SHOP AND MARTYR
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C-D-MICHAEL
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TORONJO
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v ECUMENICAL INSTITUTE
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ECUMENIC
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THE
MARTYRDOM OF BISHOP HANN1NGTON.
James Hannington
Bishop and Martyr
Story of a IRoble life
BY
CHARLES D. MICHAEL
AUTHOR OF "THE SLAVE AND HI8 CHAMPIONS,
"PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT," ETC.
WITH I IFTKKX ILLUSTRATION^
(Includi,,,, U/.ro.d.ctionts of Oriyinal Painting and Pen-and-
ink Sketches by Bishop Hannington)
LONDON
S. W. PARTKIDGE & CO. LTD.
8 AND 9 PATERNOSTER Row
139985
NOV 2 6 1992
PBEFACE
" T ENJOY the uphill, struggling path most of all."
So wrote James Haimington of himself; and
his whole life was a testimony to the trjith of this
estimate of his own character. Each achievement
was but a stepping-stone to some fresh conquest ; and
all his striving had for its object, not personal glory
and gratification, but the glory of God and the good
of others.
In the following pages no attempt has been made
to tell in full detail the story of Bishop Hannington s
career, but merely to give in outline the principal facts
and most prominent incidents in a life that was
singularly rich in all those qualities of heart and mind
which make a man beloved of those who live in close
communion with him.
A more unselfish soul never breathed, nor one whose
personality was more attractive.
His earnestness of purpose was evident in all that
he undertook. Alike in his home life, in his minis
terial work, and in his brief but glorious missionary
career, he proved himself capable of complete devotion
5
Preface
to the interests of those who loved and trusted him ;
and in the supreme sacrifice of his life on the threshold
of Uganda, he showed that it is possible for a man who
is consecrated, heart and soul, to the service of God
and humanity, to give up literally all that he hath in
noblest surrender for the purpose to which he has
dedicated himself.
James Hannington, Bishop and martyr, is dead, but
his spirit lives ; and to-day the story of his bravery and
devotion has power to move the pulses and stir the
hearts of trtose who can appreciate the highest attri
butes of our human nature.
We leave the story to speak for itself. It is one of
the most inspiring in the annals of missionary endeavour
and achievement; and it has its lesson, not only for
those who hear the call to go forth to the fields
that are white unto harvest, but for all who own the
supremacy of the Lord whom James Hannington loved
even unto death,
It only remains for the author to acknowledge his
indebtedness for many of the facts contained in this
volume to " James Hannington : A History of his Life
and Work," by the Rev. E. C. Dawson, M.A. ; "The
Wonderful Story of Uganda," by the Rev. J. D. Mullins,
M.A. ; and to Mrs. Hannington and the Church
Missionary Society, for kind permission to quote from
the Bishop s diaries and from the Society s journals.
CONTENTS
cnAPTER
I. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD .... H
II. "A GENTLEMAN AT LARGE" 22
III. A MOMENTOUS DECISION .... 29
IV. ORDINATION AND A COUNTRY CURACY ... 34
V. PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFK AT HURSTPIERPOINT 54
VI. THE CALL TO SERVICE . . (J4
VII. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY .... 78
VIII. ADVENTURES BY THE WAY 101
IX. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY . . . .115
X. THE GOAL IN VIEW 131
XI. THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM . 145
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE MARTYRDOM OF BISHOP HANNINGTON . . Frontispiece
ENTRANCE TO THE VILLAGE OP HURSTPIERPOINT, THE
HOME OP HANNINGTON S BOYHOOD . . . .17
ST. GEORGE S CHURCH, HURSTPIERPOINT . . . .30
AN AWKWARD SITUATION 37
BISHOP HANNINGTON 57
A VIEW OP JORDAN S NULLAH, THE SOUTH ARM OP THE
VICTORIA NYANZA 69
A PEEP AT AN AFRICAN POOL 87
TRAVEL BY HAMMOCK 103
A THRILLING ENCOUNTER WITH THE KING OF THE FOREST 109
A DESPERATE INDUCEMENT . . - 113
BEWITCHED BY THE BISHOP 123
A CRITICAL MOMENT 129
AT CLOSE QUARTERS WITH THE MONSTERS OF THE AFRICAN
JUNGLE . 137
A TRYING TIME WITH INQUISITIVE NATIVES . . .141
THE BISHOP S BETRAYAL . . .157
James Hannington
CHAPTER I
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD
JAMES HANNINGTON, Bishop and martyr, was
born on 3rd September, 1847, in the pretty Sussex
village of Hurstpierpoint, about eight miles from
Brighton. He was the eighth child of his father, Mr.
Charles Smith Hannington, who owned a large drapery
business in Brighton. The family had long been
established in the busy seaside town, and lived there
until just before the birth of James, when they removed
to St. George s, Hurstpierpoint, which henceforth
became their home.
The foundation of the family fortune was laid by the
grandfather of James, of whom it is recorded that he
was a man of keen business instincts, who " never wanted
a holiday, and never thought that other people wanted
one. Thoroughly liberal, upright, and religious, no man
more so, a firm and strict master, greatly loved, but also
greatly feared." His son James s father improved
and extended the business bequeathed to him, and thus
was enabled to purchase the beautiful country home in
which James was born.
The house in which the future Bishop first saw the
11
James Hannington
light stands at^ the entrance to Hurst for so the
inhabitants shorten the somewhat cumbersome name
of their village and its charming grounds form a
perfect child s paradise. Almost as soon as James
could walk he familiarised himself with every nook and
corner of the place ; and the love of exploration and
the keenness for nature study which so distinguished
his later years were manifest in the zeal with which,
in his baby days, he " explored " and " collected " within
the confines of his father s domain.
In the grounds of St. George s were two small lakes
spacious enough, doubtless, to the imaginative baby
mind on whose placid surface grew wonderful flowers
that his tiny fingers longed in vain to grasp ; and in
whose fearsome depths lived strange creatures that now
and then delighted him by coming near the surface to
disport themselves. There were winding paths, too,
and shrubberies. What endless opportunities they
afforded for hiding from wild beasts, and alternately
personating those same savage creatures, to the joyful
alarm of the brothers and sisters who joined in the fun
of make-believe ! And the nests in the bushes ; the
haunts of the beetle in the tree trunks ; the jewelled
web of the spider in the hedges ; the chrysalis so
cunningly hidden, yet plain enough to eyes that are
trained to seek it what a charm there must have been
in these, and such as these, to the child of whom it has
been said that he was a born naturalist.
To the end of his life the love of nature was one of
the most strongly marked characteristics of James
Hannington; and no holiday or expedition was con
sidered by him worth while unless it afforded oppor
tunities for adding to his store of knowledge of the
12
Birth and Boyhood
realm of nature, and contributing to his collection of
rare and beautiful specimens.
His passionate love of nature was inherited from his
mother, who encouraged it and helped to foster it in
every possible way. Between her and her son there
was always the most tender love and devotion his
"sweetest, dearest mother" he called her and there
can be no doubt that much of the pleasure and profit
he derived from his liking for out-door pursuits and
interests he owed to her influence and training.
In his early years his general education seems to
have been somewhat neglected. He was allowed
almost unbounded liberty ; but a fault was visited with
severe punishment. Apparently he was permitted to
do very much as he liked, so long as he did nothing
wrong; but his boyish transgressions were visited
with a severity of which he himself said that he was
not sure it did not destroy his moral courage a virtue
which he once declared he did not possess. But in
this self-depreciation he did himself an injustice. The
story of his life makes it abundantly clear that he was
by no means lacking in moral courage; and if this
was not natural to him, then the greater honour is his
for having acquired it.
As to his physical courage there can be no question.
Mr. Dawson, his friend and biographer, records many
incidents which prove that he knew nothing of the
meaning of fear. He tells, for instance, how, at the age
of seven, he clambered unnoticed up the mast of his
father s yacht, and was at last discovered high aloft,
suspended on some projection by the seat of his
trousers !
In his twentieth year, having sprained his ankle, and
13
James Hannington
as nearly as possible fractured the fibula, he was
ordered by the doctor not to walk for a fortnight. The
same evening he went to the rehearsal of a play he was
to take part in, and also to hear the Messiah. A week
later, unable to put his foot to the ground, he hopped
into a bath chair, and went out shooting, not without
result. Having re-ricked his foot, so that he was again
unable to put it to the ground, he, next day, made off
on the saddle to a meet of the stag-hounds; and while
it was still impossible to get a boot on the bad foot, he
made a brave figure with the single sound foot on the
ice at " outer edge and threes."
At eleven years of age he was permitted to make his
first yachting trip alone with his elder brother. On
setting out he had to pinch himself again and again to
assure himself that the pleasure was a reality and not a
dream. It was a glorious trip ; and one of its chief
glories seems to have been that everything on board
was of the roughest description. The young voyagers
waited upon themselves, made their own beds, and
did all their own domestic work. Sea-pies and " plum-
duff" were their standing dishes. All this only added to
their enjoyment, and they were as happy and contented
as the days were long.
The owner and captain of the yacht was a man
named Redman. One night James was roused from
sleep by an unusual noise and commotion on deck.
He formed his own opinion as to the cause ; and, boy
though he was, he went alone to investigate, without
stopping to wake his brother. However, Sam had also
been disturbed by the noise, and insisted on James
returning to bed, fearing he might get hurt. The
boy was disappointed ; but he saw the captain on the
14
Birth and Boyhood
deck in a state of intoxication, and a woman with him,
while a man in a boat held on to the side of the yacht.
The outraged voyagers heard the woman demanding
from Redman what was apparently the only piece of
plate they possessed. " I will have the silver spoon,
Uncle Joe," she said. But here the boatman, becoming
impatient, declared he would wait no longer; so the
visitor had to leave the yacht, and the spoon was saved.
Next morning, Redman, who had no idea his
passengers were aware he had had a guest on board,
was very much taken aback when eleven-year-old James
calmly asked him before everybody why his niece
wanted the ship s one and only silver spoon. In the end
the captain was forgiven, and the cruise was continued
to the end in absolute enjoyment, the little adventure
of " Uncle Joe " only having added to the fun.
So much had the yachting trip been appreciated that
James forthwith made up his mind to go to sea ; but
his parents would not permit this. An elder brother,
who had joined the Navy, had been drowned at sea,
and the Hanningtons had resolved not to permit another
of their sons to become a sailor.
His boyhood was as crowded with adventures as his
later life and as a rule he came to no harm. One
youthful escapade was memorable, however, since it
cost him the thumb of his left hand. With the
keeper s son, Joe, he was trying to take a wasp s nest ;
and for the purpose he decided to use damp gunpowder
squibs, or " blue devils." He had recently acquired the
art of making these fearsome fireworks, and, boylike,
was anxious to use them. With a broken powder flask
he succeeded in preparing the squibs ; and as soon as
they were ready, he wanted to " try " one. He and his
15
James Hannington
companion-in- mischief attempted to light one with
touch paper. The result was not quite to their satisfac
tion ; and with a view to hastening matters, James
thought he would try the effect of pouring a little
powder on to the squib. But he did not know or
perhaps he forgot that the spring of the powder flask
was broken. Instead of a sprinkle of powder, a heap
shot out of the flask on to the spluttering squib. At
the same instant there was a tremendous explosion, and
James found himself skipping about, with a hand which
felt as if the whole nest of wasps was stinging it.
The sound of the explosion brought Joe Simmon s
father hurrying to the spot. He bound up the injured
hand with his handkerchief, and hurried off with the
boy towards the house, which was a quarter of a mile
away. By the time they reached the garden gate
James was so faint that he had to be carried. The
first person he encountered was his mother. Instantly
his one desire was to reassure her ; and although pain
and loss of blood had made him so faint that he was
unable to walk, he told her he had only cut his finger
a little. But it was so obvious that his injury was
serious that she at once sent for the doctor, who gave
him chloroform and amputated the thumb, which was
completely shattered by the force of the explosion. The
accident weakened him for a time, but he soon got over it.
The loss of his thumb caused him very little actual
inconvenience, and he did not allow it to trouble him ;
but for all that he was, as a boy, keenly sensitive about
it. On one occasion, when travelling by train, a party
of noisy men, of rough manners and coarse language,
got into the carriage beside him. They made the
journey hideous to the boy by cursing and swearing
16
Birth and Boyhood
most of the time ; and they made it memorable to him
also because, much to his annoyance, one of them
noticed that he had lost his thumb, and commented
rather brutally upon it. Long years afterwards,
mention of this personal defect enabled Alexander
Mackay in Uganda to identify " the tall Englishman,"
who was reported by the natives to be approaching
their country from the east.
ENTRANCE TO THE VILLAGE OP HURSTPIERPOINT,
THE HOME OF HANNINGTON s BOYHOOD
For the first thirteen years of his life James
Hannington s existence was of an entirely " free and
easy " kind. As we have already hinted, his education
during that time had been indefinite and desultory,
and he had been allowed to follow his own inclinations
in the matter of learning. But whatever he may
have lost and necessarily he lost much, through ,
neglect of the course of study usual to a boy of his ag/
he gained greatly by the development of that ke/
2 17
James Hannington
power of observation which he possessed in such a
marked degree, and which his almost unlimited liberty
gave him such rare chances of using. The result was
that, at an age when most boys have hardly learnt to
observe properly the most obvious things that come
within the scope . of daily experience, James was a
highly trained observer; and what he lacked in book
lore, he more than made up by his wonderful knowledge
of men and things.
It would almost seem that from his very earliest
years he was marked out for the work to which he
ultimately gave his life ; for this ability to observe, and
to think for himself, so strongly and strangely developed
in his boyhood, gave him a power which was of
immense service to him in the arduous and difficult
tasks that often confronted him in the course of his
missionary journeys through African wastes and wilds.
But however delightful from a boy s point of view,
this state of things educational could not be allowed to
continue indefinitely, and Hannington s parents had at
last to face the fact that something must be done. So
the period of uninterrupted home life, with occasional
lessons from a tutor, and frequent excursions by land
and sea with father or mother, was brought to an end ;
and it was decided that James and his brother Joseph
must be sent to school. The tutor left to take a curacy,
and the two brothers were, after much thought and
discussion, sent to school at Brighton.
The establishment chosen was the Temple School
a private establishment and it was arranged that the
brothers should be allowed to go home every Saturday
and stay till Monday morning. These weekly home-
goings did not commend themselves to James when he
18
Birth and Boyhood
was old enough to regard them dispassionately. His
comment concerning them is briefly but eloquently
summarised in a single word. " Alas ! " he says.
The home-sickness that assails every boy when he
leaves home for the first time attacked the Hannington
brothers in an aggravated form they had been so long
kept at home that they were bound to suffer more
keenly in consequence ; but they soon accustomed
themselves to the new order of things, and settled down
to the routine of school life quite happily.
At school James did not distinguish himself by
anything brilliant in the way of scholarship. He
declared in after life that he was naturally idle, and
would not learn of himself, and he deplored the fact
that he was always sent to places where he was not
driven to learn. But he more than maintained the
reputation he had already gained as " a pickle of a boy."
Naturally headstrong and passionate, with a marked
individuality, and perfectly fearless, it was only to be
expected that he would be constantly in scrapes.
Sometimes he escaped scathless and sometimes he did
not; but at least in none of his schoolboy escapades
was he ever vicious or ungenerous. No better proof of
the genuine goodness of heart inherent in him could be
found than in the fact that, despite his prankish ways
and his love of teasing, he soon became a prime
favourite, alike with his masters and his fellow pupils.
But there is no denying that a boy who earned, and
deserved, the sobriquet of " Mad Jim," must at times
have been a sore trial to the patience and forbearance
of all his school associates, old and young. One day he
was reported to the head master as "verging on insanity" ;
and the report can hardly be regarded as unreasonable
19
James Hannington
when it is applied to a boy who could find recreation in
lighting a bonfire in the middle of his dormitory.
Sometimes, at any rate, he met the just reward of his
misdeeds ; for on one occasion he was caned more than a
dozen times ; and, sorely smarting in body and mind,
seriously contemplated running away from school.
One wonders whether one or more of that dozen of
canings was inflicted for his self-confessed sin of flinging
his rejected papers at the head of a long-suffering
German master !
But, withal, James had a high sense of honour, a love
of truth, and a conscience that compelled him at all
costs to keep his word. A striking instance of the
strength of his moral character, which occurred during
his school days, is worth recording. The bully of the
school having incurred his displeasure, Hannington,
with lofty disregard of probable consequences, offered
to fight him. The bully promptly accepted the
challenge, and James received a severe thrashing.
That might not have greatly mattered ; but, as ill-luck
would have it, the day of the fight was also the day on
which he had to go home for his usual weekly visit.
He presented a most unlovely spectacle, with both eyes
closed up, and many unaccustomed excrescences on his
cranium ; and his mother was so shocked and concerned
at the sight of him that she made him promise, before
he returned to school, that he would never fight again.
