The Story of the Life of Mackay of Uganda

Front matter

THE

STORY OF THE LIFE

OF

Preface

PREFACE.

THIS book is written especially for boys, in the hope that Mackay's example may lead many of them to think of Africa, and devote their lives to its moral and spiritual regeneration.

They will please to remember that, like Livingstone and Krapf, Mackay was a pioneer, and that every year in Africa the difficulties become less and the dangers fewer. In a little while will—

The palpitating engines Snort in steam across her acres."

Then missionaries and traders will be borne speedily away from the fever-stricken coast; over flooded rivers, the weary jungles and the waterless plains, right up to the noble lake, where a commodious and comfortable steamer will be available to transport them and their goods to any port they choose.

I desire to tender my thanks to Mr. Eugene Stock for his permission to incorporate in this book Bishop Tucker's account of his visit to Uganda; also to record my obligation to the Rev. John Stewart, Edderton, N.B., for his trouble in collecting from old friends several incidents of my brother's early life.

The whole of the matter in this volume is fresh, and is not found in the larger book, "Mackay of Uganda." If it confirm and increase the good already done by that volume, I shall be richly recompensed.

J. W. H.

September, 1891.

Chapter 1

And Afric, sunny Afric,— Where the sand has drunk hot tears, From the brimming eyes of millions, Through the long ungracious years,— Go, call her children brothers, Bid their dark eyes flash with glee, As they list the wondrous story Christ hath made them men and free." >>W. Wright Hay.

IT was the year 1849, in Aberdeenshire. Summer and autumn had gone, the birch and the rowan were stripped of their leaves; the gowan was no longer under the foot; and the yellow broom and the purple heather were looked for in vain. True, Tap o' Noth still towered his majestic head above Rhynie village, but this morning he seemed to have wrapped himself in his ermine mantle, for with the exception of here and there a rough-walled, low-thatched cottage, or a crag or two projecting from his side, from summit to base he was white, snowy white. In the village too all was bleak and desolate and still, save for the eerie sough of the wind blow- ing across the moor, sighing and moaning among the stiffened branches of the trees, and improvising æolian harps in the draughty windows of the cottages. Already lines of white marked the thresholds, and thistles of frost garnished the window-panes.

It was the first cold of the season, and seemed to have arrived too early and to be regarded as an intruder. The suddenness of the invasion had rendered work a little more difficult, and heightened the demand for courage and industry. So evidently thought a minister as he gazed on the dreary scene from his study window; for, with the scarcely audible reflection that a storm was at hand and that probably there would neither be letters nor the Witness that day, he threw out some crumbs to a golden robin who was pleading hard for shelter on the sill, and resumed his chair and his book.

A cosy enough study it looked, as the ruddy fire lightened the dim atmosphere and shone out on two large book-cases, the glass doors of which revealed the names of the best thinkers of the day. A profusion of gazetteers, blue-books, atlases, and books of travel littered the table and floor. A picture of the Disruption worthies overhung the mantel, and engravings of the old Reformers filled niches in the walls. Presently the minister rose, and suspended a large map of Africa from a nail on the top of one of the book-cases, in near proximity to the window. A quaint-looking map it was. Certainly no ships sailed on its waters; neither did rhinoceroses, hippopotami, or ostriches disport themselves on its shores, nor yet had the engraver

O'er uninhabitable downs Placed elephants for want of towns";

and yet strange it seemed, the greater part being delineated as an immense featureless blank, near the middle of which a solitary caterpillar crawled, with the label "Mountains of the Moon" distinctly printed on its back. For up to this time the continent of Africa had been, as it were, hidden, and its myriad peoples almost unknown. The Scottish traveller Mungo Park had, in 1796, explored the Niger, and corroborated the statement of Herodotus, which few geographers then believed, that the great river flows from west to east before it turns in a south-easterly direction towards the Bight of Benin.

