much excitement. The conduct of the agents enraged the crowd, guns appeared, and bloodshed was imminent, when an appeal was made to "Ma."

She succeeded in calming the rising pa.s.sions, and in rea.s.suring the people as to the purpose of the inoculation. "This poor frail woman,"

she said, "is the broken reed on which they lean. Isn't it strange? I'm glad anyhow that I'm of use in protecting the helpless." The people said if she would perform the operation they would agree, and she sent to Bende for lymph, and was busy for days. It was a difficult task, the people were suspicious, and she had to banter and joke and coax when she herself was at fainting point. Apart from this she doctored men and women for the worst diseases, nursed the sickly babies, and generally acted her old part of a "mother in Israel."

"It is a real life I am living now," she wrote, "not all preaching and holding meetings, but rather a life and an atmosphere which the people can touch and live in and be made willing to believe in when the higher truths are brought before them. In many things it is a most prosaic life, dirt and dust and noise and silliness and sin in every form, but full, too, of the kindliness and homeliness and dependence of children who are not averse to be disciplined and taught, and who understand and love just as we do. The excitements and surprises and novel situations would not, however, need to be continuous, as they wear and fray the body, and fret the spirit and rob one of sleep and restfulness of soul."

Use was still her headquarters, and she often traversed the long stretch of Creek, though the journey always left her terribly exhausted. On one occasion, when she had arrived at Use racked with pain, she was asked how she could ever endure it. "Oh," she said, "I just had to take as big a dose of laudanum as I dared, and wrap myself up in a blanket, and lie in the bottom of the canoe all the time, and managed fine." She often met adventures by the way. Once, after thirteen hours in the canoe, she arrived at Okopedi beach late in the evening, along with Maggie and Whitie and a big boy baby. Stowing the baggage in the beach house they started in the dark for Use, "Ma"

carrying a box with five fowls and some odds and ends, and Maggie, who was ill, the baby. When they reached the house they found they had no matches and were afraid of snakes, but she was so tired that she lay down as she was on a bed piled high with clothes, the others on the floor, the baby crying itself to sleep. At c.o.c.k-crow fire was obtained from the village, and a cup of tea made her herself again, and ready for the inevitable palavers. Again, she went up to Ikpe with supplies by night; the water had risen, she had to lie flat to escape the overhanging branches, and finally the canoe ran into a submerged tree and three of the paddle boys were pitched into the water. Not long afterwards she left Ikpe at 6.30 A.M., was in the canoe all night, and reached the landing-beach at 5.30 on Christmas morning with the usual motherless baby.

On this occasion she received a message, "Ekereki said I was to tell you that his mother is asleep"--referring to the death of one of the first members of the congregation, a gentle and superior woman for whom she had a great regard. The wording of the message made her realise how soon the Gospel had the power of changing even the language of a people. Some time previously Annie's two-year-old boy had died, and the question of a Christian burial-place had been considered by the congregation. Heathen adults were buried in the house and the children under the doorstep. It seemed cruel to leave bodies out in the cold earth, but of their own volition the members secured a piece of ground and laid the child there; and now this woman was placed by his side, the first adult to obtain a Christian burial in that part of Ibibio.

On New Year's eve she was down with fever, and was very weak, but, she wrote, "My heart is singing all the time to Him Whose love and tender mercy crown all the days." In the middle of the night she was obliged to rise. "My 'first-feet' were driver ants, thousands and thousands of them, pouring in on every side, and dropping from the roof. We had two hours' hard work to clear them out."

III. THE AUTOCRATIC DOCTOR

Returning from Ikpe on one occasion in 1911, she found that a tornado had played havoc with the Use house, and immediately set to, and with her own hands repaired it. The strain was too great for her enfeebled frame, and symptoms of heart weakness developed. She had nights of high fever and delirium, and yet so great was her power of will, that she would rise next day and teach and work, while on Sundays she took the services, although she was unable to stand. "I had a grand day," she would say, "notwithstanding intense weakness."

Dr. Robertson of Itu had gone home on furlough, and there came to take his place, Dr. Hitchc.o.c.k, a young, eager, clear-headed man, as masterful in his quiet way as "Ma." He had proposed going to China in the service of the Church, but agreed meanwhile to put in a year at Itu. She watched him for a time with growing admiration, and saw the curiosity of the natives turn rapidly to confidence, then to appreciation, then to blind devotion and worship. When she looked at the great crowds flocking day after day to the dispensary and hospital, she thought of the scene of old when the poor and the halt and the maimed gathered round Christ. "A rare man," she said, "a rare Christian, a rare doctor. A physician for soul and body. I am beginning to love him like a son." And like a son he treated her. Although he had scarcely a minute to spare from his work, he ran up every second day to Use to study her. He believed that she was not being nourished. That there were grounds for his suspicions her own diary records. There was money for her in Duke Town, she had often cheques lying beside her, but it was not always easy to obtain ready cash, and sometimes she ran short. On June 14 she wrote:

_Market Morning_.--Have only 3d. in cash in the house; sent it with 2 Ikpats (the first Efik schoolbook) and New Testament to buy food, and sold all 3 books for 6d. Got 5 small yams, oil, and shrimps, with pepper and a few small fresh fish.

It was on the following morning as early as six o'clock that the doctor called to examine her again. His decision was that she was not to go to Ikpe, she was not to cycle, she was to lie down as much as possible.

She laughed, and on the Sunday went to church and conducted two services; but she almost collapsed, and when the doctor came next day he ordered her to take to her bed, and not go to any more meetings until she obtained his permission. Mary had at last met her equal in resolution. "He is very strict," she confessed, "but he is a dear man.

Thank G.o.d for him."

A trip to Ikpe which she had planned for the Macgregors had to be cancelled, and they decided to go to Use instead, and aid and abet the doctor in his care of her. She got up to receive them, and then wrote, "The doctor has sent me back to bed under a more stringent rule than ever. Very stern. I dare not rise." "You must eat meat twice a day,"

the doctor said. "I'm not a meat eater, doctor," she rejoined. His reply was to send over a fowl from Itu with instructions as to its cooking. "Why did you send that fowl, doctor?" she asked next day, "Because it could not come itself," was all the satisfaction she got.

It was not the first fowl that came from Itu--the next came cooked-- while the Macgregors telegraphed to Duke Town for their entire stock.

"What a trouble you dear folk take," she sighed.

"You will have to go to Duke Town for a change," suggested the doctor one day. "Na, na," she replied; "I've all my plans laid, and I cannot draw a salary and not do what I can." "You have done so well in the past," remarked Mr. Macgregor, "that you need not have any qualms about that." "I've been paid for all I've done," was her retort. But the doctor insisted, and the very thought of leaving the station and the household work unattended to, put her in a fever. "Of course," she said, "to the doctor my health is the only thing, but I can't get rest for body while my mind is torn about things. He is vexed, and I am vexed at vexing him."

Not satisfied with the progress she was making, the doctor transferred her to Use, where she was under his constant observation. "Life is hardly worth living," she complained, "but I'm doing what I can to help him to help me, so that I can be fit again for another spell of work."

That was her one desire, to be well enough to go back to the bush. A messenger from Ikpe came down to find out when she was returning.

"Seven weeks," was the doctor's firm reply. "I may run up sooner than that," was hers. "I'm quite well, if he would only believe it."