Unfortunately for James, the fact of that promise
leaked out amongst his schoolmates, and thenceforth
his life was made a misery. Boys who might otherwise
have feared him, as well as others who need not have
done so, vied with each other in teasing and provoking
him ; and for a while, bound by his promise to his
20
Birth and Boyhood
mother, he meekly submitted to treatment that, to a
boy of his nature, must have been almost beyond
endurance. But at last there came a time when
human nature James s human nature at any rate !
could stand no more. One day he had allowed himself
to be bullied unmercifully by a boy about his own size,
when suddenly, to the astonishment of the whole
school, he declared that he would fight him. He
quickly gave his enemy a thrashing, and he was never
bullied afterwards. Surely Hannington was justified
in what he did ; yet for years afterwards that incident
troubled him, and he could never remember without
regret that, even under unbearable provocation, he had
broken his promise to his mother.
He left school when he was fifteen and a-half, with
to use his own words " as bad an education as possible."
This misfortune, however, is not to be ascribed to any
fault on the part of his head master, who was a capable,
kindly man, but rather to the system, or lack of system,
in which he had been reared until, too late, he had
been sent to school. In later years he had to work
painfully hard to make up for what he had missed, and
he probably never quite recovered the lost ground of
his youth. Yet the desultory nature of his early train
ing was not entirely a misfortune, since it gave him
opportunities, which he fully used, of developing an
independence of character, and a self-reliance which
enabled him to overcome the difficulties of his later
years in a way that often surprised those who lived and
worked with him.
21
CHAPTER II
"A GENTLEMAN AT LARGE"
AT the close of his school career Harming ton s father
desired him to enter the house of business in
Brighton in which two generations of the family had
already borne their part. But a business career had
no attractions whatever for the boy. A counting-house
was, to him, little better than a prison. Fluctuations
in market values did not interest him in the very
least ; and the ordinary routine of a commercial office
was a deadly dull affair, in connection with which it
was impossible to develope any sort of enthusiasm.
Not at once, however, was he required to transfer
his energies from school to office. Perhaps his father
foresaw the difficulty the lad would have in accustoming
himself to the new and uncongenial surroundings of a
house of business ; and instead of going straight from
the school desk to the office stool, he was permitted to
taste first the delights of foreign travel.
In the company of his late master, Mr. W. H.
Gutteridge, he left home for a six weeks trip to Paris.
His notes of that trip are peculiarly interesting, since
they are the first of such impressions recorded by one
whose share of travel was greater than falls to the lot
of most men, and who, by pen and pencil, was able to
convey to others vivid descriptions and graphic pictures
22
" A Gentleman at Large v
of the strange scenes he witnessed, and the weird and
thrilling experiences through which he passed.
What precisely he expected to see when he set out
for Paris on that first memorable excursion we can only
dimly imagine; but he confessed that as he stepped on
board the steamer at Newhaven, visions of cardinals
shut up in cages, of the horrors of revolutions, the
Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Morgue, magnificent
chocolate shops all these and more confusedly floated
through his brain. In a letter to his mother he
revealed himself as overflowing with happiness ; and
thinking, doubtless, that such purely domestic details
would be of special interest to her, he described the
landlady of the house in which he stayed as "a kind,
good-natured, vulgar, blowing-up-servants little woman;
all very desirable points to make me happy." As
evidence of his thoughtful affection he added, " I mean
to bring you home six snails with rich plum pudding
stuffing in them ! "
The death of the Archbishop of Paris occurred during
his visit, and with truly boyish callousness he wrote
" I am rather glad that the Archbishop is dead ; we are
going to see him lying in state."
The trip to Paris was followed by a determined effort
to settle down to business, and for six months James
stuck manfully to his duties ; but at the end of that
time another holiday was planned for him whether as
a reward for his application, or as a necessary relaxation
after the strain of uncongenial toil, cannot be said.
Again he was accompanied by Mr. Gutteridge, and this
time the travellers went further afield. Brussels,
Antwerp, Luxembourg, and many other places were
included in their itinerary amongst them Wiesbaden,
23
James Hannington
where the facilities for gambling greatly concerned him.
Of the habitue s of the gambling saloons he declared
that those who seemed to be regular professional
gamblers were the ugliest set of people he had ever
seen in his life. A gambling table he considered a
curious sight, and the memory of the faces he had seen
in the saloons remained with him for many a long day.
This trip occupied two months, and Mr. Gutteridge
so arranged it that it was not only a time of pleasure
but of great value educationally to the young traveller.
t Soon after his return home, to his great delight, his
parents acquired a yacht. Many a journey he made in
it between Portsmouth, where it was often berthed, and
Brighton ; and his chief interest at this time seems to
have been centred in the new pastime of yachting. He
was no mere fair-weather sailor. The rougher the
weather, the better pleased was he. On one occasion
he and his mother were caught in a tremendous squall
when returning in the yacht from church at Portsmouth.
Mrs. Hannington insisted on going to church in almost
all weathers, and the young yachtsman was often in
fear lest their little craft should capsize during some of
the stormy journeys he made in his mother s company.
His love of the sea, and his natural liking for
adventure, made the yacht a perpetual pleasure
although sometimes the dangers encountered must have
been more than a little startling. On one occasion, he
and his father were nearly run down by a large steamer
under circumstances which did not reflect much credit
on the commander of the latter. The Hanningtons
had for more than an hour watched the steamer
gradually gaining on them ; but as they were beating
up on the right tack, and every foot was of importance
24
" A Gentleman at Large r
to them, their captain not unnaturally concluded that
the larger craft would give way to them. Events
proved, however, that the steamer intended to do
nothing of the kind; for she kept straight on her
course, and it looked as if she intended deliberately to run
down the yacht. As a matter of fact, the great ship
passed by within a few feet of them ; and so narrow was
the margin of safety that the crew of the yacht shouted
in alarm as the steamer apparently headed straight for
them.
In 1864, Hannington joined the 1st Sussex Artillery
Volunteers ; and he threw himself into his new hobby
of soldiering with characteristic energy. It was a proud
day for him when he donned his uniform for the first
time ; but that he had not become a soldier merely for
the look of the thing is clear from the fact that within
three months of the first day on which he had arrayed
himself in his regimentals he had made such rapid
progress in soldiering that he had command of his com
pany on the occasion of an inspection of the battalion.
Hannington was now eighteen years of age ; but
although he had long left school, no arrangements had
yet been made for him to commence his career as a
man of business. He was still allowed to go his own
way, his parents having apparently decided that it
would be better for his ultimate happiness not to force
the claims of business upon him, but instead to let him
follow his own inclinations, and so discover for himself
the direction in which his abilities could be most
profitably employed.
Up to this point, too, there is little to indicate that
he took any particular interest in religion, and he
seems to have been entirely unconscious of the great
25
James Hannington
change that was later to alter the whole current of his
life. But he was not wholly indifferent, and by almost
imperceptible degrees he was being guided towards
that dedication of himself which marked the beginning
of his work for God.
In the beginning of 1865 he was somewhat attracted
to Roman Catholicism, the exciting cause having been
the death of Cardinal Wiseman ; but he soon found
that the doctrines of the Romish church could never
satisfy him ; and, strangely enough, it was partly
Cardinal Manning s funeral sermon for Wiseman that
caused him to give up his idea of joining the Church of
Rome and partly Wiseman s own last words " Let me
have all the Church can do for me." He came to the
conclusion that if one of the highest ecclesiastics stood
thus in need of external rites on his death-bed, there
must be something wrong with the system ; and so
strongly was he convinced of this that he finally gave
up all idea of forsaking the faith of his fathers.
A year or two later occurred an incident, trivial in
itself, yet of utmost interest as showing how his mind
was, almost unconsciously to himself, beginning to take
into account, albeit at first in a strange, unreasoning
way, the influence of the Unseen over the most trivial
of worldly affairs. He was out shooting one day when
he lost a ring which he greatly valued. He had very
little hope of ever seeing it again, but he told the
keeper of his loss, and offered to give him ten shillings
if he found the ring. Further, he was led to ask God
that the ring might be found and that the finding of it
might be to him a sure sign of salvation. At once he
seemed to feel certain that the ring would be found
as certain as though he had it again on his finger ;
26
" A Gentleman at Large "
and it therefore did not surprise him when, soon after,
the keeper brought it to him. He had picked it up in
the long grass just where it would have seemed most
hopeless to look for it. " A miracle ! " he said. " Jesus
by Thee alone can we obtain remission of our sins."
Truly a remarkable story. Hannington himself,
when referring to the incident years afterwards, said it
had occurred at the most worldly period of his exist
ence ; and in this strange challenge and appeal to God
in connection with so trifling a matter as the loss of a
trinket can be seen, surely, the first faint traces of that
absolute faith, as of a little child, which was such a
distinguishing feature of his later life, when he had
come to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ
Jesus.
At the age of nineteen Hannington was still "a
gentleman at large," with no settled aim in life, and an
untiring love of foreign travel. In the early summer
of 1867 he started with his brothers for a cruise in the
Baltic, and a visit to some of the more important
Russian cities. The return journey had just begun
when the elder brother was summoned home on urgent
domestic business, and the leadership of the expedition
then fell to James. Nothing loth, he took charge ; and
during the voyage an incident occurred which showed
that as a disciplinarian he knew how to hold his own.
There had been trouble with the crew of the yacht,
and, thinking to take advantage of the youth of the
passengers, the crew had shown a tendency to
insubordination which James, as soon as the control of
affairs was in his hands, determined to bring to an end.
On assuming command, he told the men his mind on
the subject, and gave them plainly to understand that
27
James Hannington
in future any man breaking leave would be discharged.
The first man to do so, as it happened, was the captain,
who remained ashore, and, by his own confession, got
helplessly drunk. The position was distinctly awkward.
The captain, no doubt, considered himself indispensable,
and thought therefore that he would easily be able to
put the matter right. But James Hannington thought
otherwise. If the captain s lapse were overlooked or
condoned, all hope of maintaining discipline amongst
the rest of the crew for the remainder of the voyage
would be at an end. So to the consternation of the
crew, and the amazement of the captain, the latter
found himself summarily dismissed, and ordered to
convey himself and all his belongings ashore as speedily
as possible.
There was no further trouble on board the yacht
during that voyage. The crew recognised that their
leader intended to exact absolute obedience, and they
regarded him thenceforward with the respect that
firmness and justice always command. Hannington
was fortunate in finding a capable man to take the
place of the disgraced captain, and though the voyage
finished stormily, the storm was of the elements, and
not amongst the crew.
After this voyage Hannington for ever gave up all
idea of a business career. It was evident that he would
never make a successful business man, and it only
remained now for him and for those who loved him to
try and discover some other sphere in which he might
attain success. The story of the ultimate discovery of
that sphere is one of the most wonderful instances on
record of the Divine guiding by which men are led in
the way God chooses for them.
28
i
CHAPTER III
A MOMENTOUS DECISION
THE Hannington family had been hitherto Inde
pendents ; and in the grounds of St. George s,
James s father had built a chapel, in which Noncon
formist services were held. At the end of 1867,
however, the family joined the Church of England, and
St. George s Chapel was licensed for public worship by
the Bishop of Chichester. The Nonconformist minister
of the chapel and his wife were pensioned by Mr.
Hannington, the pension to. continue during the life of
the last survivor ; and the charge of the newly licensed
chapel became a curacy under the Rector of Hurstpier-
point.
This change in the religious life of the family was
the first of the series of events which culminated in
James Hannington s ordination. He was now brought
frequently and closely into touch with churchmen, of
whom previously he had met very few. Undoubtedly
they exercised a considerable influence over him, and he
began to think earnestly and seriously of religious
matters.
The year 1868 was, in a sense, one of the most
eventful of his life, for it was then that he first
entertained the idea of offering himself to the service
of God. Through the change of his family from dissent
to the Church, he got to know the clergy of the parish
29
James Hannington
and neighbourhood, and this greatly influenced him in
his desire for ordination. His mother had more than
once spoken to him about it, and from what she had
said he felt sure that she would offer no objection.
Yet, with absolute frankness, he confessed his belief
that it was his dislike of the business at Brighton that
chiefly led him to think about the ministry as a
profession. Although it had become a fixed idea with
him that he was to be ordained, yet he felt all the time
ST. GEORGE S CHURCH, HURSTPIERPOINT
that the real motive that should have actuated him
was entirely lacking. "I was, I fear, a mere formalist,"
he says, " and nothing more." His whole life, up to
this point, however, forbids our acceptance of this all
too severe estimate of himself. Such a man as James
Hannington could never have become a " mere formalist."
He was too full of real love for humanity to permit
that altogether too enthusiastic and too full of zeal.
The season of Lent in 1868 he kept with much
30
A Momentous Decision
severity, fasting twice a week. He interested himself
in all the special religious functions held in the neigh
bourhood, and took advantage of every opportunity of
hearing the distinguished preachers who from time to
time visited the district. He took as prominent
and useful a part as he could in all the good works
that were established in the vicinity of his home, and
might fairly be described as an active Church worker.
But not yet was he a man whose heart God had
touched. Still, he was undoubtedly being led towards
what was soon to be definitely pointed out to him as
the work of his life; and ultimately, when he was
twenty-one years of age, it was decided that after the
necessary training he should offer himself for ordination
to the ministry of the Church of England.
Accordingly, arrangements were made for him to go
to College, and in October, 1868, he was entered as a
commoner at St. Mary s Hall, Oxford. It cannot be
said of him that as a student he was brilliant. The
subjects that attracted him he could, and did, master
easily and thoroughly ; but they were not the subjects
to which he was particularly required to give his
attention at the University. His knowledge of
natural history, of botany, chemistry, and medicine
was extensive, but it did not help him much ; and his
lack of interest in classical lore, and his natural aver
sion to the steady monotonous grind by which alone he
could attain the proficiency necessary to satisfy his
examiners, made his college work distasteful. For this
the mistakes of his early training were entirely to
blame. It was six years since he had left school ; during
those years he had done practically no study at all ;
and even in his school days his intellectual efforts had
31.
James Hannington
been all too spasmodic. The wonder is, therefore, not
that his college career was undistinguished, but that it
did not end altogether in failure.
But if Hannington the student was not a marvel of
erudition, Hannington the friend and associate was a
conspicuous success. Not that he was " hail-fellow-
well-met " with everyone. He was particular and
discriminating in his friendships, and such a keen
judge of character that he seldom, if ever, made a mis
take about the men whom he admitted to the privilege
of intimacy with him. And withal he was an inveterate
tease. Nothing pleased him better than to shock the
staid and " proper " element amongst his college associ
ates ; and his love of practical joking found expression
in ways that his victims must often have had reason to
remember for long afterwards. But his good nature
was so obvious and so sincere that it was impossible
ever to be angry with him for long, and he never
resented being paid back in his own coin.
Let it not be imagined that because James Hanning
ton did not distinguish himself as a student he was
therefore an idler during the time he spent at Oxford.
Always he lived the strenuous life, and he had no
sympathy with the loungers and shirkers who despised
learning and wasted their own time and that of others.
Every hour was occupied; he allowed himself no idle
moments, and though study of the sterner sort was not
entirely to his taste, he did not permit himself to shirk
it in favour of the hobbies and pursuits that were dear
to him.
The trouble was that he did not give the necessary
proportion of his time to such work as was absolutely
essential to his own intellectual well-being ; and this
32
A Momentous Decision
trouble finally became so acute that the Principal advised
him to leave the college and place himself in the hands
of a competent tutor living in a retired country place,
where he would not have the many distractions of the
social life of an undergraduate to disturb him, and where
he might therefore hope to make better progress with
his studies.
For this purpose the Principal recommended the Rev.
C. Scriven, Rector of Martinhoe, a remote Devonshire
seaside village. To Martinhoe accordingly Hannington
went. He found in Mr. Scriven an excellent tutor ; and
amongst the Devonshire folk and the Devon coast and
cliffs almost as much to interest, and distract, him as
he had found amongst his college friends at Oxford.
33
CHAPTER IV
ORDINATION AND A COUNTRY CURACY
out-of-the-way corner of North Devon in which
-*- Hannington now found himself was very beautiful,
and very fascinating to a lover of nature, and he soon
fell in love with both place and people. His tutor
held at that time two livings Martinhoe and
Trentishoe, but the population of the two parishes
combined did not exceed three hundred souls. The
people were, however, scattered over a wide area, so
that it took the new inmate of the Rectory some time
to make their acquaintance. But they quickly found
that to know him was to love him ; he was so genial,
so friendly, so ready to identify himself with them that
he was soon a welcome guest everywhere.
The peculiar habits, and the strange manners and
customs of the people greatly interested him, and he
observed and studied their ways most keenly. At a
funeral at Martinhoe he noted that doubtless in
accordance with the usage of the district the bereaved
made a great feast for all who were invited ; and any
others who chose to attend without invitation were
provided with tea and coffee. On the Sunday after the
funeral he was struck by the fact that all the mourners
came to church in a body, and sat throughout the service
with their faces buried in their pocket-handkerchiefs,
Not once, so far as he could see, did one of them look up.