Another Scotchman, James Bruce, had as early as 1770 traced the Blue Nile to its source, and although at the time many ridiculed his wonderful stories, more recent travellers have confirmed his researches; but the origin of the White, or main stream of the Nile, was still shrouded in mystery. The eminent travellers Burton, Speke, Baker, Grant, Cameron, and Stanley had not yet even dreamed of the honours that awaited them, to say nothing of another Scotchman, David Livingstone, who had been quietly pursuing his missionary labours at Kuruman and Kolobeng.

Events, however, had now begun to move apace, for on the 1st of August of this year (1849) Livingstone sighted Lake Ngami, which was the first of a long chain of remarkable discoveries by that celebrated missionary which have led to the opening up of the "Dark Continent" to European enterprise and to the messengers of the Gospel of Peace.

But the first explorers who penetrated the interior from the east coast of the continent were Johann Ludwig Krapf, and John Rebmann, pioneer missionaries of the Church Missionary Society. At the risk of their lives, and enduring untold privations—for they could not even enjoy the luxury of oxen, which Livingstone did—they traversed countries never before visited by civilised man; and although their object was simply to commence missionary labours among the heathen, the results of their geographical researches have been truly wonderful.

The minister's attention seemed riveted on this terra incognita of Eastern Africa; for, repeating to himself "Lat. 3° 30' S., long. 37° E.," he proceeded, with pencil in one hand and magnifying-glass in the other, to note something on the map.

Presently a tap came to the door, and a very tall, spare old woman entered with a soft, stately step. This was Ann McWilliam, or "the minister's Annie," as she was called in the parish. She was quite a character in her way, and, as was the wont with better-class servants in those old-fashioned days, was on familiar terms with her employers and had much of her own way with people and things in general. She had been housekeeper to the minister in his bachelor days, and although she had vowed that if he ever married she would quit the house, and really did adhere to her resolution, she very speedily reappeared on the scene; for, although Annie was no gossip, she liked to be considered as an authority on all matters that concerned her pastor, and found it gall and wormwood to be unable to answer the many questions that were asked her concerning the young wife, what "providin'" she had brought, and especially about the piano, for hitherto the fiddle and the bagpipes were the only musical instruments known in the village.

Annie had never laid claim to beauty, but, what was better, she was good and true; and this morning a tender smile brightened and warmed the kind old face and made her heart glow with joy. The minister had neither heard the knock nor seen her enter, but as the firelight leaped up more ruddily as she threw on another log he gave her a passing glance, and she seized the opportunity to say, "I've brocht ye a present, sir." He took no notice of the remark, however, but said, "Do you see this pear-shaped continent, Annie? This is Africa; you see that, unlike all the other continents, it has few inlets, no great gulfs nor great river estuaries; in other words, although it is a mighty mass it has comparatively little coast-line, and as a necessary consequence it has made very little progress in civilisation. Though it is three times the size of Europe, it has far less coast-line than our continent, which fact explains more than anything else its past history and its backward condition. While Europe has surrendered herself to the ocean, as if aware of future prosperity through her navies, Africa has on the other hand shut herself up from the sea, and has ever remained isolated and uninfluenced by the pulse-beats of the world. But should any navigable rivers be discovered, so that missionaries and Christian traders could get with ease into the interior, then no doubt progress would be rapid.

"Till now, Annie, the east coast even has been quite unknown to us, but there has been a wonderful discovery. Two German missionaries in connection with the Church Missionary Society have made several journeys inland from Mombasa, and have discovered a great mountain mass of volcanic origin, the culminating peak of which is nearly 20,000 feet high, and covered with perpetual snow. Kilimanjaro, it is called. The results of this discovery will be far reaching, for the information will give a zest to geographical exploration, and will probably lead to the Church Missionary Society sending inland a great host of missionaries before long, and that will be the first real check to the terrible slave trade which has been carried on for ages between this coast and the ports on the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The cruelty which takes place daily in carrying off these poor people from their homes and transporting them beyond the seas is frightful and beyond description. The slave-traders are chiefly Arabs. They buy or take captive the natives of the far interior, where no white man has as yet ventured to penetrate, and burn their villages. Thousands die on the march down to the coast, from the wounds and bad treatment they receive; the old and the infants are left to die from exhaustion and starvation, and of course only the strong and the hardy survive, to suffer still greater cruelty on the sea voyage. They are packed like herrings in a barrel, in the holds of wretched dhows, where the half of them perish from foul air and hunger, and then, if a British cruiser gives chase to these vessels and is likely to run them in, the slavers kill their victims by a knock on the head, or throw them into the sea and escape themselves."

