SOUTH AND SOUTH CENTRAL AFRICA

BY

H. FRANCES DAVIDSON

INTRODUCTION

With utmost confidence and pleasure, I give an introductory expression for this intelligible, authentic, and most valuable little volume, the product of great sacrifice and long experience, by one who was favored and honored with lucrative educational positions, being a classic.

I have been acquainted with the authoress for many years, and am a member of the Foreign Missionary Board under whose auspices she has most effectually labored during an unbroken period of one and one-half decades; therefore I speak with great assurance of the merits and hope of her book, destined to be prolific and incentive to active missionary operations in foreign lands.

The photo-engravings have special interest, having been taken from real life and nature as she found them in dark Africa—places, people, environments, customs, habits, and religion, which she saw with her own eyes and mind. Having thoroughly mastered various dialects of tribes among whom she has labored so many years, having gathered many historical facts relative to uncivilized races, and also having special tact, instinct and God-given ability through the gift of the Spirit, making her very efficient in her call to these dusky tribes, she is qualified in a very proficient sense to compile the story of this strange people.

On meeting Sister H. Frances Davidson, one is quickly impressed with her modest and unassuming disposition, the rare gift that characterizes all the truly noble and great.

Her heroism and unfaltering faith in Jehovah is most remarkably demonstrated in her adventure—accompanied by Sister Adda Engle (Taylor) and a native boy—into the wilds of Central Africa, unfrequented by the tread or touch of any Gospel missioner, among a class of raw natives that were very shy, rather hostile, and of another tongue, and a country infested with wild, vicious animals.

When the planning of this adventurous trip was heard by the Foreign Missionary Board, steps were taken to discourage it, on the ground that no white man was available to accompany them to the new prospective mission field; but before the Board's protest could be made effective, the dangerous journey was heroically and successfully executed and a new mission station planted north of the great Zambezi, which is the northern boundary of South Africa.

Such an adventure would almost challenge the courage of the bravest man. It must have been the leadings of the Lord—the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

We all love to read the truthful words that drop from the pen of such fearless, devoted, and consecrated souls.

The book is written in a clear, graphic, and condensed manner, just the thing for this busy, rushing generation.

We bespeak for it a precious harvest of lasting fruitage.

Yours in the hope of the Gospel,

PREFACE

Africa holds a unique place in the world today. In no other continent is there such a world-wide interest and such a variety of interests centered; the religious, the political, and the commercial world are alike concerned in its development and progress. It has been a sealed book for so many centuries that the majority of people have excused themselves on that score for their ignorance of its conditions and their indifference as to its welfare; but the day of pardonable ignorance is past.

While kings and emperors have been eagerly seeking to obtain as large a slice of its territory as possible, and moneyed men have been unearthing some of its vast wealth, missionaries, too, have been having a share in it. In the development of Africa they may, without boasting, claim to be making the most permanent contribution to its welfare, but even their work is only begun. The various interests, which for a long time were concerned with only the countries along the coast, have now penetrated and opened up that vast interior to civilization and missionary enterprise; and it remains for the Christians to say whether it shall be left to the influences of a corrupt civilization or whether they will shoulder their responsibilities and rise to their privileges in taking the country for God.

Many missionary bodies are already at work, and much is being accomplished; but the continent is so gigantic, the distances to be traversed so immense that it will require the united efforts of all God's children to pay the debt humanity owes to this long-neglected continent and those downtrodden pagans.

It has been my aim in these pages to give, without embellishment, some idea of the nature of the Africans, their character, customs, religion, and surroundings, as well as some of the difficulties, methods, encouragements, and discouragements of missionary work among them. Missionaries are often censured for being too optimistic, for giving only the bright side of their work, therefore I have studiously sought to avoid this attitude and to give an unvarnished account of missionary enterprise. Judging from my own convictions and beliefs in reference to the work, it seems to me that if I have erred in this respect, it has been by understating rather than overstating the value and encouraging results arising from such labors.

This book does not claim to be a complete history of the Brethren in Christ's Missions in Africa, but rather some of the experiences of one member of that mission body. Since, however, it has been my privilege to be with the work from its inception, the enclosed narrative will have the added value of giving at least something of the beginning and early history of the mission. My only apology for recounting so much of my personal experience and impressions in the work is that I am unable to give, properly, the experience and viewpoint of anyone else.

We desire to express our thanks to Mrs. Myron Taylor, formerly Miss Adda Engle, for the majority of the photographs with which this work is illustrated; also to Elder Steigerwald and the other missionaries who have furnished a number of them. We had hoped to have some later ones from Matopo and Mtshabezi Missions, but have failed in securing good ones.

If this little volume in some small degree arouses a greater interest among Christians in the evangelization of the Dark Continent, and is a means in God's hands of getting the light to a few more of the vast millions of pagan Africans, I shall feel more than repaid for sending it on its mission.