34
Ordination and a Country Curacy
When the clerk of Trentishoe lost his wife, he asked
for a holiday a few days after the funeral, and on a
borrowed horse he made a tour of the neighbourhood
in search of a second spouse. Amongst other places he
called at the Rectory, and Hannington noted with
satisfaction that the maids there declined his offer.
He was, however, successful at last in finding a lady
willing to wed him ; and we may hope that in this
case the result did not belie the proverb which declares
that " happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing."
The people of the district were steeped in super
stition, and nobody in the village, old or young, would
venture into the churchyard after dark. They firmly
believed that on midsummer night the spirits of the
departed moved about amongst the graves, and were to
be seen by those who were bold enough to look for them !
Some of the villagers knew "charms" for various
diseases, and one old man, John Jones by name, who
could " bless " for diseases of the eyes, generously offered
to give Hannington his secret generously because,
once he had parted with the secret, his power to
"bless" would be gone, the gift of healing being
transferred to the new possessor of the secret. Power
to bless for the King s Evil was commonly believed in ;
but a man in Martinhoe who was supposed to possess
this power gave up the practice of it, partly because he
did not get enough out of his patrons, and partly
because every time he " blessed," virtue went from him,
and left him weak.
Amongst these superstitious but eminently lovable
people Hanoington spent some months, during which
he did a little more or less desultory reading. Then
he returned to Oxford and spent a term in residence.
35
James Hannington
His fellow students conferred upon him the highest
honour in their power by electing him President of
the " Red Club." In June, 1870, he passed his Respon-
sions, and then suggested to Mr. Scriven that he should
return to him as his curate and read for his degree
afterwards ; but the Bishop refused to ordain him until
he had graduated.
After his term at Oxford he went back to Martinhoe,
and his discovery of some remarkable caves there
greatly delighted him. The chief attraction of these
caves for him seems to have been that they were
almost inaccessible ; and in order that his friends at the
Rectory might be able to explore them, he resolved to
make a path for them from the top of the cliff to the
shore below. With the help of two able-bodied men
and old Richard Jones he began his task which, by
the way, was one of considerable engineering difficulty.
The work became so hazardous at last that the two
workmen refused to proceed with it. Old Richard,
however, was willing to go on ; and with his help and
that of George Scriven, Hannington determined to
finish his undertaking. Old Richard was hacking
away with his pick one day, when Hannington called
out to him, " Hold on, Richard, till I come back to
you. I am going to climb down a bit further, and
see where we can next take the path to." Richard,
however, was a man who could not stand idle, as
Hannington found to his cost ; for when he had crept
down some distance, he heard the rush of a stone, and
a considerable boulder shot past within a foot of his
head. He had barely time to dodge as it whizzed
past, accompanied by a volley of small stones.
With a shout, he apprised Richard that he was below,
36
AN AWKWARD SITUATION
Hannington had barely time to dodge the boulder as it whizzed past his
head, accompanied by a volley of small stones.
37
James Hannington
and climbed up and stood by his side, pale and breath
less. Richard was quite cool. " I don t like the look
of that old rougey place where you have been climb
ing," said he. Hannington s thoughts were too deep
for words ! After dinner, he and one of the rector s
sons climbed across this "rougey place," with the
assistance of a rope, and determined that they would
not return until they had cut their own path back,
and they accomplished their purpose.
The path a really perilous undertaking was
finished without further mishap, and on the formal
opening day a party of twenty visitors was conducted
in triumph down the path to the caves, the largest of
which, in honour of the Rector, was named Cave Scriven.
The next few months were spent partly at Martinhoe
and partly at Oxford ; and then, in 1871, Hannington
was called upon to endure one of the greatest griefs of
his life. It has already been stated that between him
and his mother there had always existed the deepest
and tenderest affection; and it was an unspeakable
sorrow to him to have to face the fact that her health
was rapidly failing. In September the doctor pro
nounced the dread decree no hope. Mrs. Hannington s
illness was declared to be of such a nature that recovery
was, humanly speaking, impossible. For a time her
son James refused to accept the doctor s verdict, and
there was a brief interval during which it seemed that
his attitude was justified.
But the rally was only temporary, and it soon
became evident that this " dearest, sweetest mother,"
as he loved to call her, was sinking. On 26th February
he realised that the end could not be far off. She was
almost unconscious. She kept dozing and rousing, and
38
Ordination and a Country Curacy
commencing sentences. Especially she would repeat
again and again : " I will take the stony heart out of
their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh. I
will take I will take the stony heart away away."
In an agony of grief James watched beside her
watched until quite quietly and peacefully she drifted
away from the love that would fain have held her, and
breathed her last in the presence of all her children.
The others, after one last look at the still, beautiful
features, moved softly away, but James remained, kiss
ing the loved face, and calling to her as though she
could still respond to his cry. It was with the utmost
difficulty that he was persuaded at last to leave the
silent form of the mother he had loved so deeply.
His mother s death left a great blank in Manning-
ton s life a blank that nothing ever quite filled ; but
perhaps it made him more ready to open his heart to
that great love for God and humanity that was pre
sently to possess and dominate him. After this sad
event he settled down to work in earnest, with ordina
tion always in view as the goal of his ambition ; and on
12th June, 1873, he took his B.A. degree.
But before he was ordained to the ministry,
Hannington had to go through the ordeal of the
Bishop s examination and a terrible ordeal he found
it. He went to Exeter, and made^his final preparations
for facing the Bishop s examining chaplain in a very
despondent frame of mind. He felt all unready ; and,
to make matters worse, he found the examination was
to take place a week earlier than he had expected.
This greatly upset him, and he sat down to his papers
with the fear of failure strong upon him. His dread
proved only too well founded. Over-anxiety, and
39
James Hannington
almost frenzied study until the very eve of the examina
tion, had their natural result. He became ill, and
failed. His failure was a grievous disappointment ;
and, added to that, he felt that he had been harshly
treated. It was probably one of the bitterest moments
of his life when Dr. Temple pronounced judgment on
his work in these words : " I am sorry to say that your
paper on the Prayer Book is insufficient. If you will
go down to Mr. Percival he will tell you all about it.
Good morning." It is not to be wondered at that this
abrupt and not too kind dismissal nearly overwhelmed
him with despair.
No more convincing proof of his earnestness and
sincerity of purpose could be afforded than is found in
the fact that in spite of this rebuff he was as
determined as ever to persevere. For it must be
remembered that his worldly position was assured.
He was already in possession of a competence, and
there must have been, at the time of his failure, a
strong temptation to relinquish all further thought of
the ministry and give himself up to those pursuits
which had always had such a strong attraction for him.
But in all the records of his life there is not one word to
show that he ever for a moment contemplated such
a step. Though he shrank from the possibility of
further failure, he felt impelled by a power outside him
self to go on in the way in which his feet had been set.
He dreaded ordination, and would willingly have
drawn back ; but when he was tempted to do so the
words came to him : " Whoso putteth his hand to the
plough, and looketh back, is not fit for the kingdom of
God ; " and he felt he dare not withdraw.
For such a man there was only one possible course.
40
Ordination and a Country Curacy
For him there could be no looking back. At all cost
and all hazard he must go forward, and keep right on
in the path marked out for him. So he entered on a
further course of preparation at Martinhoe, where,
amongst the people who loved him, he gained courage
and strength for another attempt to meet the Bishop s
requirements. This was at the end of 1873 ; and it is
characteristic of him that, amidst all his anxiety, he
could put aside his books for one night in order to
accept an invitation from some of his Devon friends to
" see Christmas." This, he explained, is " Devonian for
I am going to a party. "
The party began at 6 P.M., when a hot meat supper
was ready ; after which, games and dancing went on
till midnight, when there was another hot supper as
substantially provided as the first. So the hospitable
hearty Devon farmers kept Christmas in Hannington s
day.
From Martinhoe at the beginning of 1874 he went to
Oxford, whence he returned once more to Exeter, where,
in great trepidation, he again presented himself for
examination at the hands of the Bishop s chaplain.
This time he was thoroughly prepared, and he knew his
subjects perfectly ; but so great was his nervousness,
that it was an impossibility for him to do himself
justice. The result was that although this time he did
not altogether fail he was only partially successful.
The Bishop passed him for the Diaconate ; but in
stead of taking priest s orders a year later, as he would
have done in the ordinary course, he was told that
he must remain a deacon for two years and come up
for an intermediary examination. With characteristic
gruffness of manner the Bishop dismissed him.
41
James Hannington
"You ve got fine legs, I see," said his lordship;
" mind that you run about your parish. Good morn
ing ! " The young deacon did not forget that episcopal
admonition !
The following day, 1st March, 1874, James Hanning
ton was ordained in Exeter Cathedral ; and he felt very
keenly the tremendous responsibility he was taking
upon himself. "So," he said, when, the service of
ordination over, he was leaving the Cathedral, " I am
ordained, and the world has to be crucified in me.
Oh ! for God s Holy Spirit ! "
He commenced his ministry the next Sunday at
Hurstpierpoint, and preached his first sermon. His
own criticism of this maiden effort was that it was
" feeble, in fact, not quite sound " ; and although friends
who heard it congratulated him, he destroyed it. A
day or two later he left for Trentishoe, his first curacy,
and on the following Sunday preached in the little
church, which was crowded with people, most of whom
he knew, and all of whom were anxious to see and hear
their old friend the new curate.
He found his work congenial and full of interest ; and
to his spiritual ministrations amongst his scattered flock
he added medical aid, which he was frequently asked to
render. Tlue people had the utmost faith in him, and
whether as priest or doctor he was always sure of a
welcome. His curacy was no sinecure. It involved
much hard work, many long journeys, sometimes a
good deal of personal discomfort, and not rarely he
found in it a spice of adventure which, doubtless, did
not come amiss to him,
On one occasion, after a week of exceptionally hard
work, in the course of which he had ridden his pony
42
Ordination arid a Country Curacy
more than fifty miles, he had arranged to take duty at
Challacombe. For his pony s sake he decided to cross
Exmoor instead of going the longer way by the road.
But when he got well on to the moor he had cause to
regret his decision, for he rode into a thick fog, and was
soon hopelessly lost. For two hours he galloped hither
and thither in the mist. To add to his discomfort it
began to rain ; and at eleven o clock the time
appointed for the service at Challacombe to commence
he was still trying in vain to discover his where
abouts.
At last he decided that it was useless to make any
further effort to find Challacombe, so he threw the
reins on the pony s neck, hoping that the animal s
instinct would enable it to take them safely home.
After a while he found a track ; and, determining to
follow it, he urged the pony forward, and came eventu
ally to a gate which led him off the moor. Still keep
ing to the track he arrived at last at a farmhouse, and
met a man to whom he explained his predicament.
The man offered to go with him to the church. " For,"
said he, " you will lose yourself again if I don t." This
was highly probable, and Hannington thankfully
accepted the offer.
When at length he reached the church, he found the
people patiently waiting, and wondering whether he
would ever find his way to them for they had long
ago concluded that he was lost on the moor. He
whispered to the clerk the story of his hours of wander
ing in the wet mist ; and that functionary responded
in loud tones, and somewhat unfeelingly: "Iss: we
reckoned you was lost ; but now you are here, go and
put on your surples, and be short, for we all want to
43
James Hannington
get back to dinner." Dripping wet as he was, he put
on the surplice as directed, and gave them a shortened
service. In the afternoon he got back in time for
church at Martinhoe.
It comes rather as a shock to find that at any time in
his career Hannington regarded missionary work with
anything approaching indifference ; yet we have his
own word for it that this special form of religious
activity did not always attract him. On 30th July,
1874, he attended his first missionary meeting at Parra-
combe. He was made to speak, much against his will,
as he confesses he knew nothing about the subject, and
took little interest in it. An old colonel spoke after
him, and gave him such an indirect dressing that
he wisely made up his mind never in future to speak
on any subject until he knew something about it.
In these early days of his ministry Hannington was
conscientious and absolutely sincere in all that he did ;
but not even yet could it be said of him that he knew
what it was to live in the knowledge that Jesus Christ
was his personal Saviour. His time, his talents, his
money he gave freely and ungrudgingly in the service
of the people amongst whom he ministered ; but he
could not tell them from his own experience of the
transforming power of the Holy Spirit of God in the
human heart. He was conscious of something lacking
in his ministry, and at times he became unhappy and
depressed, because he felt that he had not the power he
ought to have had in his work for God. But light and
knowledge came to him vouchsafed through the
reading of a single chapter in a little book that his
friend Mr. Dawson had sent to him.
The story of what may be called James Hannington s
44
Ordination and a Country Curacy
conversion is one of the most remarkable of its kind
that have ever been recorded. Thirteen months before
the light came to him, when he was preparing for
ordination, he had written to his friend, bewailing his
un worthiness; and in his reply Mr. Dawson had related
the story of his own spiritual experience, and urged him
to give himself up in full and complete surrender to
God. For more than a year that letter remained
unanswered ; and then, in his distress at his failure to
realise the full meaning of personal salvation, he wrote
again to his friend, begging him to come and help him.
Mr. Dawson was at the time unable to leave his own
work and journey into Devonshire ; but he wrote a
letter that he hoped would be helpful, and with it he
enclosed a little book " Grace and Truth," by Dr.
Mackay, of Hull. This book Hannington- commenced
to read ; but he got no further than the preface, where
he found what he too hastily concluded to be an error
in scholarship on the part of the author. This was
enough for him. He straightway threw the book aside
and refused to read any more of it.
For long the book remained neglected and forgotten ;
and then, when he was preparing for a journey, at
the end of which he expected to meet his friend,
he suddenly remembered it, and it occurred to him
that he would probably be asked whether he had
read it. Rather from a desire to be able to give an
affirmative answer to that question than from any
particular wish to know what the book contained, he
put it into his portmanteau, and at the first opportunity
he read the first chapter.
He found it so little to his taste that he made up his
mind that not even for his friend s sake would he read
45
James Hannington
any more of it ; and his feeling of disapproval was so
vigorous that he flung the offending volume across the
room. Ultimately he put it back in his portmanteau,
where it remained until his next visit to Hurstpierpoint.
There he came across it again ; and resolving for his
friend s sake to make one more effort to overcome his
prejudice, he started for the third time to read it.
He read straight on for three chapters, and came at
length to one entitled " Do you feel your sins forgiven ? "
and by means of this his eyes were opened. " I was in
bed at the time reading," he says ; " I sprang out of
bed and leaped about the room, rejoicing and praising
God that Jesus died for me. From that day to this I
have lived under the shadow of His wings in the
assurance of faith that I am His and He is mine."
His transition from the darkness of doubt and
uncertainty to the marvellous light and peace of the
Gospel was a fact for which he seemed never able
sufficiently to express his thankfulness and gratitude.
And so great was his humility, and his distrust of self,
that sometimes he feared lest even his joy might be a
sin ; he felt that he had no right to rejoice, because he
was doing inhisown esteem so little for God. He com
plained of his own prayers and praise, that they were too
cold and formal ; he was afraid he loved the world too
much and Jesus Christ too little ; and he dreaded lest
after all the peace that came to him from the knowledge of
sins forgiven might be false. Could humility go further ?
He reviewed the events of the past few years of his
life ; and in everything that had seemed to him at the
time an obstacle and a hindrance to his progress in the
sacred calling he had chosen, he now saw the hand of
God, guiding, controlling, and directing him. Truly his
46
Ordination and a Country Curacy
surrender was complete and absolute ; and from the
hour of his conversion to the last day of his life he
could say that he was a loyal disciple, a humble follower
of the Master whom it was his joy to serve.
Up to the time of his conversion Hannington had
never preached an extempore sermon. His discourses
had always been carefully prepared and written, and
then read to his congregation. Probably even this was
due to that distrust of his own powers which was
always so strongly characteristic of him. But now it
seemed to be borne in upon him that it was his duty
not to preach from a manuscript, but to tell out, in such
plain and simple language as God should give him, the
message of salvation. Preaching of this kind, however,
though it may seem easy enough to the hearer, involves
not less, but even more preparation than is often given
to the discourse that is written before it is spoken;
and of this Hannington had a painful reminder before
he had accustomed himself to preaching by inspiration
rather than by book.
It was on the occasion of one of his rare visits to his
father at Hurst that he was invited to occupy the pulpit
at St. George s. When the time came for the sermon
his nerve completely forsook him. He managed to give
out his text, and that was all he could do. Not one
word of the sermon was ever delivered, and the amazed
and disappointed congregation was dismissed with
a hymn. His friends charitably, and quite rightly,
attributed his failure to his being run down in health.
A few days rest, however, entirely restored him, and
a, fortnight later he preached an excellent sermon in
St. George s, to the great delight of his father, who
heard him on that occasion for the first time.
