“Baba Daud” and “Ma Robert”

“ BABA DAUD ” AND “ MA ROBERT ” *' My views of what is missionary duty are not so contracted as those whose ideal is a dumpy sort of man with a Bible under his arm." (Livingstone to a Carlisle Critic.)

WHEN Livingstone arrived at Kuruman

he had come to look upon himself as a confirmed bachelor. But there at that little wild mission station he met Mary Moffatt. Her father was the greatest of South African missionaries, and she and her sister had been brought up in an African village which owed everything to the hard work of Dr Moffatt. Their house, surrounded by syringa, with its pretty lilac blossom, was built like a Dutch farm. It had a vineyard and an avenue of lemons and oranges. Dr Moffatt taught the natives every kind of useful trade, and sent for a printing press from England, with which he printed a large part of the Bible in the native tongue. The missionaries cut channels to irrigate the cornfields, and planted weeping willows all along the little watercourses. There was a beautiful hedge of peach, apricot and pomegranate trees all round the garden.

David Livingstone came there from a very

60 “BABA DAUD”

arid journey and thought it a small paradise. He had his injured arm in a sling and was a wonderfully interesting guest. Mary and he were soon fast friends, and one day under a big almond-tree in the garden he asked her to be his wife. To make a not very long story still shorter, they were married towards the end of 1844.

In a letter to his people at home Livingstone wrote rather quaintly about her, and describes his wife as being “ not romantic, but a matter of-fact lady; a little, thick, black-haired girl, sturdy—and all I want.” Livingstone was, in fact, devoted to her, and she made him a most splendid wife, being everything that a pioneer’s wife should be. They had to build their own house at Mabotsa, but soon afterwards left there and went to Setshele’s headquarters at Tshonuane.

In Betshuanaland a mother is always called after the name of her eldest boy, so when little Robert Livingstone appeared Mrs Livingstone lost her own name and was ever afterwards called by the natives Ma Robert—Robert’s mother. Robert himself had all the adventurous qualities of his clan. He died in 1865, fighting in the American Federal army in North Carolina.

Whilst the Livingstones were at Tshonuane they saw Setshele’s people erect a hopo. A hopo is a trap for wild animals, and Livingstone was immensely interested in its construction. The trap is really made of two high hedges, each a mile long, placed in the form of the letter V. At the angle of the V is a small opening leading into a narrow lane of hurdles, and at the end of this is a deep pit. Trunks of trees are placed at the edge of the pit, so as to overlap it and prevent anything inside from escaping. Over the pit the natives strew green rushes and twigs, just as the Scots covered their fatal pitfalls at Bannockburn. The whole country round was full of eivery kind of wild game, and Livingstone watched the hunters of the tribe make a wide circle of several miles and gradually drive in the animals towards the opening of the hopo. Then men with assagais hidden behind the hedges leapt to their feet with much shouting, and the terrified beasts rushed in a wild mob towards the narrow lane leading to the pitfall. Crash went the slender twigs and down went the poor beasts into the pit, until it was full to the brim of a struggling, fighting welter of antelopes and zebras, into which the natives thrust their spears. Wild with excitement, the hunters killed far more of the beautiful creatures than were needed for meat, and Livingstone thought it a most unsportsmanlike performance.

He did not stay long at Tshonuane; the want of water made it a bad spot to choose for a mission station. So Livingstone and his wife moved on forty miles to the River Koloben.

Koloben means a pigsty, which did not sound promising. But the place they chose for their settlement was an excellent one, and so greatly did the chief Setshele rely on his white friends’ judgment that he and his whole tribe migrated to Koloben with him.

Very soon a prosperous village grew up by the riverside, and Livingstone taught the natives how to irrigate their land. His own practical idea of a mission station was that it should be a model agricultural community as well as a centre for church work, and he did everything he could to raise and civilise his people by setting up a useful school and teaching the young men carpentering and gardening. A missionary in Africa, said Livingstone, must be a jack-of-all trades and his wife a maid-of-all-work. In a place like Koloben life was very much like that of the Swiss Family Robinson on their famous desert island. Everything had to be made from the raw materials. If the Doctor wanted to build a house he had first of all to make his own bricks, and then to cut down trees and saw them into logs. Then all the windows, doors and furniture had to be made with his own hands. Ma Robert had to grind her meal herself before she could make it into bread in an oven scooped out of an ant-hill, with a slab of stone for the oven door. She made her own soap from the ashes of the salsola plant, and her own candles in moulds. But they said this

AND “ MA ROBERT ” «8

Robinson Crusoe existence made married life “ all the sweeter.”

Mrs Livingstone was a brave woman and never let anything disturb or frighten her. Once a gigantic centipede ran up her bare arm while she was cooking, and her companions were for the moment petrified at the sight of the loathsome creature which could give a most dangerous and painful wound. To attempt to crush it on her arm would, of course, have been fatal, and even to shrink or try and shake it off would have meant a catastrophe. But Mrs Livingstone herself kept perfectly cool. She quietly waited till the centipede had crawled over the bare flesh and reached her rolled-up sleeve, when she shook it off and went on with her housekeeping.