"Ay, sir! it is dreadful; and I aften think we owe a debt o' gratitude to Africa, for it sheltered baith the law and the Gospel; for the Nile cradled the infant Moses, and our blessed Lord Himsel' learned to lisp and to walk by its banks; and the Spirit o' the Lord seems to have recognised the obligation, for in the early days o' the Kirk, Philip was ta'en awa frae a great revival in Samaria to send a missionary to the court o' an African queen, although we dinna read o' ony results."

"There must have been results, Annie, for we know that Christianity was established in the fourth century in Abyssinia, and prevails there still, although in a very corrupt form, and to this day the sovereign of that country traces his descent to King David, styles himself 'King of Zion, King of Kings of Ethiopia,' and confers the order of Solomon on his favourite chiefs. Yes, Annie: 'He shall speak peace unto the heathen; and His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends. of the earth.' The Gospel banner will yet be planted at the very heart of this continent, altho' not likely in your day nor mine, Annie."

"But maybe it'll be in your son's, sir! and wha will say he'll nae hae a han' in it?"

Something in her tone made the minister look round, and for the first time he noticed that she was gazing with reverent love at an infant on her arm. The minister drew his hand through his hair: it took him some seconds to transport his thoughts from tropical Africa to his own fireside, but after some explanations, he said, "A boy! Bring him near the window, and let me see him."

"Sic a day, sir! It's awfu' unlucky to come on sic a day! He'll hae the win' in his teeth a' his life!"

"Annie! such superstitions are unworthy a Christian woman! Besides, you know what Samuel Rutherford says, 'Grace groweth best in winter.' He will be a better man for adversity;" and as his eye lighted on an old picture on the opposite wall, he added, "May he be another John Knox, Annie! may he defend the faith of his fathers before priestly antagonists! and may his tongue never quail before the sceptre of a queen!"

"I hope he'll hae mair tact and prudence, and hae a safter tongue and a gentler hand, sir, than John Knox; though nae doot he was raised up for his time. Na! he is nae gaen to be a John Knox; he'll gang his ain gait and jest be himsel', jest Alexander Mackay!"

"Oh! and so you have settled the name, too, have you, Annie?"

"Of course, sir. Fat ither than hae the name o' his father named upon him?" And Annie retired in her dignified way from the room.

She did not quite get her own way in this matter, however, for when the christening took place the name of a Celtic ancestor was revived. This legacy the boy never appreciated, for although he used the initial "M." to distinguish him from his father, no amount of teasing would tempt him to divulge what it stood for.

Chapter 2

'Tis strange how thought upon a child Will, like a presence, sometimes press, And when his pulse is beating wild, And life itself is in excess— When foot and hand, and ear and eye, Are all with ardour straining high,—

How in his heart will spring A feeling whose mysterious thrall Is stronger, sweeter far than all; And on its silent wing, How with the clouds he'll float away, As wandering and as lost as they!" >>N. P. Willis.

