Miss Slessor tells of the renting of land in the Aro country for the establishment of any buildings she wishes to build. She has visited a town recommended by the Consul and found a young man avid to hear more of the Christian message. After getting lost she came out at a village where again she found a welcome, and people desirous that she should live with them. She goes on to tell of a recent visit to the man in this Creek whom the previous January they had found treasuring books which had belonged to his dead son. He had accepted Christianity and was struggling to hold services. She ends by listing all the advances achieved in the area.
From the Women’s Missionary Magazine presumably of December 1904. It includes a photograph “Up-river Scene, Old Calabar”.
Pioneering
The following is from a private letter from Miss Slessor, written on her pioneer journey in the Aro country Old Calabar.
This is one of the last days of September, and I am writing this in my shed at Amasu, in Inokon. The boys are putting in the long big sticks which make the wall. The ants and damp have made ducks and drakes of the place, but with a new wall I shall be able to stay in it on my next visit, which will be probably about a month hence. We have stayed at the Consulate, where Mr Dyer has made us so comfortable and happy. We shall, all well, go off with the steel canoe(Note 1) tomorrow morning, and the Consul is going to get the chief to sign the paper by which this place is leased to me today.
On our way down! In the most comfortable of boats and on a perfect morning. Before leaving I did not get much writing done, as so many visitors came, and I had to help with the building. The chief made half-an-hour’s palaver about taking anything from me for the ground, but the Consul was inexorable, as it is the law for protection to the natives, that every bit of ground occupied by Europeans, or indeed any stranger, must be registered. As a coin had to pass, and as they had refused the £2, 10s., which the Consul offered to give in my name, I just passed a shilling over to them, and then the whole thing was joyfully settled. This was a merely nominal recognition of the fact that the ground is not mine; they are protected, and I am installed and authorised to build other structures necessary for any teaching work. So much for having planted one foot in Aro soil! What is to be the result?
The Consul sent me to a town which I had not previously visited. I took his orderly as a guide, and found there a young man who had gone across to the Niger overland; he had there heard the Gospel, and is craving for teaching and light. I was so cheered to hear that he knew the vital truth of Christianity, the atoning death of Christ. This man, an old woman, and a young lad, and some of his wives whom he called in, made as interesting and interested an audience as ever I had. Next day I lost my way, and came out at the Ibom Spring. There two men took charge of my bundles and bairns, and led me to a bridge round a little way. Then one asked me if I had come with God’s Word. What else should I come with I replied. “Oh,” he said, “We have built a small church, and are longing for you to come, and teach us, and we will build a house for you to stay in.” But I could not let the chance of a boat slip. I shall, however, go back and stay a little time with them next month, and build.
Mr Wilkie could tell of our visit to a man in the Creek. Oh, what a lovely creek it is! Surely creation has nothing fairer to-day! Last January, when we were up here for a trip, I promised to call on this chief, and Mr Wilkie and I went. What a revelation we got of a soul in darkness, wrestling towards God and light and peace. The books belonging to his dead boy were brought. There, in that dark place, were a Bible, hymn-book, copy-book, etc, and the owner, who might have turned a teacher, had been snatched away, but God made that the means of awakening the father. Well, he sent a canoe for me the other Sabbath, and as soon as the boat glided to the beach, a bell rang out its message of “Come to prayer.” I got such a surprise. They can only meet and say the Lord’s Prayer, and sing(?) a hymn, and repeat short passages which they have learned, but there they were, collection plate and all! Thank God for two places in this creek, which during this year have begun services, and are seeking the Lord. The darkness is fleeing before the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, but where are those who are to teach?
To-day every canoe passing hails us with such kindliness and joy. Only a year ago all this region was as much outside the Church as if it had been a thousand miles away in the interior, now we have a baby-girl on board, motherless, belonging to their tribe. I have six boys reading very fairly, and a number coming up in the earlier classes. We have the Sabbath recognised, and I have a room in three separate towns, besides Itu, which is my head-quarters. There we have a congregation of from 250 to 350, many readers, nearly a score of catechumen, and half-a-dozen Sabbath-school teachers.
Editorial Notes:
- Charles Partridge, in his book “Cross River Natives” (pages 46-48: published by Hutchinson 1905) gives a detailed description of a steel canoe. “…they are built of metal plates, which are screwed together, and … furnished with armoured sides, to be used when necessary to protect the occupants. They are flat bottomed, and are some sixty feet long, and nearly eight feet wide in the middle,…there is a sort of cabin, … having an arched roof of wood, the highest point of which is only five feet ten inches from the wooden floor ……”
- Catechumen = people studying the basic teachings of Christianity prior to baptism