APOSTLE'S STREET. 



101 



The Wanyika consider service, like slavery, a 

 dishonour : they have also some food prejudices 

 which render them troublesome to Europeans, 

 and those who live amongst them are obliged to 

 engage Moslem menials. As regards the success 

 of the ' Mombas Mission,' which was established 

 in 1846, and upon which a large sum of money 

 has been expended, the less said the better. Dr 

 Krapf had started with the magnificent but vi- 

 sionary scheme of an ' Apostle's Street,' a chain 

 of mission posts stretching across Africa from 

 sea to sea: he never, however, made converts 

 enough to stock a single house. Those un- 

 acquainted with savage life would think it an easy 

 task to overthrow the loose fabric of wild super- 

 stitions, and to raise upon its ruins a structure, 

 rude, but still of higher type. Practically, the 

 reverse is the case. The Wanyika, for instance, 

 are so bound and chained by Ada, or custom, that 

 inevitable public opinion, whose tyranny will 

 not permit a man to sow his lands when he 

 pleases ; so daunted and cowed by the horrors of 

 their faith ; so thoroughly conservative in the 

 worst sense of the word, and so enmeshed by 

 tribal practices, of which not the least important 

 is their triple initiation, that the slave of rule 

 and precedent lacks power to set himself free. 