47
James Hannington
Soon he was back again amongst his Devonshire
friends, working harder than ever. The population of
the parishes in which he laboured was so widely
scattered that visitation involved many miles of travel
over rough moorland roads and bridle paths. And he
never spared himself. Frequently he was sent for, to
minister not to their spiritual, but to their physical
necessities ; for as the people got to know him better,
their faith in his power to heal their bodily diseases
increased ; but he never forgot for an instant that he
was before all things an ambassador of God ; and often,
when his medical knowledge gave him entrance to
houses where, as a minister of Christ, he would have
been denied, he was able to use the opportunity to say
a word in season for his Master.
His father, who had always taken a great interest in
his ministerial work, now began to wish for his per
manent return to Hurstpierpoint, and proposed that he
should come back and take charge of the Chapel of
St. George s. James, however, received the proposal
with something like consternation. He was very
happy in his work at Martinhoe ; he had won the
confidence and affection of the people ; and the results
of his efforts amongst them were visible in their
increased interest in religious matters. Moreover, the
place and his mode of life there suited him exactly;
and he was not at all sure that he would find his
surroundings similarly congenial at St. George s. Yet
so humble-minded, so entirely distrustful of self was
he, that he regarded his very reluctance to leave
Martinhoe as one of the strongest reasons why he
should accept the charge that was urged upon him.
In matters of highest import he regarded it as a safe
48
Ordination and a Country Curacy
rule to give up his own wishes and run counter to his
own inclinations.
He decided finally to be guided by the ruling of the
Bishops of Exeter and Chichester, both of whom would
have to consent to the change before he could leave
Martinhoe; and he rather hoped that they would
desire him to remain there until he had taken his
priest s orders. But the Bishops both assented to his
leaving ; so he hesitated no longer.
Realising that in his new sphere he would have to
work under totally different conditions from those
which prevailed at Martinhoe, he arranged to go for
a while to the parish of Darley Abbey, near Derby
at that time in the charge of the Rev. J. Dawson,
a very devoted man, who had built up one of the most
perfect parish organisations in the country. Under
him he hoped to learn much, and his hope was
abundantly fulfilled.
It was on 17th August, 1875, that he left Martinhoe,
and his heart was heavy as he bade good-bye to the
kindly, lovable people whom he had learnt to regard
with sincere affection. He left many hearts in Devon
even heavier than his own ; for it is never the one who
goes away who feels the parting most deeply. Not
without reason do we sometimes say, "Alas! for the
left behind/ " Still, he was genuinely sorry to leave
North Devon and the many friends he had made there.
But he found a solace for his grief in the hearty
welcome that awaited him at Darley Vicarage, and he
soon made an enviable place for himself in the happy
family life there. Amongst the people of the parish he
quickly became popular, and the few months he spent
in Darley were crowded with useful work which was
4 49
James Hannington
as helpful to himself as to those on whose behalf it
was so freely given. The experience he gained there
proved invaluable to him ; and when he entered upon
his duties at St. George s he was much better prepared
than he would have been but for his brief, happy
sojourn at Darley.
On 3rd November, 1875, he went to Oxford to
receive his M.A. degree ; and four days later he
preached his first sermon in St. George s Chapel as
curate-in-charge. This was the beginning of a ministry
which lasted seven years.
One reason why he had hesitated to accept the
charge of St. George s was that he feared he might
prove in his own experience that a prophet is not
without honour save in his own country, and amongst
his own people. But the event proved that he need
have had no misgivings on that score. As at Martinhoe
and Darley, so at Hurstpierpoint he soon won the love
of the people. And the secret of his popularity was
that he made himself one with them. At Darley
a mill-worker was once heard to say of him, " We all
like Mr. Hannington, and no mistake ; he is so free
like ; he just comes into your house, and sticks his
hands down into the bottom of his pockets, and talks
to you like a man. " So at Hurstpierpoint, without
losing any of the respect due to himself and his calling,
he was on terms of personal friendship with all. The work
ing men and lads, over whom he had an amazing influence,
called him affectionately " Jemmy," and reverenced him
at the same time. The children ran to meet him in
the streets expecting a question on the catechism, and
a " goodie " if they answered correctly, and they were
seldom disappointed in either of their expectations.
50
Ordination and a Country Curacy
He was one of the most generous of men, but since
he was of those who " do good by stealth, and blush to
find it fame," stories of his generosity are rare in the
printed records of his life. They live, however, in the
hearts and memories of those who benefited by his
loviug helpfulness.
One such story, which all his care to prevent his
good deeds becoming known could not suffice to hide,
was the outcome of his desire to obtain a mission room
for St. George s. Such a room was badly needed ; but
his friends had no idea that he was seriously thinking
of providing it. He startled them all one day by
announcing that he had sold his horse, and intended
henceforth to go about the parish on foot. This was
an act of real self-sacrifice, for he was fond of riding,
and enjoyed nothing more than exercise in the saddle.
The only reason he gave was that he wanted the money
for other purposes. What those other purposes were
was evident enough when he announced his intention
of knocking his stable and coach-house into one and
fitting them up as a mission room. This was done ;
and when the transformation was complete he had a
charming room, cosy and comfortable, and just what he
wanted for his meetings.
As a preacher he was not considered eloquent, but
he was forceful and convincing and popular, for his
church was generally crowded. He was outspoken, too,
and was not afraid to call things by their right names.
On one occasion he gave notice of a special temperance
sermon in these words : " I intend to preach a temper
ance sermon next Sunday evening. I am aware that
the subject is unpopular, but you know my own views
upon it. I shall, no doubt, speak pretty plain, so if any
51
James Hannington
of you do not care to hear me you had better stop
away." Of course, nobody did stop away !
He interested himself greatly in temperance work,
and he had not been many weeks at St. George s before
he accepted the Secretaryship of the Hurstpierpoint
Temperance Association. There was great need at that
time for such an association in the village, which
contained no less than seven public-houses each with
its quota of what Hannington called " fuddlers." The
publicans had no reason to love him, for he preached
total abstinence in season and out of season, and he was
never without a pledge book in his pocket. He
practised what he preached, too, for he was himself a
teetotaller "about the only one in Hurst," he once
wrote. He could not have engaged in a more unpopular
crusade than that against drunkenness ; but that only
made him the more keen in the fight, and many had
reason to bless him for efforts which resulted in their
own reformation or that of those who were dear to them.
As a churchman Hannington was a man of widest
sympathies. He was ready to recognise all of good in
men of every shade of religious thought, and he never
permitted prejudice to blind him to the merits of those
who, though differing from him on points of doctrine,
were yet serving the same Master and trying to win
souls for the kingdom of God. To all such he was
ever ready to offer the right hand of fellowship.
The troubles and adversities of his parishioners he
made his own, and he never hesitated to go to their
help, even when to do so involved risk to himself. He
once discovered a boy ill with smallpox in an outlying
part of his parish. He called to see him, and found him
in a pitiable state. The family had been forsaken by
52
Ordination and a Country Curacy
their neighbours, and they could not even obtain milk,
on which the boy s life depended. The first thing
Hannington did was to get the boy the milk he needed
a striking instance of the very practical nature of
his religion and then he prayed with him. In
her gratitude the mother made it known that Mr.
Hannington had been to see and help her boy, and
very soon the whole parish was aware that their
clergyman had been so imprudent as to expose himself
to the risk of infection, and for some time the more
timorous of them gave him a very wide berth indeed
when they met him. One lady went so far as to request
him not even to speak to her husband in his carriage
out of doors for three weeks !
The relieving officer called upon him and forbade
him to go near the place; but he was not to be
deterred from what he believed to be his duty by any
fear of the law. He told the officer that whatever the
law might be, he meant to do his duty. It was not
long before he called again to see the boy, and he
continued his ministry to him until he recovered.
It is not to be wondered at that such service as this
such proof of his readiness, at any risk to himself, to
give all the help and sympathy in his power quickly
won for him the love and devotion of his people. They
soon realised that he was not merely the minister
of St. George s Chapel he was their personal friend,
whose friendship was proved over and over again in
their day of adversity.
53
CHAPTER V
PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFE AT HURSTPIERPO1NT
IN June, 1876, Hannington went to Chichester for
his final examination for priest s orders. The
general tone of the place was much more to his mind
than that of Exeter he described it as much more
spiritual. This time the examiners there were five of
them all told him he had done well, and complimented
him on his work; and he had the gratification of
finding that he had come out at the top of the list. A
very different result this from that of Exeter, for which
he said, and with good reason, that he never con
sidered he was to blame.
Six months later he became engaged to be married to
Miss Blanche Hankin-Turvin. This was a great, and
to many of his friends, an unexpected, change in his
life. He had made no secret of the fact that he
regarded celibacy as the most desirable course for a
servant of God ; and he was not, like many men, unable
to minister to his own needs in domestic affairs. But
his work at St. George s opened his eyes to the fact
that a wife of the right kind would be exceedingly
helpful to him. And in Miss Hankin-Turvin he was
fortunate in finding a lady who became to him in the
truest sense a helpmeet. On 10th February of the
following year they were married, and the marriage
proved an exceedingly happy one.
54
Parish Work and Home Life
A delightful picture of the home life of the
Hanningtons is given by a personal friend who was for
many years resident near the Bishop. " We used often
to go over and see him," writes this friend, " and he and
his wife used to visit us. Sometimes Mr. Hannington
walked the three miles that lay between his home and
ours, and came in after his trip across the Sussex fields
as fresh as if he had just come in from a little saunter.
The country around Hurst is very rich and fertile, and
the undulating downs stretch away in lovely deep blue
shadows.
" Mr. Hannington s residence was a medium-sized,
semi-detached house on the high road. The gate
opened upon a little front garden, well stocked with
flowers, according to the season of the year. His
favourite old black raven was ever to be seen hopping
and cawing about the premises. The front door opened
into a rather narrow passage, garnished with assegais
and other warlike foreign weapons, arranged artistically
against the papered walls. The dining and drawing-
rooms were stocked with cases containing specimens of
entomology; and many other things recorded his
delight in all matters relating to natural history. There
too, side by side with the parish magazine, would lie a
new book, or a fresh report from one of those societies
in which the family always took such an interest.
"There was ever something on the tapis in that
useful home a parishioner who wanted help or advice ;
their children to be placed out in the world ; or a new
plant or insect which claimed attention ; and the sick
and the whole to be cared for. He dined early, and
there was a sort of high tea about six o clock in the
evening, to which visitors were ever made hospitably
55
James Hannington
welcome. He has told my father that if when calling
he did not find anyone at home he was to go to the
dining-room and ring the bell, and order up dinner, or
anything else he wanted, and make himself comfortable,
and quite at home. Though he was an abstainer, he
did not practically enforce his opinions upon his
guests.
" At the evening meal little Meppie (James
Edward Meopham), his eldest son, was generally en
evidence, and the writer has often seen the Bishop
dandling his children upon his knee. These children
appeared to be the happiest little creatures possible.
Their admirable mother had set apart a large, light,
airy room at the top front of the house, and here I have
seen Miss Caroline, the Bishop s only daughter, cetat
four, enveloped in a huge holland pinafore, and painting
away as if her life depended upon her efforts, only
bestowing rather more paint on herself than she did on
the picture ; and at a short distance the youngest son
in his nurse s arms, a very quiet, good young man,
numbering still fewer summers than his sister. Father
was always welcome in the nursery, though he had
funny ways of his own in showing his affection ; but
those who loved him understood how to interpret his
words. Many other children besides loved him. He
always made a point of giving sweeties away, and I, too,
have often eaten my share of the Bishop s sweetmeats.
Yet he has told me that he didn t like children ! But
that was probably part of his fun.
" At the picturesque old Rectory (Hurstpierpoint),
enclosed within high walls and gates that completely
shut out the road, a clerical meeting used to be held on
the first Thursday in each month. The programme
56
BISHOP HANNINGTON
57
James Hannington
was that a portion of Scripture should be expounded
after the Greek Testament had been read, and that
later in the afternoon an adjournment should take place
to the drawing-room, where tea, coffee, and cake were
provided. The wives and daughters of the clergy used
to attend at the same time a sewing meeting, and then
all would meet together and have a little chat with
friends and neighbours at the time of refreshment.
The Rector s amiable daughters used to act as hostesses,
as their mother did not enjoy good health. The future
Bishop not infrequently attended these pleasant
meetings, and would move about, knowing everybody,
and with a word to say to each.
" St. George s Church, or rather Chapel for it was
originally a Chapel was but a short distance from
this, and had been rendered a most beautifully com
plete little edifice. I have seen it thronged during
mission time, and at all times the attendance was good.
Mrs. Hannington had a pew in the chancel on a line
with the reading-desk. The congregation was always
remarkable for earnest and devout attention.
" Close at hand is the residence where the Bishop s
father died, with magnificent hot-houses, and well-laid-
out grounds. I remember that it was before Mr.
Hannington, senior, died that Mr. James took me all
over the place and showed me the corners where he
played as a boy, the pool where he used to fish, and the
meadows where he roamed in search of c specimens/
In particular he pointed out to me a magnificent
geranium grown under glass from a small seed, but
then attained to an enormous size, and trained up
against the wall like a fruit tree.
" We remembered his explaining to us about the loss
58
Parish Work and Home Life
of his thumb, and in his pleasant, genial way he said,
Yes, I blew it off with gunpowder when quite a little
boy. It was a wonder I didn t get lockjaw through it. 5
" When the Bishop spoke he had a thoughtful way
of fingering his watch chain while he enunciated his
views in simple, forcible words that somehow reminded
one of his handwriting, so neat and clear, yet withal
marked with such original touches.
" Order and regularity were the watchwords of his
household rule, upheld most firmly and wisely by his
wife. On one occasion that lady declined to pass the
evening with the writer, saying that, much as she
would like to do so, yet she was afraid it was im
possible ; and when she saw how disappointed we were,
she explained that the sweeps were coming at five
o clock the next morning, and consequently her maids
would be obliged to rise earlier than their wont ; and
she would not like them to wait up for her that evening,
as they would be obliged to do if she gave herself the
pleasure of remaining with us.
" Calling once, before ever the subject of missionary
work was mooted as a personal one in that quiet, con
tented home, I could not help being struck by the
immense amount of interest displayed in the work of the
Church Missionary Society. Through hard work, the
parishioners, too, were induced to become interested
in it, and subscribed their pence as cheerfully as their
dear friend later subscribed his life. Even the children
had their separate little money-boxes for the same
cause, which were regularly called in, Meppie and
little Caroline taking their share with others, as far
as their allowance of pocket-money permitted them,
in aiding the funds of the Church Missionary Society."
59
James Hannington
Hanniogton had not long been established at Hurst
before he began to be in great request as a missioner,
and the missions which he conducted, or at which he
assisted in various parts of the country, were most
successful. But even in this work his natural modesty
and^distrust of himself were apparent ; he was always
diffident, always doubtful about the permanent good
accomplished by his efforts, and always chary about
accepting those who professed to have been brought
to a knowledge of the truth until he had ample proof
of their sincerity.
His experiences in connection with his mission work
were very varied and sometimes a little trying. At
one place, for instance, he found that practically nothing
had been done in the way of preparation, and some
of those who ought to have been most ready to help
were the first to hinder. He had held a good meeting
one night, and was announcing at its close that any
who wished to speak with him might remain behind,
when the organist explained that this was not possible,
as there was to be a choir practice ! Hannington s
indignation was great, and he did not hesitate to
express it. But he never allowed the apathy of others
to disturb his own faith. In connection with this
particular mission, though there was much to dis
courage him in the attitude of those who ought to
have been amongst his best supporters, he simply went
forward, doing his own best, and expecting a great
blessing, and he was not disappointed. Events proved
that his faith was justified, for the mission was a means
of blessing to very many.
At another mission a huge, tipsy man wedged himself
into the middle of a crowded meeting, and distressed
60
Parish Work and Home Life
the preacher by continual interruptions. But Banning-
ton bravely held on, under conditions that would have
entirely overcome many a speaker, and kept his
congregation interested and impressed to the end.
The strain was so great, however, that he afterwards
burst into tears.
His difficulties in mission work did not always come
from the congregations to whom he preached. After
a mission in connection with his own Chapel of St.
George s, he got what he called " a tremendous rowing "
from a neighbouring clergyman, who complained most
bitterly because one of his parishioners had been con
verted at the mission !
Even in his ministerial work he could not always
resist his inborn love of teasing. He was arranging
once to conduct a mission, when those in authority
rather amused him by giving him very minute direc
tions as to what he might and might not do ; and by
way of a little harmless retaliation he went into the
pulpit and began to test the sides of it and the desk,
as though to find out how much rough handling they
would stand. He observed with great delight that
his investigations produced a feeling of terror as to
what he was going to do when he preached, and then
followed further hints and instructions. One . can
imagine his outward gravity and inward mirth as he
listened and the amazement of the innocents whom
he had allowed to deceive themselves, when they found
that the real Hannington was not a pulpit-destroying
emotionalist, but a deeply earnest, spiritually minded
missioner, who had power to stir the hardest hearts,
and rouse sin-hardened men and women, as few could
do, to a sense of their sin and their need of salvation.