During one of their journeys across country Mrs Livingstone was driving inside the wagon which held about a hundred pounds of gunpowder when suddenly smoke began to rise from the axle and the wagon took fire. She made no disturbance whatever, but just called to her husband, who was not far off

“David, c6me and put it out! ”

Wherever Ma Robert was—in a travelling wagon, in a tent, in a wayside camp or in the desert—she managed to give a home-like look to the scene, was always busy with her housekeeping, and always looked neat and trim and absolutely contented and happy.

Often housekeeping was rather anxious work if game was not plentiful. Once or twice they had to live on locusts. But locusts pounded into meal and roasted are not as bad as they sound. The children led a very happy life in Koloben and were made much of by the natives. As a great delicacy little Robert and his sister were given roasted caterpillars for tea, and they learnt very early to appreciate the virtues of a dish of frogs. In his Memoirs Livingstone explains that this particular brand of caterpillar was by no means bad, and the species of frog found in the marshes made a dish which it would have been difficult to distinguish from a tender young spring chicken. As for the little native boys, they ate anything. Roasted mice made an especially tasty dish.

Every morning they breakfasted soon after six, and then followed school till eleven. After school Livingstone did smith’s work or carpentering, and in the afternoon his wife had her infant school, where she taught about a hundred little black children. Three nights a week a service was held after milking-time, and on most evenings Livingstone gave Setshele’s people a popular lecture on some useful subject. He found a magic-lantern a very great help on these occasions, and to the natives that lantern never ceased to be really magical. Besides all his other work, he made constant expeditions to see sick people, and it may be imagined the

An
African
Woman
Pounding
Grain

This photograph gives a good idea of how a native reed hut is built, with the clay daubed

over the reeds all cracking in the hot

sun.

Doctor had his hands pretty full. No wonder Setshele’s people loved him and called him Baba Daud. No better name could have been given to Livingstone than that—Father David.

So much did they trust him that they remained faithful to Baba Daud right through one of the worst droughts that most of them could remember, and that in spite of their belief that the rain was charmed away by the presence of the white man’s church at Koloben. They could never quite believe that their white father could not cause the rain to visit their parched fields; consequently, as Livingstone said, “ they looked with no good will at the church bell.” But all through that anxious time they loyally stuck to him, and he never had an enemy in the tribe. Even the unsuccessful professional rain-maker in the village —a weird-looking medicine-man with charms hung round his neck—looked upon Baba Daud with a good deal of fellow-feeling. It was lucky for him that his clients did not treat this rain-maker as Africans often do to this day.

In some tribes they peg down the unsuccessful medicine-man under a raw hide, and if the rain does not come very shortly the hot African sun tightens the skin, and the flattened rain-maker is baked to death on the hard earth. But those were the kind of ways from which Livingstone was weaning his black friends at Koloben, and Setshele, doughty old warrior as he was, E refrained from the kind of raids that he knew Baba Daud would not approve of. One day, however, an under chief named Kake goaded Setshele beyond endurance and called him a coward. So Setshele told Livingstone he was going off to hunt elephants, and asked him to lend him a metal pot to cook his food in. Livingstone guessed at once that the elephants in question walked upon two legs and carried assagais; but, as always, he took the word of Setshele and let him go, slyly begging him, however, to bring him back two tit-bits—the trunk and the forefoot of the elephant. The next time Setshele appeared at Koloben, Livingstone saw the wounded carried home and heard the women uttering their loud wail of sorrow for the dead, and others pealing forth the clear scream of victory. So he knew that the chief had disposed of that under chief. But no further mention was made of the elephants or the promised tit-bits.

But men like Kake were not the worst enemies of Setshele’s people. Koloben was such a prosperous and happy little settlement that it began to rouse the envy and greed of the Boers. The word Boer means in Dutch a tiller of the ground, and the original Boer settlers were, of course, of Dutch origin. Every schoolboy knows the story of the Boers in South Africa. The South African War made us pretty well acquainted with them, and we all have some sort of an idea of their mode of life and of the country they live in. But for the last six years we have had a United South African state, and the present crisis has swept away very much that remained of the old enmities, and to-day we see Briton and Boer standing shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy.

In the “ thirties ” many thousands of Boer farmers made what was called “ the great trek ” from British territory, and settled in the northern parts of South Africa, because they disliked British laws and British restraints especially the enactments against slavery. As a matter of fact, we cannot altogether blame them, for British colonial policy in those days was difficult enough to understand, and when a new ministry came in, with new fads, it overturned the policy of its predecessor in a way that must have greatly puzzled and exasperated those who lived in the colony. The Boer slave-owners were paid only about a sixth of the real value of their slaves when the British Government set them free, and that rankled.

Livingstone had always been on friendly terms with the Boer farmers, and he never made sweeping assertions about them. They were, as a rule, most hospitable people, and in some ways reminded Livingstone of the Lowland farmers of his own Scotland. When the Scottish traveller arrives to-day at a Boer farm and begs for shelter for the night, the farmer’s hearty “ Kom binnen ” must strangely recall the homely “ Come ben ” of the good Scots folk at home.

