68 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
<l Mandala ” (now a suburb of Blantyre), about one mile from the headquarters 
of the Church of Scotland Mission. Mr. John Moir built a substantial house 
there, which still endures; and as he wore spectacles he was called by the 
natives “ Mandala,” a name meaning “ glass.” This nickname was soon applied 
to his residence, and gradually came to mean both the African Lakes Company, 
and the place where they settled near Blantyre. Mandala is now the official 
name of the headquarters of the African Lakes Company and of an important 
suburb of Blantyre. 
The Church of Scotland Mission in those days—that is to say at the end of 
the seventies—was under the direction of two able men, the Rev. Alexander 
Duff and the late Mr. Henry Henderson, the latter being the business manager 
and the principal lay member; but it had attached to it also certain lay 
members who were either badly chosen, or who developed into bad characters 
when they came into contact with African savagery. It is only necessary to 
specify one of these—George Fenwick—whose name cannot be ignored in the 
history of this Protectorate. These men soon began to treat the natives with 
great harshness, and taking advantage of the dread in which white men were 
held, to bully and extort, and raise themselves almost to the position of petty 
chiefs. Indeed, in reviewing all that has happened since Europeans settled 
in this part of Africa, I have been increasingly struck with the rapidity with 
which such members of the white race as are not of the best class, can throw 
over the restraints of civilisation and develop into savages of unbridled lust and 
abominable cruelty. These lay members of the Mission attempted to exercise 
a kind of jurisdiction over the natives in the vicinity of the Mission stations, 
and so severe were their punishments that one native was sentenced to death 
and was shot, while other natives actually died from the awful floggings 
they received. Two English sportsmen, returning from Nyasaland, conveyed 
the news of these outrages to the consular authorities in Portuguese East 
Africa; the Foreign Office took up the matter, and eventually the Church 
of Scotland Mission sent out commissioners to hold an enquiry into the 
charges. Mr. Nunes, H. M. Vice-Consul at Ouelimane, represented Her 
Majesty’s Government on this enquiry, which resulted in the charges being 
in great measure proved. 1 The ordained minister who was at the head of the 
Mission at Blantyre resigned ; though no blame was imputed to him, as he did 
not possess the means of controlling the actions of his subordinates. But after 
what had occurred he preferred to withdraw from the Mission 2 Mr. John 
Buchanan also at this time left the Mission, and set up for himself in¬ 
dependently, as a coffee planter. George Fenwick and other lay members 
of the Mission, who were implicated in the deeds referred to, were dismissed, 
and the first-mentioned went to live among the natives as an elephant hunter 
In 1881 the Revs. D. C. Scott and Alexander Hetherwick came out to Africa 
and took charge of the Church of Scotland Mission, implanting on its work 
a very different character to the ill-fame which had temporarily clouded its 
earlier days owing to the misdeeds of its lay assistants. The indirect result, 
however, of the increasing British settlement in Nyasaland 3 was to induce Her 
Majesty’s Government to establish a British Consul for Nyasa, and in 1883 
1 The evidence gathered by this commission makes very painful reading, and further expatiation on 
this subject is neither necessary nor desirable. 
2 See an excellently written book called Africana , by the Rev. Alexander Duff (Sampson Low & Co.) 
—one of the best books ever written on Africa. 
3 By this time the African Lakes Company had placed their small steamer, The Lady Nyasa, on the 
Zambezi. 