61
James Hannington
No man enjoyed life more than did James Hanning
ton. He had the happy faculty of throwing himself
into the pleasure of the moment with complete abandon
and that is one reason why those who sometimes
had the pleasure of sharing a holiday with him found
him such a delightful companion. With his friend Mr.
Scriven he spent one holiday tramping in and about
North Devon. When in the course of their wander
ings they reached Bude, they were so dusty and travel-
stained, and generally disreputable in appearance, that
mine host of the inn viewed them with suspicion
much to Hannington s amusement. During this holi
day they visited Lundy Island, and were detained there
some ten days through stress of weather. In his
bantering way Hannington attributed this and some
other small misfortunes to the fact that he had with
him a pair of old "nailey boots" which, he says, his
father had given him to give away, but which he had
appropriated to his own use. They leaked. They got
wet, and he couldn t dry them. They were slippery.
When he was carrying them through a pool of water a
wave came ; and in saving his boots he lost his balance,
and fell and hurt his knee. And, finally, those misap
propriated nailey boots were eaten by rats ! " Who
would have thought it ! " he exclaims ; and, he gravely
adds, " never defraud the poor of a pair of boots again ! "
By the death of his father in 1881, Hannington
found himself owner of St. George s Chapel ; but,
although the building had been bequeathed to him, no
monetary provision had been made for its upkeep.
This could not have been intentional on his father s
part, but it was an oversight which caused him great
anxiety. It mattered not at all, of course, so long as
02.
Parish Work and Home Life
he remained in charge himself, since he had private
means sufficient for his own requirements ; but his suc
cessor might not be so fortunately circumstanced. Not
for a moment, however, would he permit his father to
be blamed for a state of affairs which he felt sure was
purely accidental.
So he continued his onerous duties as unpaid minister
of the chapel ; and, when the following year he offered
himself for service in the foreign mission field, he sug
gested to the Church Missionary Society that they
should arrange, during his service abroad, to supply the
duty through missionaries who had retired or who were
at home on leave of absence. Just before his departure
from England on his last journey to Africa, he left the
chapel by will to his brother, Mr. Samuel Hannington,
who subsequently undertook all responsibilities con
nected with it.
63
CHAPTER VI
THE CALL TO SERVICE
IT was not until the year 1882, when he was thirty-
two years of age, married, with a family of little
children about him, and apparently settled in life as a
parish priest, that Hannington seriously thought of
offering himself for service as a missionary abroad.
But it must not be thought that his offer was the out
come of a sudden resolve, or a passing whim. Since
the occasion eight years previously to which reference
has already been made in these pages when he
attended his first missionary meeting at Parracombe,
and confessed that he knew nothing about the subject
and took little interest in it he had thought much of
missionary work ; and especially during the latter part
of that time.
He was deeply influenced by the death, in the latter
part of 1877, of Lieutenant Shergold Smith and Mr.
O Neill, whose work was crowned by martyrdom on the
shore of the Victoria Nyanza. He realised how greatly
the removal of these two devoted men must have
crippled the work and hindered the progress of mission
ary enterprise in Central Africa ; and he longed then
to give himself to this particular form of Christian
service.
It is, perhaps, not too much to say that the keen
interest in the work of the Church in Africa which
64
The Call to Service
culminated in his offer to go there himself as a mission
ary dated from the day when he heard how these brave
men had laid down their lives for Christ s sake and
the Gospel s. At frequent intervals after that sad
event he gave evidence in various ways of the fact that
the work of foreign missions was constantly in his
thoughts ; and he was always eager to take advantage
of every opportunity that offered to publicly urge- the
claims of the Church Missionary Society.
In the course of an interview, in the early part of
1882, with a friend Mr. Cyril Gordon he mentioned
that he had a strong desire to offer himself as a mission
ary for the foreign field. Mr. Gordon reported this
to Mr. Wigram, at that time honorary secretary of
the Church Missionary Society. A few days later
Hannington received a letter from Mr. Wigram offer
ing to give him the opportunity he desired ; and so
the first step was taken, the first decisive indication
given of that Divine leading which brought to the
foreign mission service of the Church one of the most
devoted of men.
His decision to give himself to the arduous and
dangerous work of a foreign missionary evoked a good
deal of protest amongst his friends, many of whom
strongly opposed him in the matter. They pointed
out, and quite reasonably, that he was already doing
an excellent work in Hurstpierpoint ; that if he went
away his successor might not be able to maintain his
work at the high level to which he had raised it ; and
that such service as he was rendering at Hurstpierpoint
was as necessary and as honourable as work amongst
the heathen in Africa or elsewhere.
To all these criticisms and objections Hannington
5 65
James Hannington
had but one answer. He did not attempt tp minimise
the value of the work he was doing at home ; but, he
said, it was easier to find someone else to carry on that
work than to Qnd a man able and willing to undertake
the preaching of the Gospel in heathen lands afar. He
felt and he did not hesitate to say so that there
were plenty of men who would be glad enough to take
his place at Hurstpierpoint, but there were not many
who would be prepared to sacrifice home and home
prospects, and go into the dark places of the earth.
Missionaries are not, he was wont to declare, like other
travellers, held in high esteem. They are looked upon
as a sort of inferior clergy, and generally live unnoticed,
and die unrewarded. Few men see much attraction in
such a career. When the Church Missionary Society
appealed for more men, their need seemed to him as
the Master asking, " Who will go ? " And promptly
and eagerly he answered, " Lord, send me ! "
In February, 1882, Hannington made a definite offer
of himself to the Church Missionary Society for
missionary work in the Nyanza district, for a period of
five years, on condition that the Society filled his place
during that time at St. George s Chapel ; and he under
took to contribute twenty-five pounds quarterly towards
his expenses, and to give fifty pounds towards defraying
the cost of his outfit. In this he was as generous as
his duty to those dependent upon him allowed him to
be ; and there is no doubt that he would gladly have
borne all the expense of his missionary service if he
could have done so.
The opinion of the Society as to Hannington s fit
ness for the work is evident from the fact that not only
was his offer accepted, but it was decided to make him
The Call to Service
the leader of a party of missionaries who were about
to go out to the assistance of Mr. A. M. Mackay,
C.E., and the Rev. P. O Flaherty, who were at that
time working in the midst of great difficulty and danger
at Rubaga.
It will be interesting at this point to trace in outline
the early history of the Uganda Mission, with which
practically the whole of Hannington s brief career as a
missionary was so closely connected, and with which
his name will be for ever identified ; although,
strangely and pathetically enough, he never actually
entered the country for which he laid down his life.
The first effort for the evangelisation of Uganda was
made rather more than sixty years ago, when two
German missionaries, Ludwig Krapf and John Rebmann,
working under the auspices of the Church Missionary
Society, made their way to Rabai, on a hill near one of
the many creeks running inland from Mombasa, one of
the chief seaports on the east coast of Africa. With
Rabai as their headquarters they made many adventur
ous journeys into the interior at that time an
undiscovered country. They were the first Europeans
who beheld the snow-clad mountains of Kilimanjaro;
and they were the first to suggest the existence of the
great lake system of Central Africa a suggestion which
was ridiculed by the geographers of that time, in spite
of the stories brought to the coast by Arab traders of a
great lake to which there was no end, " although one
should travel for a hundred days to see the end."
The theory of the missionaries was, however,
ultimately proved to be correct by travellers who were
sent to investigate it ; and these travellers brought back
news, not only of the great lakes, but of a wonderful
67
James Hannington
kingdom on their shores a kingdom with an organised
government whose power was recognised and respected
by the savage inhabitants of thousands of square miles
of territory. This kingdom was Uganda, and its ruler
was Mtesa a young man at that time, whose wonderful
personality led Stanley to write in 1875 his famous
letter to the Daily Telegraph, in which he "challenged
Christendom to send missionaries to Uganda." In
that letter he declared that there was no more
promising field for missionary work in the whole pagan
world than in Uganda, whose inhabitants called
Baganda are a Batu race, beyond question the most
intelligent of all the native races of Central Africa.
The publication of Stanley s letter roused an immense
amount of interest in the work of evangelisation in
Central Africa, and three days after its appearance,
" An Unprofitable Servant " offered the Church
Missionary Society the sum of 5000, on condition
that it was used for the immediate and energetic
organisation of a mission to the Victoria Nyanza. The
offer was accepted, and was quickly followed by another
of a similar amount on the same terms. Other
generous contributions came in rapidly ; and in the
course of a few months the sum of 24,000 was placed
at the disposal of the Society for this special work.
The task the Society had undertaken was full of
difficulty and peril, for it involved a journey through
hundreds of miles of country of which little was known
except that its climate was unhealthy, and that it was
ruled by chiefs whose attitude towards strangers would
probably be hostile ; and it would be almost impossible
to maintain communication between the Society s
representatives and their friends.
/ 68
m
James Hannington
But in spite of the many and grave dangers to be
encountered, volunteers for this pioneer work were
quickly forthcoming, and a party of eight persons
formed the first missionary expedition to Uganda. The
members of the party were George Shergold Smith, an
ex-Lieutenant of the Royal Navy, who was studying
for the ministry of the Church of England ; Alexander
Mackay, a young Scotch engineer; the Rev. C. T.
Wilson, a Manchester curate ; Mr. T. O Neill, an
architect ; Dr. John Smith, a qualified medical man
from Edinburgh ; G. J. Clark, an engineer ; W. M.
Robertson, an artisan ; and James Robertson, a builder
from Newcastle.
Arrangements were completed as quickly as possible ;
and by the end of April, 1876, the little band had all
left England on their adventurous journey. James
Robertson had been rejected by the doctors when he
otfered to accompany the expedition; but he was so
eager to go that he went eventually at his own risk and
expense. He was hopelessly ill, however, when the
party reached the coast, and he died before the journey
into the interior had been commenced.
Starting from the mainland opposite Zanzibar, the
party followed an old trade route, proceeding westward
for about 230 miles, then continuing for some 300
miles further in a north-westerly direction, to the
south of the Victoria Nyanza. From this point it was
the intention of the travellers to continue their journey
on the great lake itself, skirting the shores in canoes
until they reached Uganda.
Some idea of the difficulties of the undertaking may
be gathered from the fact that the journey from the
coast to the shore of the lake about 530 miles in all
70
The Call to Service
occupied more than six months. The Rev. J. D.
Mullins, M.A., in his intensely interesting book, " The
Wonderful Story of Uganda," gives a graphic account
of the discomforts endured by the brave little band of
pioneers during their weary months of overland travel
through Central Africa. They suffered terrible
exhaustion and depression from the overpowering
humid heat ; they were continually tormented with a
plague of insects, centipedes and snakes ; they were in
danger every day and every night from lurking beasts
of prey. Fever attacked them, and left them almost
too weak to travel; and they were subject to constant
demands for tribute from petty chiefs whom they
were bound to placate, or run the risk of personal
violence. All their luggage and food, the goods they
took with them as presents for the natives, and the
cloth that served the purpose of money as a medium of
exchange, had to be carried on the heads of black
porters, who were themselves a constant source of worry
and anxiety. " The long, straggling line which wound
its way along the narrow paths often comprised
hundreds of men ; some deserting, some falling ill and
dying, some attacked by robbers."
Not until 26th June, 1877 a day forever memorable
in the annals of missions was Rubaga, the capital of
Uganda, reached ; and then only two of the original
party of eight arrived there Shergold Smith and C.
T. Wilson. Of the little band who had so bravely
offered to share in this sptendid effort to carry the
Gospel to the centre of Darkest Africa, one was already
dead ; Mackay, prostrate with fever, was ordered back
to the coast from Mpwapwa, 220 miles inland ; Clark
was left in charge of the mission station at that place,
71
James Hannington
but was afterwards, through ill-health, compelled to
return home ; W. Robertson broke down shortly after
the party had left Mpwapwa, and had to go back. The
remaining four went on, fighting their way through
forests and swamps where malaria lurked, and across
arid, trackless desert wastes until they reached the
shores of the lake at last. There, when the most
arduous part of their journey was accomplished, Dr.
John Smith died, and O Neill was left behind.
News of the arrival of the missionaries on the southern
shore of the lake speedily reached Uganda, and it was
not long before they received a letter from Mtesa,
urging them to come to him with all possible speed.
Accordingly, they made immediate preparations to
continue their journey in a small steam launch, the
Daisy, which they had brought with them in sections.
In this little vessel they made good progress until,
attempting to land at an unknown place, the natives
greeted them with showers of stones and arrows.
Shergold Smith was nearly blinded with the stones,
and Wilson was wounded in the arm with an arrow.
This, however, was the only untoward incident that
occurred during the journey, and, as already stated,
Rubaga was reached on 26th June, 1877. On arrival
they were escorted with great ceremony through a
double line of soldiers, dressed in white, to the king s
palace a wonderful structure with walls of reed and
Mtesa gave them a royal reception, ordering salutes to
be fired in their honour, and in honour of the name of
Jesus.
Almost pathetic, in that it shows the eager desire
for the Gospel that existed in the mind of Mtesa, is an
incident recorded by Mr. Wilson, Avho tells that after
72
The Call to Service
the formal reception was over, " the king sent a message
to say that he had one word which he wanted to say to
us, but was afraid to do so before the people in the
morning. So about four o clock we went up. He said
he wanted to know if we had brought the Book the
Bible."
Mtesa ordered a mission station to be built, and as
soon as this was finished, Shergold Smith journeyed
south again to rejoin O Neill, with whom he intended
to go back to Rubaga. But this was not to be. The
missionaries had had dealings with an Arab trader,
from whom they had purchased a dhow. The Arab got
into difficulties through a quarrel with a native king,
and fled to the missionaries for protection. The king
pursued him, and ordered the missionaries to give him
up. This, however, they refused to do. The king
thereupon attacked their camp, and Shergold Smith
and O Neill were both slain. It was on 7th December
that this disaster occurred ; and, as previously stated in
these pages, it was the news of the death of these two
heroic men that first really roused in Hannington the
determination to offer himself for missionary service.
For nearly a year until November, 1878 Wilson
remained alone in Uganda. Then Mackay, who had
only waited most impatiently for the restoration of his
health, started again from the coast, and this time he
accomplished the whole of the journey to Uganda
in safety.
Meanwhile, the Church Missionary Society, concerned
for the safety of the men who were so bravely striving
to establish Christianity in this deadly region, had
decided to send out another expedition, and this time
it was resolved to utilise the Nile route. General
73
James Hannington
Gordon, at that time Governor-General of the Soudan,
greatly interested himself in the matter, and offered to
help any men who might be sent that way.
The new expedition consisted of four men specially
chosen by the Church Missionary Society: Pearson,
who had been an officer in the P. & O. service ; Felkin,
a young doctor; and Litchfield and Hall, students of
the Church Missionary Society College at Islington.
They started from England in May, 1878. Ill-fortune
soon overtook them ; for one of their number Hall
was stricken with sunstroke on the voyage out in the
Red Sea and had to return. The others crossed the
desert from Suakin to Berber on camels, and continued
their journey up the Nile to Khartoum, where they
were received by Gordon, who treated them with utmost
kindness, and sent them forward on his own steamers
at his own expense. So, with comparatively little
difficulty, they reached the frontier of Uganda, and
joined Wilson and Mackay early in February, 1879.
The little force of five soldiers of the Cross gained
confidence and strength from each other s society and
they needed it all. Mtesa, although outwardly so
friendly and apparently so favourably disposed towards
Christianity, had all the while an eye to material
advantage ; and he was easily moved from his allegiance
by the wiles of Arab traders who chiefly because they
knew their nefarious traffic in human flesh must suffer
if the Christians once established themselves in Uganda
tried to turn the king from Christianity to the
Mohammedanism which they had at an earlier date
prevailed upon him to profess.
Nor was this the only difficulty with which the
English missionaries had to contend; for soon after
74
The Call to Service
their arrival a couple of French Roman Catholic priests
made their appearance, and at once began to act in
opposition to them. Not only did these priests decline
to attend the worship which Mackay conducted in the
king s court, but, having first propitiated him with
gifts of the kind that they knew he would most value
rifles, powder and shot, military uniforms, helmets, and
swords they tried to poison Mtesa s mind against the
Protestant faith, telling him that the English mission
aries had grossly deceived him. As may be imagined,
the king was in a state of utmost perplexity. " How
can I know whom to believe ? " he said. " I am first
taught by the Arabs that there is one God. The
English come to tell me that there are two, and now
I am to learn that there are three (God, Christ, and
the Virgin). Has every nation of white men a different
religion ? " he asked in despair.
In the following April two more men, Stokes and
Copplestone, reached Uganda, making a total of seven.