But the Boer settlers round about Koloben were not proper specimens of their kind. Some of them were not true Boers at all, but needy adventurers. They were all “ on the make,” and their one idea was to get as much as they could out of the country. There was much “ bad blood ” between them and the natives. The Betshuanaland people had many tales of wrong and cruelty to bring against the Boers, and though some of these barbarities were really the work of German travellers through the country, the Boers brought on themselves not a little of the hatred the natives felt for them. On the other hand, the Boer farmers accused the people of Betshuanaland of some horribly savage doings, many of the tales of which were probably perfectly true, although for the most part such deeds were the work of the Kafirs. Livingstone never expected too much of the native African; he knew what a long time it must take to change the heart of the savage. He never sent home unduly rosy accounts of mission work; he knew his black friends were just children, and naughty and cruel children at that. But he did expect the white man to set a higher standard, and if the natives skinned alive one of their Boer neighbours when they caught him, Livingstone felt the man had probably brought it on himself.

It requires a special gift to manage natives of primitive races. The sheer bully is no good whatever, any more than he is here at home. But, on the other hand, any weakness or indecision of character is quite fatal. Some most self-sacrificing and kindly men are failures as missionaries for that reason. They would fail in any capacity if they had to live amongst African natives, and they would probably fail at home in England if they had to take a class of boys in a school. The natives “ take their measure ” in no time, and having been given an inch they proceed to take any number of ells. Gradually impertinences grow into something worse, and the unfortunate fellow finds himself in a state of actual danger. Then perhaps in a moment of alarm he will use his revolver, the natives are thoroughly aroused and no one hears anything more of that Englishman. In his journey through Masailand Joseph Thomson, the traveller, came across a missionary in that sort of a predicament. The Wa- Teita whom he was working amongst had discovered he might be “ cheeked ” with impunity, and the white man was living in real terror of his life, insolent-looking fellows lounging about his hut, squatting in his doorway, demanding money and goods at every turn.

It is safe to say that no man ever “ cheeked ” Livingstone; or if any one ever did, he didn’t try it a second time. He was the kindest and most reasonable of masters, more like a brother than a bwana to his men. But a master he was always, and they knew it well. Their love of him was founded upon respect, for he was the great white chief as well as the padre. In one of his books on African travel Captain A. St H. Gibbons says: “In my own mind I feel sure the keynote of successful travel among the more remote peoples of the African continent is the note that was struck by Livingstone ... to be dignified, but not overbearing, to be courteous without being either cold or familiar, and to be fair and just.” Captain Gibbons made a remarkable journey through Barotseland and the vast kingdom (larger than the German Empire) ruled over by King Lewanika, the successor of Livingstone’s friend, Sekeletu, and he attributed a great part of his success to the wonderful influence of Livingstone. It was more than twenty years after the great explorer’s death that Captain Gibbons entered Barotseland, and yet he was able to write: “ Undue credit has been given me by some for having successfully travelled a considerable tract of unknown country alone and without armed escort. The bulk of such credit belongs to David Livingstone for the confidence his name still inspires.... Until I entered the Mashikolumbwe country my person and property were at least as safe as they are in London. Fair play is a jewel! We English boast that we love it. Why, then, deny the missionaries their due? ”

Where Livingstone came agog with the Boers was on the question of native labour. The Boer farmers looked upon every native as “ black property.” They were afraid that if Livingstone went on teaching and civilising Setshele’s people the “ worm would turn ” and might make it unpleasant for them. “You must teach the blacks that they are not equal to us,” said Hendrick Potgeiter to Livingstone. “You might as well teach the baboons on the rocks as these Africans,” said another Boer. Livingstone suavely suggested a test case namely, to see which of the two could read best, a Boer or one of his native servants; but Hendrick and his friends were not keen to try this. The Boer farmers were, in fact, astonishingly ignorant; lots of their children could not read or write. They were most jealous of any interference, and when a rumour reached them of Lord Rosse’s big telescope having been fixed up at Cape Town one of them said to Livingstone: “ What right has your Government to set up that large glass at the Cape to look after us behind the Cashan Mountains? ”

What Livingstone called “ the myth of the black pot ” began to grow. They made out

72 “BABA DAUD”

that the Doctor was arming Setshele’s natives, and that the cooking-pot he had given the chief for his elephant hunt was in reality a cannon. Their object was to keep the country as backward as possible, so that no one but themselves would care to come there; and as often as they dared they waylaid travellers and drove them out of Betshuanaland. Livingstone was determined that his countrymen should not be kept out of that country, and he was equally determined that the Boers should not be allowed to treat the natives as they did.

It has often been said that if the Boers had not beaten Chaka, the cruel king of the Zulu race, his fierce impis would soon have “ eaten up ” the last remaining native in Betshuanaland. So no doubt Setshele’s people did owe their existence to the Boers. But that argument can, of course, be made to “ cut both ways,” for if Chaka and his Zulus had not “ eaten up ” so many of the men of Betshuanaland, and thus left the Boers a free field, the men of Betshuanaland would most certainly have eaten up the Boers. Such was the Africa of those stirring days. It was kill or be killed.