RHYNIE is for the most part a high-lying, pastoral, and sparsely peopled district. The inhabitants are believed to be of Pictish origin, and are a sturdy, shrewd, independent, and hospitable class of people. Their history has predisposed them to religion, for the Seceders and the Independents have been in the district for several generations. The Disruption conflict of 1843, which agitated Scotland from the Orkneys to the Solway Firth, reached a climax here, for Rhynie formed part of the famous Presbytery of Strathbogie, and its minister was one of the seven deposed by the Evangelical majority of the Church of Scotland; and no doubt this contest had a large share in quickening both the spiritual and intellectual life of the people. Even forty years ago many were wont to walk six miles to church every Sunday and six back. Weather never deterred them; indeed, their struggle with the elements on the way seemed to harden their frames and develop their brain-power, so that by the time they reached the house of God their appetite was whetted for a good doctrinal discourse and plenty of it. Short measure did not take in those days. They desired a good meal, and on their way home the little companies beguiled the weary miles by recalling the heads of the sermon, the observations on these, and the inferences drawn by the preacher; while the children were appealed to for the illustrations.

The dress of the women was primitive in the extreme. Many went to church in the mob-caps with a plain band of riband which fastened below the chin; while the better class wore bonnets made of pasteboard covered with black silk, close-fitting to the face. When these wore out they were replaced by others of the same style and pattern. Linseywoolsey dresses, spun from a mixture of white and black fleeces, to save the expense of dyeing, and tartan shawls, completed the costume. Each woman carried her Bible neatly tied up in a white handkerchief, together with a sprig of southernwood or a bouquet of roses if it was summer, while the other hand invariably held a gingham umbrella! This fashion is now, however, quite obsolete, for with the smoke of the railway engine there came a wonderful change in the manners and dress of the inhabitants.

Looking back over the forty years of Alexander Mackay's life, it is evident that from the day almost that he emerged from the cradle God was preparing him in His own way and building him a pioneer missionary. Godly parents, a pious nurse who doted on him, the Bible-loving women of the parish, the intelligent workmen in the neighbourhood, each and all, unknown to themselves, and equally hidden from him, contributed a share in his equipment for the special work which the Master needed him to do.

In 1851 the new Free Church was erected close by the Manse; and as the stones were dressed in the garden, a golden opportunity presented itself to the boy to acquire practical knowledge and to use his dexterous fingers. His beauty and extraordinary gentleness, together with his wonderful aptitude for picking up all kinds of handicraft, speedily ingratiated him with the workmen, who took a delight in supplying him with the necessary tools to enable him to imagine that he was giving important assistance. When he appeared on the scene he was accosted with the question, "Weel, laddie, gaen to gie 's a sermon the day?" and the invariable reply (in which there was something like prophetic instinct) was, "Please give me trowel; can preach and build, same time!"

He was full of questions, and was never satisfied until he thoroughly understood the reason of everything. One day he saw a man repairing a fence, and he asked how the fence came to be so broken down. The man replied that the snow had done it. The boy was incredulous, and after reflection he went back to the man and asked if snow was very heavy. "No, not very," was the reply. "Well, then, how could it break down a fence in that way?" But when it was explained to him that it was the great accumulation of snow lying against the fence that caused it to fall, he went away quite satisfied.

He was a very meditative boy, and very impressible to the moods of nature. A hot August day was his delight, and as the sunbeams played on the heathery slopes of Noth, and glanced on the silvery streaks of the burns as they rippled down its brow, he would tell Annie that "the mountain had donned the regal purple in honour of the visitors who had appeared in the neighbourhood. You know he must be old, for the Roman fort and the giant's footprints tell of other days. Still he is neither blind nor deaf. He can see the unusual number of carriages in the lanes, and feel the tread of the horsemen on his side, and no doubt connects them with the sudden surprises of the red grouse. Hark to his long sigh accompanying that echo of firing in the glen and the merry laughter of the sportsmen as they bag their game, never thinking that the birds will no more breakfast off the leaves of the heather nor peck the cranberries which hide among its roots! But, as many of these Southerners have attired themselves, for the nonce, in the kilt and sporan and Glengarry bonnet, he takes it as a compliment to himself, and returns it by putting on his brightest smile and looking his very best. You know you like to look nice too, Annie. But why do you not iron your neck and take out all the creases, and smooth the furrows out of your brow?"