The two newcomers, however, did not remain long,
and when they left two of the others went with them,
to take up duties to which they had been called else
where. The three remaining Mackay, Litchfield, and
Pearson had to endure much petty persecution and
annoyance from many causes, chief among them being
the slanderous stories circulated by the Arabs to their
detriment, the caprice of the king, whom the Arabs
never tired of trying to prejudice against the men of the
Church Missionary Society ; and alas ! that it should
have to be written the opposition of the French priests.
The position at length became intolerable to Litchfield
and Pearson, and they left Uganda the former in June,
1880, and Pearson in March of the following year.
75
James Hannington
Before Pearson left, he and Mackay managed be
tween them to set up a small printing-press, and
taught the natives to read. The novelty of the new
accomplishment appealed to the native mind, and soon
scholars of all ages were diligently learning their
letters and laboriously spelling out sentences and
portions of Scripture. The tablets on which the
latter were printed were not given away but offered
for sale, and they found ready purchasers.
Mackay was not left to work single-handed after the
departure of his friend Pearson ; for in the same month
that Pearson left, the Rev. Philip O Flaherty arrived.
He proved himself a man of great resource and strong
personality. He quickly adapted himself to the con
ditions of life as he found it in Uganda, and speedily
learnt the language ; and with his splendid help Mackay
managed to continue and improve upon the work that
had been commenced teaching, translating, preaching,
and in various ways striving to civilise the natives.
The missionaries described themselves as "builders,
carpenters, smiths, wheelwrights, sanitary engineers,
farmers, gardeners, printers, surgeons, and physicians."
They were, indeed, all things to all men ; and amid
much to depress and discourage they were greatly
cheered by evidence of the fruit of their labours. In
October, 1881, a native boy came to Mackay with
a note, written by himself with a pointed piece of
spear grass, in which he asked that he might be
baptised, because he believed the words of Jesus
Christ. And this was only one incident of many
which showed that at least some of the seed so care
fully and painfully sown had fallen into good ground,
and was destined to bear fruit in time to come.
76
The Call to Service
In 1882 the first Protestant baptism took place,
and five converts were publicly admitted to the
Church the first five of a Church which two years
later, at the end of 1884, consisted of eighty-eight
native members, one of them being a daughter of
Mtesa. This was a triumph indeed for the men who
had laboured long and faithfully, and who now had
the joy of knowing that the task which had at one
time seemed so hopeless was accomplished, in so far
that a foundation had been laid, upon which, in God s
good time, might be built a native Church of Christian
people amid the heathen wilds of Central Africa.
So, very imperfectly and very briefly, we have traced
the history of Christianity in Uganda from the time
when the first efforts were made by the Church
Missionary Society to establish it there, until the
day when Hannington heard the call to service, and
answered it.
77
CHAPTER VII
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY
TTTHEN Hannington s offer of service had been
* definitely accepted by the Committee of the
Church Missionary Society at a meeting at the
Mission House in Salisbury Square on 7th March, 1882
he went straight back to Hurstpierpoint, and the
first thing he did was to break the news to Mrs.
Hannington. They had often discussed the possibility
of his engaging in missionary work, and Mrs. Hannington
had expressed her willingness for him to do so if
opportunity offered, so that his announcement did not
come as an unexpected shock, and she gave him freely
to the work on which his heart was set.
The Committee had decided to place him in charge
of the new expedition that they were arranging to send
out to Uganda as a reinforcement to Mackay and
O Flaherty, who were so bravely holding the ground at
Rubaga. The new party was to consist of six men in
all Hannington as leader; the Rev. R. P. Ashe, B.A.,
St. John s College, Cambridge ; the Revs. J. Blackburn,
Cyril Gordon (Hannington s nephew), and W. J.
Edmonds (students of the Church Missionary Society
College at Islington) and Mr. C. Wise, an artisan.
The party were to travel by the same route as that
followed by the first Church Missionary Society
expedition to Uganda proceeding first for over two
78
The First Missionary Journey
hundred miles due west from Zanzibar, and then in a
north-westerly direction until they reached the mighty
Victoria Nyanza, that great lake, the surface of which
measures twenty thousand square miles, and which
contains an island as large as the Isle of Wight. From
the southern shore of the lake the party would continue
their journey by canoes, skirting the shore until they
reached Uganda.
Not until the actual day of his departure had been
fixed, and all his arrangements finally settled, did
Hannington make known to his congregation at Hurst
the fact that he was about to leave them. At first they
seemed hardly able to believe that he was really going
away. He had become so much a part of their lives
that they regarded him as their own ; and they could
not be brought to see that it was his duty to go. At
the meeting at which his decision was announced,
many of the people wept aloud.
But when they had realised that their friend and
pastor had indeed determined to go, and that nothing
would now shake his resolve, they made up their minds
to help him as far as they could. Though not by any
means rich, they subscribed amongst themselves the
sum of 85 towards the cost of his outfit and in other
practical ways testified to their love for him.
It happened just at that time that public attention
had been specially directed to Uganda by the issue of a
book dealing with the affairs of that country, by Messrs.
Wilson & Felkin. The volume had been very
favourably reviewed in The Times; and Hannington
took advantage of this fact to appeal in the columns of
that paper for subscriptions towards the cost of a new
boat in which to navigate the Victoria Nyanza to
79
James Hannington
replace the Daisy, which had been wrecked. He sub
scribed twenty-five pounds himself for this purpose; and
the response of the public to his appeal was so generous
that he was able to take out in sections a very good boat,
which proved extremely useful to the missionaries.
A valedictory service was held on 16th May, 1882, in
St. James s Hall, Paddington, at which eleven mission
aries Hannington amongst them were committed to
God s care ; arid in the evening he returned to Hurst
and preached his farewell sermon to his own people.
To this day the memory of that sermon dwells in the
minds of many who heard it. One of his friends writes :
" I was not at the service, but on his return my father
told me that it was one of the most effective addresses
to which he had ever listened, and that it evoked a
thrill of emotion through the whole of the densely
crowded audience. The text was 1 Sam. xxx. 24 : As
his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his
part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part
alike. With characteristic humility Mr. Hannington
spoke of the time when he first came among them, hot
headed and inexperienced ; told them things against
himself which he had never laid to the charge of others,
and said how kindly they had all borne with him.
And he added words to which time has since given
significance that if it should be that he lost his life
in Africa no man was to think that his life had been
wasted. As for the lives which had been already given
for this cause, they were not lost, but were filling up
the trench so that others might the more easily pass
over to take the fort in the name of the Lord.
"It was some little distance to his home from the
parish church, but the road was lined with a double
80
The First Missionary Journey
row of friends, who sought from him a last hand -shake
on that memorable evening of the 16th of May. Such
impromptu homage bespoke the love which he had won
around his own home by the workings of his simple,
manly, Christian character. His very hand-shake
bespoke the man. He grasped your hand gently, but
very firmly, and the pressure showed the friend that
you felt understood you, and whom you could
thoroughly trust."
It was not until after midnight on that day of leave-
taking that Hannington was able to get away from his
friends, and at five o clock the next morning he was
up and preparing for the worst trial of all the final
parting from the members of his immediate family and
domestic circle. Of his farewell to his wife there is
no need to speak ; and the pain of parting from his
three children was all on his side they were too young
to realise what it meant ; and for this he was thankful.
" Come back soon, papa ! " they cried as he left them.
The servants all of them attached to him were full
of grief at his going ; but none was quite so overcome
as his boy, Tom Lewry. He asked that he might say
good-bye alone ; and when the moment came he flung
his arms round his master s neck and implored him not
to leave him. Scarcely less touching was the parting
from one other of his humble friends, who for a month
had begged every day with tears in his eyes to be
allowed to accompany his beloved pastor, offering to
work his passage to Zanzibar if only he might be
permitted to go with him.
But perhaps the most remarkable testimony to his
popularity, and the place he had gained in the affection
of the people around him was the fact that a publican s
6 81
James Hannington
son crept up to him and thrust into his hand a letter
of farewell, with a book-marker and a text for keepsakes,
and a note written by his mother. This to the man
whose vigorous temperance campaign had, as he
thought, made him the publican s enemy ! At the
last moment a number of the roughest of rough men,
who were at work on a building men of whom he
says he thought they would have had a holiday to
rejoice at his departure left their work and crowded
about him to express their sorrow at his departure.
Some of them even went to the station, and he found them
waiting at the. train on the platform to bid him good-bye.
Then came the journey to London ; one last hurried
visit to Salisbury Square, and the farewell to his
brother, who went with him to Gravesend, where he
boarded the s.s. Quetta, on which he was to make
the first part of his journey, and where he was joined
by the other members of the expedition.
With characteristic appreciation of the merits of
others, and depreciation of his own, he wrote to the
Secretary of the Church Missionary Society during the
voyage a letter in which he had a good word to say
for everybody but himself. With exaggerated humility
he wrote : " There s only one wretch among the six,
and if he is taken away it will be no great loss ! "
Until they reached Aden the party for Central Africa
thoroughly enjoyed their voyage. The Quetta was a
fine, Clyde-built vessel, of 3200 tons, well appointed
in every way, but at the Red Sea port they had to
leave their comfortable quarters and re-embark in what
Hannington described as " a dirty old vessel called the
Mecca" It was indeed more than jdirty, for it was
verminous. Less than half the size of the Quetta, it
82
The First Missionary Journey
was packed with passengers, and the conditions on
board were so atrociously bad that even Hannington,
seasoned sailor though he was, suffered from sickness,
when, to the general discomfort and bad management,
was added the misery of rough weather and heavy seas.
In a generally dishevelled condition the party at
length reached the island of Zanzibar ; and they were
thankful indeed to see the last of the Mecca. It was on
19th June that they completed this stage of their journey.
Hannington admitted that he was rather favourably
impressed with Zanzibar not that it was by any means
perfect, but it was so much less intolerable than he had
been led to expect ! They did not remain long on the
island, and the time they spent there was fully occupied
with preparations for the difficult and dangerous journey
overland that lay before them.
Before leaving for the interior, Hannington had an
interview with the Sultan, Seyyid Barghash the noble
and energetic ruler of Zanzibar, he called him. He had
heard that the Sultan was becoming alarmed at the
number of European missionaries who were passing
through Zanzibar ; but he had no reason to complain
of the Sultan s attitude towards him, for he was
received with the greatest kindness and courtesy.
The palace is beautifully situated in the Grand
Square; and thither, at the appointed time, arrayed
in full academicals scarlet hood and Master s gown
he made his way escorted by the pro-Consul Colonel
Miles who, in the absence of the Consul, Sir John
Kirk, was to introduce him. A guard of honour,
drawn up in front of the palace, saluted upon their
arrival, and the Sultan came down into the square
to greet his guest, with whom he shook hands cordially,
83
James Hannington
and then invited him to follow him up some stairs so
steep, as Hannington humorously observed, that they
formed a perfect safeguard against any inebriated
person who might wish to thrust himself uninvited
into the Sultan s presence.
The Sultan led the way into his reception room, and
there his guests were regaled with coffee and iced
sherbet, while he plied them with questions through
an interpreter, and showed himself keenly interested in
their expedition. Hannington was surprised to find
that the Sultan, though a man of great intelligence,
showed an amazing credulity, for he believed firmly a
report that had reached him of a gigantic snake in
Ugogo, which was said to reach from the earth to the
sky, and to devour oxen and women and children whole !
After about half an hour the pro-Consul suggested
that the interview must terminate, and the Sultan then
rose with his guests, and leading the way into the square,
he shook hands with them and bade them good-bye.
Before the expedition could leave Zanzibar, the
whole of the mission stores had to be packed up into
suitable loads of from fifty-five to sixty pounds; for
everything the travellers took with them had to be
carried on the backs of native porters, since, owing to
the ravages of the tsetse fly, the use of beasts of burden
was impossible. The porters were principally of two
different races the Wanguana, or coast men, from
Zanzibar, and the Wa-Nyamwezi, or men from the
country of the moon, the vast region to the south of
the Victoria Nyanza. The baggage was heavy and
cumbersome, the missionaries having to take with them
not only their own personal impedimenta, but also a
varied collection of articles with which to purchase
84
The First Missionary Journey
food, pay tribute, and hire extra assistance when
necessary. The tribes of the interior had not learnt
the use of coinage as a medium of exchange, and con
sequently everything had to be paid for in kind.
The mere packing of so much luggage was a work of
great labour, and Hannington found it a source of con
siderable worry and anxiety due chiefly to the exasper-
atingly dilatory habits of the Zanzibar!, who apparently
had no idea of the value of time, and could not be
prevailed upon to hurry over their labour.
But at length the last load was packed, and every
thing was ready for the crossing from Zanzibar to the
mainland. Mr. Stokes, who was going with the
expedition in charge of the caravan, crossed first to the
little town of Sedaani with the greater part of the
luggage ; and on the following day, 27th June, the
missionaries followed. The channel between the
island and the mainland is about thirty miles wide, and
Hannington and his fellow travellers accomplished the
crossing in an Arab dhow a crazy old craft in which
they were packed so tightly that they scarcely had
room to move.
When they arrived off Sedaani it was high tide, and
they could not approach the shore nearer than half-a-
mile ; and at that point the dhow grounded and
bumped so alarmingly that the occupants expected
every moment it would go to pieces. Mr. Stokes saw
their predicament from the shore, and plunging through
the breakers brought a small dug-out canoe to the side
of the dhow. The canoe was, however, half full of
water ; and though some of the party decided to avail
themselves of it, Hannington, preferring, as he humor
ously said, a swimming to a foot-bath, decided to jump
85
James Hannington
into the water. Regardless of the risk from sharks,
and the discomfort of the sharp coral beneath his feet,
he stripped off his clothes, put them into a bag, and then,
jumping overboard, half waded and half swam to shore.
At length the whole party safely reached land, where
their tents had already been pitched ; and they were
quite ready for the dinner which awaited them. But
since the principal dish consisted of an African goat, so
tough as to be almost uneatable, it is doubtful whether
any of them enjoyed the repast.
The following day was spent in getting the porters
into position, checking their loads and putting every
thing thoroughly into order for the march that lay
before them ; and the next morning at dawn the long
procession of seven white men and about five hundred
porters, headmen, and tent-boys set out on their journey
into the interior.
Their way for a time lay through a beautiful district
abounding in rivers, and having the general appearance
of English parklike scenery. The travellers had no
special difficulties to contend with on this part of the
route, except those which arose from the inclination of
some of the porters to desert and return to the coast.
So long as nearness to the coast made desertion com
paratively easy this danger was always present, and the
trouble would probably have been much greater but
for the presence of Mr. Stokes, whose knowledge of the
natives enabled him successfully to overcome it.
The travellers made their way at first along a path
which, but for the tropical nature of the vegetation
surrounding it, might have been a way through an
English wood. Through this beautiful, but by no
means typically African scenery, amongst long grass,
86
87
James Hannington
umbrella-like acacia trees, candle-shaped euphorbias,
and long-spined mimosas, they made their way until
they reached their first camp at Ndumi.
Here they had their first experience of an African
pool, and it was not one which anyone need envy
them. The surroundings were beautiful enough, but
the water itself was unspeakably foul. Hannington
declared that an English cow or an Irish sow would
have turned from it ; and it was scarcely an exaggeration
to say that here and elsewhere during his African
journeys the only water available for all purposes was
often so thick and black that it was difficult to tell
whether it came under the category of meat or drink !
But he observes philosophically that it boiled well,
and added body to the tea ! No wonder that when,
as so often happened, he was prostrated with serious
illness, he avoided drinking any liquid at all. On
more than one occasion, for three and even four days
together, he drank nothing whatever.
On the 8th of July, 1882, the travellers reached tbe
river Buzini the first stream they had encountered on
their journey. They were all exceedingly hot when
they reached its banks, and Mr. Stokes warned them
most seriously against attempting to wade through the
water. To do so would be to risk an attack of fever ;
and as he knew of one man who had paid for an
imprudence of this kind with his life, he begged them
most earnestly to be careful.
Hannington had no intention of doing anything
foolish, and he had made up his mind to wait quietly
by the river bank until the arrival of the headmen,
who had not yet reached the river. But, unfortunately,
his boys were suddenly seized with an ambition to carry
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him across. The task was clearly beyond their power ;
but in spite of his most vigorous objection and resist
ance, they insisted. Willy-nilly, he was hoisted upon the
shoulders of one of them, and carried into the stream.
As soon as they entered the water Hannington felt
his bearer beginning to totter. He begged him to go
back, and even the men on the bank, fearing an
accident, shouted to him to return. But all to no
purpose. The ambitious Johar was resolved to carry
his enterprise through, or perish in the attempt. So
he went stumbling and tottering on swaying, as
Hannington said, like a bulrush in a gale of wind. The
unwilling passenger clenched his teeth and held his
breath, in momentary expectation of a catastrophe.
And at last it happened. In the middle of the stream
Johar lost his footing on a slippery rock, and down
he went with his burden flat into the water ! The con
sequences might have been serious, for Hannington
was, of course, soaked from head to foot ; but happily
he suffered nothing more than the inconvenience of the
wetting, and on this occasion, at least, the dreaded
symptoms of fever did not show themselves.
