MISSIONARIES 
203 
Even then, when the bulk of your subjects are firmly established in their new 
mode of life, and breed true, there will be occasionally disappointing reversions. 
A young sheep dog will take to worrying sheep, or a black and tan terrier be 
detected killing fowls. 1 
I know several ordained missionaries who are pure negroes, and who 
are most worthy men. Close your eyes and you might be talking to a 
cultivated Englishman. But I only recall, at most, three instances of negro 
priests of this excellent description who have been, in the one individual, 
raised up from a condition of utter savagery to that of an educated civilised 
man, and who have maintained themselves on this high level ; almost all 
others having undergone similar experiences relapse at one time or another in 
a manner very similar to that described in Grant Allen’s striking story, The 
Reverend John Creedy. But my hope for the eventual results lies in the know¬ 
ledge of what has been done amongst the negroes of the West Indies. Some 
of the best, hardest-working and most satisfactory, sensible missionaries I have 
ever known have been West Indians—in colour as dark as the Africans they 
go to teach, but in excellence of mind, heart, and brain-capacity, fully equal 
to their European colleagues. But then these men were at least three genera¬ 
tions removed from the uncivilised negro, and were as much strangers to Africa 
and African habits as the average European. Per contra , what disappointing 
results on a surface examination would appear to him who first commenced 
studying the effects of mission work in Central Africa. If he has really been 
a student of African History, if he has read old Blue-books, old descriptions of 
travel, old missionary records, he will have noted that at the end of the 
“seventies” or the beginning of the “eighties,” the missionaries of the day wrote 
with rapture of the remarkable progress in learning and in religion which had 
been made by John Makwira, Joseph Evangel, Robert Ntundulima, Simpson 
Chokabwino: 2 of how John Makwira and Simpson Chokabwino had been 
1 As an instance of the disappointing naughtiness which may occur even amongst people who have 
lived round the mission station for years, I would tell the following story. While cruising on Lake 
Nyasa in 1895 on one of our gunboats I visited the Island of-an important station of the- 
Mission. We arrived on the Saturday evening, dined with the missionaries and were invited to 
lunch with them the next day. Early on Sunday morning a number of youths came off from the shore 
in canoes bringing small tins and bottles of milk. I am exceedingly fond of milk and it is not an easy 
thing to get in Africa as a rule, I was therefore delighted at the enterprise shown by the natives of-. 
The Commander of the gunboat accordingly bought up all the milk that was offered for sale and 
that morning we feasted on porridge and milk and cafe-an-lait , and put aside plenty of milk for tea in 
the afternoon and puddings in the evening. As it is very difficult ordinarily to obtain milk at ail from the 
natives in this part of Africa, as the cows and goats are often allowed to run about unmilked, (the 
natives not caring for milk themselves) we were full of praise regarding the enterprise of these mission 
boys. Later on we appeared at lunch, and the ladies and gentlemen of the mission apologised to us for 
handing round tinned milk, than which nothing becomes more hateful to the resident in Africa, “ but,” 
said the missionaries “ our boys you know are very strict Sabbatarians. On Sundays they absolutely 
refuse to milk the goats, so we have to go without, though we get plenty of milk on the other days of the 
week.” I was just going to exclaim “ How extraordinary ! why lots of your boys came off this morning 
with quite a large quantity of milk for sale ” when an idea struck the Commander of the vessel and 
myself simultaneously and we held our peace. On enquiry we found these youths of Sabbatarian instincts 
reserved the Sunday’s milk for themselves, and on occasions were very willing to sell it to strangers. 
2 The names of course are fictitious but they give some idea of the want of taste too often shown 
by the missionaries in naming their converts. This would be very apparent to anybody who takes up one 
or other of the missionary journals published in Centra! Africa and reads the list of baptisms. I quote 
haphazard from Life and Work in British Central Africa, the organ of the Blantyre Mission for September, 
1896, and on the first page amongst the baptisms I find the names of “ Mungo Park Kalima and Tabitha 
his wife who have just had a little daughter christened ‘ Bonnie’ and of “ Marcus Aurelius Mbumju.” 
Either let a European Christian name and surname be given straight away, or keep to the child’s existing 
name or to any other native appellation and there is nothing to grate on the ear ; but Agnes Tanga - 
langa and Dora Chokabwino, Athanasius Ndodo and Wilfred Pujapuja are incongruous, absurd and 
distasteful. 