Then Annie's heart experienced a pang which only the aged know, and, yearning for the society of her contemporaries, she replied, "If it's fine the morn, we'll gang to Blackhills for a day or twa."

"Oh, that will be delightful! But why do you look so sad, Annie?"

"Only because ye didna ken me when I was young, laddie."

"I am glad I did not, for then you would not be old Annie, and you could not tell me all I want to know."

On the morrow the pair set out on their excursion to the farm. It was six miles from the village, and situated in a lonely glen at the foot of the Buck, amidst wild and rugged scenery. Untamed nature on every side, and nothing to disturb the silence but the birr of the moor-cock, the bleating of the sheep, and the song of the burns intersecting the peat-moss. Every now and again a bell-shaped foxglove or a curious-looking rock attracted the boy's attention, and off he darted and forgot to return:

And heedless of his shouted name As of the carol of a bird, Stood gazing on the empty air, As if some dream were passing there."

At length they pursued their way along the sheep-track amid the brushwood and heather, until they reached the hospitable home of Mrs. Smith, where fresh milk, new-laid eggs, and heather honey regaled the weary-footed travellers.

The repast over, they drew round the blazing fire of wood and peat, for the sun had gone down and a chilly breeze blew from "the Buck." The chimney was open to the heavens, and in the settle hung legs and shoulders of smoked mutton. The busy knittingneedles glanced in the firelight as the two old friends entertained each other with cherished stories which they had learned in childhood of the Brothers Erskine and of their father, the sainted Henry Erskine, who had been condemned to imprisonment for preaching at "conventicles," and how through the intercession of friends the sentence was commuted to banishment from the kingdom. The boy, seated on a low stool, listened appreciatively until Mrs. Smith produced her wheel and began to spin the wool yielded by the previous clipping. He then became oblivious to his friends and their conversation,—

While flashes of intelligence dart from his pale-blue eyes, Broad beams of golden humour, and long looks of surprise, And laughter ripples o'er his lips, and joy like sunshine lies Upon the fair fields of his cheeks, and danceth in his eyes."

The friends exchanged glances, and in private afterwards talked of the peculiar look in his face, which spoke of a future, and wondered what that future would be.

Yet evermore the mystery which rang him round did press Upon their larger sense, and set their riper wits to guess,— To guess, but ever miss the mark, to flounder and to fall, To worder quite as much at him, as he, sweet child, at all."

For even their love for him did not foresee that the impression which he took and photographed in his mind of that spinning-wheel would be reproduced thirty-five years afterwards for Mwanga, King of Uganda!

The following summer, when he was nearly four years of age, he spent a month at Blackhills; and this visit did him much good, for Mrs. Smith would allow him no lessons except to read a chapter from the Bible aloud to her, morning and evening. She was so proud of his attainments, however, that when a distant neighbour from some lonely cottage among the hills dropped in, she would put her hand in the "crap" in the wall beside the "saut poke" in the "ingle neuk" for the big Bible, and calling the boy, would tell him to read aloud the tenth chapter of Nehemiah. He did this, pronouncing with accuracy the names of those who sealed the covenant, and preserving the inflections so as to read gracefully.

Mr. Smith, the present tenant of the farm, tells how, on this visit, the boy followed him wherever he went at his work:

"Whether the farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay,"

or

Merrily, with oft-repeated stroke, Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail,"

there the child was, inquiring the reason for everything he saw done, and understanding the explanation as easily as a grown-up person.

"One day," Mr. Smith says, "I was taking up some small stones out of the ground, and I asked him to fetch me a small pick. He went, but as he did not return, I knew that something was preventing him from doing what he undertook. So I went to see what was the matter, and found that he had not fully understood the kind of tool I wanted, but having found a large pinch lever, which he had seen used for taking up stones, he was bringing it. It was six feet long, and by far too heavy for him to carry; still, he had succeeded in bringing it fifty yards or so. The way he accomplished it was by lifting one end at a time, and going round with it, and then going to the other end and doing the same thing, and every turn brought it six feet on! This shows his readiness of resource, and his determination to accomplish whatever he took in hand, even at four years of age."