The travellers were soon made aware that there
would be plenty of diversity in their experiences of
African travel. The next day after their leader s
involuntary dip in the river was Sunday. Towards
evening, while the others were resting after the
services of the day, Hannington was tending some
sick folk when he noticed smoke, and soon he found
that the high grass round about the camp was blazing.
The situation was dangerous, for the grass was as dry
as tinder ; and unless prompt and effective measures
were taken the whole camp would in a few minutes be
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James Hannington
on fire. Hannington shouted an alarm and almost
immediately everyone was hard at work, some fight
ing the flames while others struck the tents and
carried the baggage to a place of safety.
It was an exciting and anything but peaceful ending
to their Sabbath, but at last the danger was over, and
the natives settled down once again to their interrupted
rest. At least, *so Hannington thought ; but it tran
spired afterwards that they were intent on revenge.
They had discovered that the fire had been caused
maliciously by the inhabitants of a neighbouring
village, and after a quiet discussion amongst themselves
they had resolved, by way of retaliation, to burn that
village to the ground. So, each man with his weapon
in his hand, they departed on their private mission of
revenge. But news of this unauthorised expedition of
vengeance reached the ears of Mr. Stokes shortly after
the men had started, and in a great state of excitement
he rushed round the camp shouting out the news and
calling upon everybody to help him bring the rebels
back. This they were fortunately able to do before
much actual damage was done, and when peace and
order were once more restored the missionaries sat
down to their badly needed dinner.
Even now, however, the exciting experiences of this
eventful day were not at an end ; for they had barely
commenced their meal when the cry of " Fire ! " was
again raised. And this time the menace of the flames
was more serious than ever. Every man in the camp
had to rush off to do battle with the fire which was
blazing in the long grass around them. The only way
to fight it was to rush right through the blazing grass
and beat it down. This struggle with one of the most
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terrible of nature s forces was a severe one, and it
taxed the strength and endurance of the men con
siderably ; but it was successful, and again the camp
was saved from destruction.
But, terrifying as their experiences of fire must have
been, the missionaries were soon to be attacked by a
still more fearful enemy, for on 17th July almost
every member of the party Hannington amongst
them was attacked by fever, that dread scourge of
the traveller in Africa. Fortunately, the attacks were
slight, but, in Hannington s case, they were frequent,
and their effect was very distressing.
On 21st July they arrived at Mamboia, where a
flourishing Church Missionary Society Mission station
had long been established. The missionary in charge,
Mr. Last, and his wife gave them a hearty welcome,
and Hannington thoroughly enjoyed his brief stay
there, amid beautiful surroundings, the scenery being
not unlike that of North Devon.
Four days later they left for the next station,
Mpwapwa; and on the way thither Hannington had
a narrow escape in the coarse of one of his excursions
in search of game. He was walking along when
suddenly he fell headlong into one of the hidden pits
which the natives cleverly contrive as traps for wild
animals. Usually these pits are staked at the bottom
with sharp-pointed, upstanding spears, so that animals
falling into them are at once impaled and killed. But,
by a merciful Providence this particular pit contained
no spears. At the moment of his fall he was carrying
his gun at full cock in his hand; but he had the
presence of mind to let himself go, and concern him
self only about his weapon, which, fortunately, did not
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James Hannington
explode. The pit was at least ten feet deep, and, as may
be imagined, he did not escape without a severe shaking
and bruising, but that was the only injury he suffered.
It might be thought that an adventure such as this
would have quelled the ardour of the most enthusiastic
hunter, at any rate for a time ; but Hannington was off
again with his gun before daybreak the next morning.
He found the monotony of nothing but tough goat at
every meal a powerful incentive to test once more his
powers as a hunter. From this fresh excursion he was
quickly recalled by an alarm of Ruga-ruga (robbers).
Away he went to fight them, and as soon as they
caught sight of him rushing fearlessly towards them,
they fled precipitately, and peace was once more
restored in the camp.
A double march on 28th July, with a few attendants,
brought Hannington to Mpwapwa, where Dr. Baxter
was in charge. The halt here was very brief, and
Hannington was thoroughly tired out ; but weary as he
.was he managed to rouse himself sufficiently to make
a collection of the fauna and flora of the district a task
involving a good deal of exertion, and attended by not
a little personal discomfort.
While he and Dr. Baxter were hunting for specimens,
they had the misfortune to encounter a great colony of
black ants, and though they did their best to avoid
them, they were severely bitten. Hannington described
the noise made by these myriads of ants when on the
march as a kind of hissing roar ; and the dry bed of
the stream in which they encountered them was black
with them as far as the eye could see.
There was considerable risk, too, in handling unknown
plants, some of which proved to be of a malignant and
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highly dangerous nature. One such was a beautiful
bean, the pod of which was thickly covered with short,
red hairs, which entered the skin, and caused acute
pain. When Hannington first seized this tempting
bait he was nearly driven mad, and was a long time
discovering the source of the mischief; for, unlike the
nettle, which stings at once, this venomous pod does
not develop its evil effects until some time afterwards.
But so enthusiastic a naturalist as Hannington is not
easily daunted ; and in spite of this and other trials he
managed to gather a valuable collection of birds and
insects, plants and mosses, many of which are to be seen
to-day in the British Museum.
After three days at Mpwapwa the expedition travelled
to Khambe, a day s march farther on. The march was
a difficult and trying one, through forest land and
over the rough stony ground of a rugged and steep
mountain pass. The men had been sent on before to
set up the tents, and prepare the camp generally, and
Hannington and his fellow-travellers, toiling along in
the heat, looked forward with pleasurable anticipation
to the rest and refreshment that they hoped awaited
them at their journey s end.
But looking down from the summit of the pass
towards their camping ground, no tents were to be
seen, nor any signs of a camp. Feeling sure that
some accident must have occurred, they hurried for
ward, full of alarm. When they at length reached
the place where the camp ought to have been, a scene
of utter desolation met their eyes. A tremendous
wind had arisen, scattering the camp-fires, tearing
down some of the tents, and raising huge clouds of
dust which smothered everything. The men in
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James Hannington
despair had taken refuge in a deep, dry trench cut
through the sandy plain by a mountain torrent.
The whole scene was desolate and disheartening to
a degree, and especially so to the little group of tired
and hungry men who had expected to find food and
rest and shelter awaiting them. * But there was nothing
to be gained by looking at it ; and by way of setting
a good example Hannington seized a hammer, and set
to work on the tent-pegs, and soon forgot his weariness.
After a time the camp was to some extent re-established ;
but the dust could not be excluded; and with sand
gritting their teeth with every mouthful of food, and
almost smothering them as they slept, they were any
thing but comfortable. By way of encouragement the
natives informed them that they must expect this sort of
thing all through the last stage of their journey to the lake.
Yet amidst personal discomforts and trials and
vexations that would have irritated the average man
almost beyond endurance, Hannington remained always
cheerful and hopeful. Even amidst the sand storms of
Khambe he could write this letter to the Church
Missionary Society Committee : " We are resting
to-day. The reason for these rests is that we are
waiting for the boat to gain upon us, and catch us
up, in order to save hongo (tribute). But I do not
personally believe in rests, either for masters or men.
We have now some very hard work before us ; nearly
twenty-four hours march to-morrow. I am very happy.
Fever is trying, but it does not take away the joy of
the Lord, and keeps one low in the right place."
The march to which he referred in the letter quoted
above was a particularly trying one of forty miles across
the desert of Marenga Mkali to Pero, their next halting
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place the frontier town of Ugogo. It was late in the
afternoon before a start could be made ; and at about
five o clock darkness descended, with that suddenness
which is usual in the tropics. They struggled on for
three hours in the dark, with dense foliage overhead,
which made the way before them an impenetrable
blackness, and stony ground beneath their feet, over
which they stumbled painfully.
At eight o clock a halt was called, huge fires were
lighted, and the men secured a few hours sleep, which
they badly needed. At one o clock the sleepers
were roused, and the huge caravan once again set in
motion. Tired and irritable and footsore, the men
went on their way until the sun rose, and extreme
heat was added to their other trials.
Then, just when it seemed that human nature was
enduring all it could possibly bear, three shots were
heard, and the cry Ruga-ruga! which had once
before indicated to Hannington the approach of
robbers, effectually roused the men. From inert, list
less beings, with scarcely energy to crawl, they were
suddenly transformed into an alert, eager crowd ; and,
all their weariness forgotten, they dashed away in
search of the foe. The search was vain ! And it
turned out afterwards that the scare had been manu
factured by Mr. Stokes, who, seeing that the men were
nearly exhausted, thought a little healthy excitement
might infuse new life into them. The ruse succeeded
admirably. Even Hannington himself was tricked for
the time being, and shared the tonic effect of the
clever deceit, which so revived the flagging energies
of the weary travellers that they all marched on with
new vigour, and at 11.30 A.M. reached Pero.
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James Hannington
When the excitement had subsided the old lassitude
returned, and it was a matter of some difficulty to
induce the men to start on the next stage of the
journey ; but after much persuasion and the promise
of a short march, their reluctance was overcome, and
the next camp was reached. The water here proved
to be terribly bad. The only source of supply was one
deep hole into which all kinds of small animals rats,
lizards, toads, and the like had fallen and been
drowned. The water smelt abominably. No filtering
or boiling had any purifying effect on it, and it
flavoured everything.
The natural result upon Hannington of drinking this
horrible fluid was a sharp attack of fever. It was
on Sunday, 6th August, that the dreaded symptoms
first manifested themselves, and he resolved to try
to overcome them by a brisk walk. The day before
he had seen three lions, and had followed them into
some dense bush, where he lost sight of them. Now,
accompanied by his nephew, Mr. Gordon, he turned
his steps in the direction which the lions had taken.
He had not gone far, however, when the fever attacked
him, and it was all he could do to stagger back to his
tent. He became so seriously ill that for three days
his life was despaired of. Even when the worst was
over, his weakness was such that the mere fact of
a headman coming into his tent to speak a few kindly
words to him brought on a fainting fit. But through
all the suffering and weakness his cheery optimism
never left him and indeed it was probably to this,
in great measure, that he owed his recovery.
The natives, though a source of constant worry, gave
Hannington a good deal of amusement. In some of
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The First Missionary Journey
the places he passed through the people had never seen
a white man before, and their curiosity, though excus
able, must have been more than a little embarrassing.
It was nothing unusual for them to crowd round his
tent in ranks five deep. Their general opinion of him
seemed to be that he was exceedingly ugly ; and his
clothing amused them greatly, the number and variety
of his garments causing them utmost astonishment.
His watch was an unfailing attraction; and his nose
they compared to a spear it seemed to them so
sharp and thin in comparison with the African variety !
His patience and good humour enabled him to put up
with all the inconvenience of their curiosity without
betraying the least resentment, though sometimes he
must have found their scrutiny very trying.
The most inquisitive of all the tribes he encountered
were the Wagogo. These people are not considered
friendly to travellers, but Hannington took a great
liking to them. He thought there was something
very manly about them. They seemed interested in
the worship of the white men, though they showed no
disposition to take part in it ; and Hannington was
hopeful that the Gospel message would win its way to
their hearts.
The leader of the expedition considered he had
achieved a triumph when, on 22nd August, he was able
to say that his party had passed through Ugogo with
out having paid hongo always a heavy strain on the
resources of travellers in Africa.
On 30th August they reached Itura, where the
Wa-Nyamwezi women entertained them with a national
dance which lasted for hours. In return for this courtesy
Hannington showed them an English doll, which he
7 97
James Hannington
undressed before their wondering eyes ; and they were
greatly amazed at the number and variety of the
garments in which it was arrayed.
The following day the travellers entered on a stretch
of about eighty miles of forest desert. They found the
heat of the sun exceedingly trying; and on 2nd
September, as there was a full moon, they decided to
try the experiment of a night march. Hannington was
at the rear, to prevent straggling and loitering, and
was having some trouble with the men, when he heard
shouts and yells from those in front, and guns were
fired. Thinking that the Ruga-ruga had again attacked
them he hurried forward, and found that the cause of
the commotion was a lion, which, calmly eating its
supper in the bushes close to the path, refused to move,
in spite of the noise which the natives hoped would
scare it away.
Taking his gun, Hannington prepared to shoot the
obstinate beast, much to the alarm of his white friends,
who, with most of the natives, swarmed up the nearest
trees, so as to be out of harm s way. At the critical
moment a black boy rushed in and shot wildly in the
lion s direction. The shot did not take effect, but the
lion got up and moved off into the bush with his prey ;
and at the earnest entreaty of his friends, Hannington
turned unwillingly away, feeling that a grand oppor
tunity had been lost. After this exciting experience,
there was no further difficulty in keeping the stragglers
together. Their fatigue suddenly disappeared, and
they packed together like a flock of sheep.
At last, after a march as toilsome and tiring as any
they had yet experienced, the party reached the
Mission Station of Uyui on 3rd September. The station
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The First Missionary Journey
was at that time in charge of Mr. Copplestone, who
greeted his brother missionaries most cordially. There
seemed every prospect of a few days happiness and
peace amid the congenial surroundings of the mission,
when Hannington was laid low with a severe attack of
dysentery, which completely prostrated him.
So ill was he that the other members of the mission,
after long and anxious discussion, decided that he could
not possibly proceed to the Lake, and he accepted their
decree in a spirit of rare humility and resignation.
The decision was a tremendous disappointment to him,
but under the circumstances it did not surprise him,
and he accepted it in a spirit of calm resignation. On
15th September his party went on their way, leaving
their leader in the capable and kindly hands of Mr.
Copplestone, and his nephew, Mr. Gordon.
While he was ill he received a visit from Ngembi,
the chief of the district, whom he was anxious to
honour. During the interview he sat in a draught and
contracted acute rheumatism, which quickly developed
into rheumatic fever, and with this complication of
diseases it seemed impossible for him to recover. Even
when he regained a little strength temporarily he had
no hope himself of ultimate recovery, and he chose a
place near the mission station for his own burial.
Through all his pain and sometimes it was so severe
that he would beg everyone to leave him, that he
might scream and thus try to relieve the agony he
was wonderfully patient, and his trust and faith never
wavered. Mr. Copplestone wrote afterwards: "His
stay with me was a real blessing. His spirituality was
very deep. Oftentimes he would say, Come, Copple
stone, sing me one of your consecration hymns. His
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James Hannington
favourite was, I am coming to the Cross. Nearly
every night we would have a special time of prayer
together before retiring to rest. Yes, those were
hallowed times, never to be forgotten."
For six weeks Hannington hovered between life and
death, and then, almost as much to his own surprise as
that of his friends, he began steadily to improve.
Almost at the same time he was amazed by the totally
unexpected return of his expedition. It seemed that
Mr. Stokes, proceeding along the old road to the Lake,
was stopped by the natives, who not only demanded
payment of hongo to an unreasonable amount, but
insisted that part of the tribute should take the form
of guns and powder a kind of hongo which the agents
of the Church Missionary Society have always, and very
rightly, refused.
Mr. Stokes paid a portion of the tribute, but decided
not to proceed. He lodged a complaint with the chief
of the district, who had guaranteed the safe passage of
the expedition through his country in return for the
tribute paid to him. The chief was very angry with
the offending tribesmen, and while he was adjusting his
quarrel with them, Mr. Stokes brought the whole
caravan back to Uyui, intending to try to reach the
Lake by another route.
When Hannington .heard of their arrival he exclaimed,
" I shall live, and not die ! " He felt that they had
returned that he might go with them and indeed this
seemed to be the case. Another consultation was held,
and it was decided that when the party was ready to
start again he should accompany them carried this
time in a hammock until he was well enough to
walk.
100
CHAPTER VIII
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY
TT was nothing but Hannington s iron will and
splendid courage that enabled him to face the
difficulties and dangers of the renewed march towards
the Lake. He was still so weak and ill that all his
friends at Uyui felt that the experiment he was about
to make was not unlikely to terminate fatally; but
he was determined to reach the Lake if he could. So,
the dispute about hongo having been satisfactorily
adjusted, the caravan started on 16th October, leaving
Mr. Blackburn and Mr. Edmonds behind to take the
place of Mr. Copplestone, who was about to return
to England.
At the very outset Hannington s troubles began;
for when he reached the camp in his hammock he
found that fifty of the porters, terrified at the idea of
crossing Mirambo s country, had deserted, and all was
confusion. He decided, however, to proceed with as
many loads as possible, leaving headmen to engage new
porters and follow on with the rest of the baggage. It
took two-and-a-half hours to re-arrange the porters
loads, and this time Hannington spent resting under
a tree. Presently his bearers arrived, and he got
into his hammock and began his journey only to
find that instead of the six men for whom he had
stipulated, only four had been allotted to him, and of
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James Hannington
these three were the very dregs of the caravan and
had neither power nor inclination to carry him properly.