In order to draw him out, the farmer amused himself by arguing occasionally with him on different subjects; but the boy got tired of arguments, and said, one day, quite gravely, "Now, Mr. Smith, we must not have any more disputes in this way, but, as 'the law is open,' we will settle everything there where it ought to be settled, and let us live in peace henceforward." Another time he went to the byre while the cows were being milked, and expatiated on the difference between the higher and lower animals, taking himself as an example of the higher and the cows of the lower. When some one remarked that "the brute creation know more than they get credit for," he replied, "Oh, yes, I allow the lower animals have instinct, but that is different from the power of reason in man, although it is very useful to them. It helps them to preserve their lives, and sometimes it helps them to preserve the lives of their masters too."

A niece of Mr. Smith says, "When my sister and I were children, nothing was such a treat to us as to get our mother to tell us sayings and doings of Mackay when he was a child. She was so happy in recalling them, and invariably concluded her stories with the remark, "I did like that laddie!"

When he was five years of age, the régime of his old nurse came to rather a sudden end. One morning a heavy fall awoke him, and as the curly head raised itself from the pillow, the blue eyes opened wider and wider, as he saw his friend lying prostrate on the nursery hearth, with her head in close proximity to the fire. In a minute he was up, dragging and pulling her out of danger; but, failing in his efforts to move her, with wonderful foresight he returned to his cot, and seizing his quilt, tucked it well over her head, lest a blazing log should fall on her. He then sped like lightning to his parents' room, exclaiming, "Annie is dead! I am sure she is dead!"

Annie, however, recovered, and in a few days was herself again. But it was thought advisable that she should have some lighter occupation, so she invested her savings in furnishing a small house in Old Aberdeen, conveniently situated for letting lodgings to students attending King's College.

The prospect of her departure was the boy's first real grief. When the day came for their last walk Annie said, "Cheer up, laddie! I'm comin' back to see ye ilka summer; but we'll gang the noo to the Brig o' Bogie. I want to show ye something afore I gae awa'."

When they reached the bridge, Annie sat down to rest on the stone coping of the low wall, while the boy leaned idly over, wondering what was to be seen. After a little Annie said, "I'm gaen awa' the morn!" but he was already absorbed in the click-clack of the mill-wheel, and he heard her not.

After repeated efforts to gain his attention, she pulled his sleeve, saying, "I'm nae gaen to let onybody whip my bairn when I'm awa';" and producing a little leather "tawse" out of her pocket, she dropped it into the stream.

It took the boy a minute to forget the wheel and to realise the situation, but when he did so he darted to the other side of the bridge, screamed, and then rushed down the bank and into the Bogie. Annie was in terror, for she was too weak to follow him, and some parts of the stream were deep. She succeeded, however, in attracting the notice of a man in an adjoining field, who was singing blithely as he followed the plough. This man kindly rescued the child from the water and tried to reason with him:

>> "But his young heart was swelling Beneath his snowy bosom, and his form Straightened up proudly in his tiny wrath, As if his light proportions would have swelled, Had they but matched his spirit, to the man."

"Ye maun hie hame," said Annie, "and change yer droukit claes"; but with a determination which surprised her, he quietly told her that until the tag was recovered, or properly searched for, he would not return. Presently the sound of merry voices coming down the hill announced that the schoolchildren were on their way home, so he climbed up the bank on to the road and told them of his trouble. They were highly amused, and the bigger boys were soon wading in the Bogie. A shout and a loud "hurrah!" announced its recovery, and a long-legged, red-haired boy, with a twinkle of humour in his eye, restored it to the rightful owner, with the caution, "Dinna dry it ower fast, or it'll be a' the harder for its doukin.'"