They had not proceeded far when, as he expected,
they dropped him. Fortunately he was prepared for
this, and managed to break his fall and so avoid serious
injury. He gave them a long rest but that availed
nothing, and at last in desperation, he got out of the
hammock and walked for two hours. This tramp of
six miles, after he had been in bed for the best part
of six weeks, and, even at his best during the latter
part of that time, barely able to crawl from one room
to another, was a marvel even to himself.
He reached camp at eight o clock, and found every
thing in a state of chaos, and the men in the absence
of Mr. Stokes, who had gone with Mr. Copplestone to
interview King Mirambo sulky and insubordinate.
Ill and exhausted as he was, he had to do that night
without bedding and without food. The next morning
he refused to start with less than six bearers; but
these proved as incompetent as the four who had
already failed him, and the experiences of the previous
afternoon were repeated with the added aggravation
of distress from want of food. At 11.30 that day
he had his first meal since leaving Uyui, twenty-
five hours before, and it consisted of pea soup without
stock, and flour-and- water dumpling without suet
hardly an ideal dietary for an invalid ! The next day
he declined to move until six good men were allotted
to him ; and since his life absolutely depended upon
his having reliable bearers to carry him, he was
quite justified in making this firm stand.
For about a fortnight the expedition continued to
make fair progress ; and although Hannington was ill
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TRAVEL BY HAMMOCK
Bishop Hannington s humorous sketches of a trying ordeal
103
James Hannington
more or less most of the time, he found some amount
of enjoyment in his ever changing surroundings. His
cheerfulness amidst the most depressing circumstances,
and even when he was suffering considerable bodily
pain, was marvellous. He was so racked with
rheumatism that he could only just manage to sit up
for meals ; and he admitted that if he had been at
home his doctor would have wanted to wrap him up
in cotton wool ; yet he could write : " This life is
thoroughly agreeable to me." And he added, " If I
had good health I should be too happy. What wonder
ful mercy surrounds us. Truly, underneath are the
Everlasting Arms ! "
On 1st November the travellers pitched their camp
near the village of a great chief named Shimami
great in possessions, stature, and power. He showed
himself to be friendly disposed towards the strangers,
and sent them a present of a fine goat, some milk, and
two oxen. He followed up his gifts by a personal
visit ; and, to his huge delight, Hannington presented
him with a pair of blue spectacles and a wide-awake
hat. These he donned forthwith, and then led his
new friend to the village, where the chiefs appearance
in his new finery created a great impression. Hanning
ton was greatly amused, but his mirth gave no offence ;
for in Africa laughter is seldom expressive of ridicule.
After this date Hannington s health steadily im
proved ; and on 6th November he felt so well" that
he attempted the ascent of a mountain in search of
botanical specimens. While on the mountain alone
and unarmed, he was suddenly confronted by three
men, armed with pistol, bow, and arrows. He realised
that he was entirely at their mercy ; but, resolved to
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Adventures by the Way
put a bold front on the matter, he faced them, and
in the native language wished them " Good afternoon."
Then it transpired that, far from having designs on his
life, they regarded him with utmost respect. For they
believed him to be a great magician, whose purpose
on the mountain was to make a new well, and they
had followed him simply to find out where he intended
to establish the new supply of water, which they badly
needed.
He did his best to persuade them that his investiga
tions of mosses and stones and the bark of trees had
nothing whatever to do with the finding of water, or
the making of springs, which was in the power of
God alone, but in vain. Nothing would induce them
to believe that he was not a wonderful magician, who
for some reason was unwilling to exercise his power.
The expedition was now approaching the village of
Kwa Son da, where they hoped to found a new mission
station, and in the neighbourhood of the village they
expected to get their first view of the great Lake. But
though they explored the district thoroughly, they were
doomed to disappointment. Instead of the grand
stretch of water and luxuriant foliage they had hoped
to see, they found nothing but a sandy plain, and in
the midst of it a singularly unpicturesque village.
It transpired afterwards that they had not gone in
the right direction from which to see the water ; but
their disappointment was not without its compensation ;
for on their return to the village, after dinner, while
they were at prayers, the chief came in and asked what
they were doing. They explained that they were
about to pray to God. "Go on," said he, " let me hear
you ; " and when their devotions were over he said,
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James Hannington
"You must teach me." The incident may seem trivial
but it gladdened the hearts of the missionaries exceed
ingly ; and Hannington, though unwilling to attach
too much importance to it, yet could not help regarding
it as an earnest from heaven. It set his heart praising,
and filled him with assurance that God had not
forgotten those who, amid much discouragement, were
trying to carry the Gospel light to some of earth s
darkest places.
On 9th November they went exploring again, and
this time found the Lake. It was not a very imposing
sight at this point Msalala for it was scarcely a mile
wide, and in appearance like a duck-pond, or a sluggish
English river in summer time. The voices of the
natives were plainly audible from the opposite bank.
Still, they had at last reached the great Victoria
Nyanza, an achievement which afforded them no little
satisfaction.
Their advance was now checked for a time. They
were short of cloth ; and, moreover, the porters who
were carrying the sections of the boat, in the charge of
Raschid, were a long way behind. Obviously they
could do nothing on the Lake without the boat ; so, as
the rainy season was upon them, they decided to set to
work at once and build huts in which to shelter until
such time as they were able to proceed. Hannington
also sent letters to Uganda, advising the brethren there
of his arrival, and asking that canoes might be sent
for his party, if their immediate presence were
required.
Mr. Stokes, who had so efficiently guided the
expedition thus far, having now accomplished his
mission, made arrangements to return to the coast with
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Adventures by the Way
a number of the porters who were no longer needed.
Hannington was very reluctant to part from him.
His unceasing kindness had been a great comfort, and
his ability in managing the men a great advantage.
" When he was gone," wrote Hannington, " a slight
feeling of loneliness crept over us. We felt rather like
men with empty pockets, turned adrift in the wide
world, not knowing exactly where we were, or what to
do next."
The unbounded influence which Hannington obtained
over the natives who accompanied him has often been
commented upon. It was due in great measure to the
personal bravery by which he saved himself and others
in more than one almost hopeless situation, and which
caused his men to regard him as possessed of miraculous
power. So convinced were they of his supernatural
gifts that they were almost afraid to oppose him, and
they looked upon him as having a charmed life. Of all
the recorded instances of his courage, perhaps the most
remarkable is that which occurred on one occasion at
Msalala, when he was out with his gun-bearer on one
of his frequent expeditions for botanical specimens.
He had wandered about a mile from the camp, and was
standing in the midst of a belt of dense mimosa scrub
when he noticed an animal moving at some little
distance from him. It was a strange-looking creature,
about the size of a sheep, and of a kind quite unfamiliar
to him. Thinking that he would like to add its skin
to his collection, he fired at it without hesitation, and
killed it. The tragedy was over before his gun-bearer
had time to interfere, or say a word ; but almost
simultaneously with the firing of the shot the boy
screamed out in terror. His better knowledge taught
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James Hannington
him that his master had done something which
placed them both in deadly danger. Half mad with
fright, the boy took to his heels, shouting as he did so,
" Run, bwana, run ! " Hannington was bewildered for
the moment by the boy s sudden alarm, but he had not
long to wait for an explanation. With a terrific roar
of rage and grief a pair of lions came suddenly bounding
towards him through the scrub. He had killed
their cub and they were intent on avenging its death !
The lions were only a few paces away, and escape by
flight was impossible. It was a terrible dilemma, and in
such a case most men would have given themselves
up for lost. But not so Hannington. Even in that
supreme moment of danger, when almost at a single
bound the enraged brutes whom he had deprived of
their offspring could have reached him, his ready wit
did not desert him. He remembered that sometimes
even the king of the forest can be frightened by an
unexpected demonstration ; a.nd on the inspiration of
the moment an inspiration which undoubtedly saved
his life he suddenly threw up his arms, gave vent to
unearthly yells, and began to dance like a madman.
At this extraordinary performance the lions stopped,
and stood staring at him. Then, still facing them and
keeping up his weird exhibition of noise and fantasy,
Hannington managed cautiously to retreat, literally
by inches, until about a hundred yards divided him
from the astonished and frightened lions. Then he
suddenly ceased his dancing and shouting and quietly
walked away.
It might be supposed that, having thus escaped so
narrowly from what had looked like almost certain
death, even so fearless and intrepid a hunter as
108
109
James Hannington
Hannington would most thankfully have regarded the
adventure as ended. But he very badly wanted the
skin of the cub he had killed under such thrilling
circumstances partly because he valued it for its own
sake, and partly because he wished for a memento of
such a memorable occasion. So, just before dark on
the same day, he retraced his steps and went back to
the spot where a few hours before he had so narrowly
escaped death. He found the lions there, walking
round and round the dead body of their whelp, licking
it and growling savagely. Quite unconcernedly he
approached them, even stopping by the way to pick a
rare blossom which caught his eye. Having safely
deposited the flower in his pocket-book he went on
again; and when he judged that he had approached as
near the lions as was prudent, he suddenly began to
repeat his former tactics. The lions gazed for a
moment at the strange, yelling, gesticulating creature
that had again invaded their solitude, and then walked
away, leaving the cub on the ground. Hannington
thereupon went forward, and seizing the animal by its
hind legs, dragged it through the scrub, and brought it
in triumph to the camp.
His arrival with his prize caused a tremendous
sensation in the village. The natives could hardly
believe that he had dared to kill " the child of the
lion " a far more dangerous thing to do, they declared,
than to kill the lion himself and their respect for him
increased accordingly.
But all Hannington s bravery could not keep the
dreaded fever out of his camp ; and in addition to the
trouble of sickness amongst his followers he had a good
deal of anxiety to bear on account of Raschid, who had
110
Adventures by the Way
not yet arrived, and concerning whom disquieting
rumours were reaching him. It was ultimately decided
that Ashe and Gordon should go in search of Raschid,
while Hannington sent messengers to interview Romwa,
King of Uzinza, and ask him to assist the party to
reach the head of the Lake.
Before Hannington s messengers had got back from
Uzinza, Ashe and Gordon returned with Raschid and
his caravan. They had found Raschid in an utterly
dilapidated condition. Both Ashe and Gordon were
very ill, and Wise was also suffering from fever, so the
entire burden of responsibility fell upon Hannington,
who was himself far from well. But he was much
cheered by the hopeful report which his messengers
brought back from Romwa, who had promised to help
the Mission party to the utmost of his power, and
supply them with canoes for the voyage up the Lake.
He decided on the strength of this report that he
would visit Romwa s capital some days journey from
the camp with Mr. Gordon, leaving the others in
charge of affairs at Msalala.
It was now past mid-December, and the travellers
resolved to postpone their departure for Romwa s land
until after Christmas. There is probably nothing more
pathetic in missionary annals than Hanuington s
account of the Christinas Day he and his brother
missionaries spent on the shores of the Victoria Nyanza.
Gordon was ill in bed ; Ashe and Wise were just
recovering from a sharp attack of fever, and Hannington
himself was very unwell ; yet they had a happy
celebration of the Holy Communion, and their thoughts
were all of their dear ones at home who would, they
knew, be praying for them.
Ill
James Hannington
They explained to the natives that the day was a
great festival amongst* Christians, and gave them a
kid, so that they might share in the feast; and they
even essayed to make a Christmas pudding. It was
hardly such as an epicure would have approved, for the
flour was musty and full of dead beetles and their
larvae, the raisins were fermented, and the poor, stodgy
mass suffered woefully in the cooking ; but for all that,
Hannington declared he could not remember ever to
O
have enjoyed a Christmas pudding half so much.
On the first day of the New Year, 1883, a start was
made for the land of Romwa. And, indeed, it was
imperative that a move should be made, and help
obtained ; for, owing to the rascality of Raschid, who
had robbed the caravan right and left, the camp was
bordering on destitution.
Hannington secured a canoe, and obtained the
services of some of the canoe men in the employ of
Mtesa. These men were under the captaincy of a man
named Mzee. Hannington s opinion of him, after much
painful experience, was that he was as degraded a ruffian
as ever lived. His conduct was exasperating almost
beyond endurance ; and the climax was reached when,
after a few days journey, Mzee calmly announced that he
intended to take the whole party ashore and leave them
there, declaring that he had had enough of the journey.
Hannington s remonstrances were all unavailing, and at
last he asked for his gun. Loading it deliberately he
pointed it at Mzee at about a yard distant from his
chest, and said " Now, will you go on ? "
Mzee wisely decided that he would ; and on 9th
January the party reached Romwa s. His reception of
them, after his first friendly offers, was rather dis-
112
Adventures by the Way
appointing, for he proved to be rapacious, and he
and his people were steeped in superstition. But
Hannington only saw in all the degradation of Romwa
and his people the great need that existed for Christian
missionaries to teach these poor savages the message of
the Gospel.
For some time the entire party were detained almost
A DESPERATE INDUCEMENT
"Now, will you go on
From a Pen-and-ink Sketch]
[by Bishop Hannington
as prisoners of state by Romwa, and they were doubtful
as to whether he would allow them to proceed.
Eventually he consented that Hannington should go on
by himself to Uganda on condition that the rest of the
party remained behind. To this Hannington agreed,
and on 22nd January he started in a canoe with two of
his boys. He reached Kagei, where he was welcomed
most kindly by the Arab chief, Sayed bin Saif " the
8 113
James Hannington
white man s friend," and by some French Jesuits who,
having recently left Uganda, had much to say that
keenly interested him. Romwa had meanwhile, in a
favourable mood, consented to the departure of Gordon
and Ashe. The former followed after Hannington, and
met him at Kagei, while Ashe returned to Msalala,
where his chief intended later to come back and join
him. Their plan then was to bring the remainder of
their goods to Kagei, and thence to proceed to Uganda,
But this plan was never carried out. Hannington s
journey back to Msalala was a literal progress of pain.
He fought against his weakness and suffering like the
hero he was sometimes walking with his hands tied to
his neck to ease the torture caused by every movement
of his arms ; but when, in the last stage of exhaustion,
he reached the shelter of his friend s tent at Msalala,
he knew that his heroic effort to reach Uganda had
ended in failure, and that he must consent, at least for
a time, to leave Africa and give up the work that was
dearer than life to him. The bright, buoyant figure,
the very sight of which had so often been an inspiration
to others, was now bent and feeble, like that of a very
old man. He confessed that life had become a burden
to him, and he hardly expected that he would ever see
England again. " Forgive me ! he wrote. " I am a
practical failure." But there is such a thing as splendid
failure, and if Hannington had not attained the desire
of his heart, he had at least failed splendidly; and
" forgive " need never be the plea of the man who has
done his best.
114
CHAPTER IX
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY
HANNINGTON was back in England on 10th June
1883, and he soon settled down to his old work
as though he had never left it. But always in his
heart was the hope that some day he would be per
mitted to return to Africa. In the homeland his
health rapidly improved, and he did valiant service
up and down the country as a preacher and speaker
on behalf of the Church Missionary Society. At the
end of a year, to his great joy, Sir Joseph Fayrer, the
climatologist, pronounced him fit to return to Africa,
with a good prospect of being able to live and labour
there for many years.
It was at about this time that the Committee of the
Church Missionary Society had under reconsideration
a plan for placing the Mission Churches of Eastern
Equatorial Africa under the care of a Bishop. This
immense tract of territory was rapidly coming under
the influence of the gospel, and the increasing number
of mission stations needed supervision. The position
demanded a man of exceptional ability, and one who
combined in himself exactly those characteristics which
Hannington possessed in an unusual degree. He
seemed to be specially marked out for the work.
The matter was put before him, and after much
thought and prayer he accepted the responsibility,
115
James Hannington
and hailed with thankfulness the prospect of being
able to resume his labours in Africa.
He was consecrated on 24th June, 1884, in the
Parish Church of Lambeth; and the following four
months were spent in organising his new diocese, in
collecting funds for the work, and in gathering about
him a band of workers.
The Archbishop of Canterbury commissioned him
to visit Jerusalem and confirm the churches on his
way to Africa ; and he left England to commence his
new work as Bishop on 5th November. He spent
about six weeks in the Holy Land. On 2nd January,
1885, he started from Jaffa which he described as
" a complete sea of oranges " for Africa. Mombasa
was reached on the 24th ; and as soon as his arrival
became known boats set off from Frere Town which
is divided from the island of Mombasa by a narrow
channel about a quarter of a mile in width and
conveyed the Bishop to the mainland. A crowd of
about a thousand people had assembled on the shore
to greet him ; and with firing of guns and blpwing of
horns they gave him a hearty if rather a noisy welcome.
The Bishop s staff of workers consisted of twelve
clergy priests and deacons : eleven laymen, and four
ladies wives of missionaries. This, for the whole of
Central Africa, was a woefully inadequate provision in
point of numbers; but the workers were loyal and
sincere, and they did what they could with all hearti
ness and enthusiasm. The Bishop found an excellent
Christian organisation in Frere Town ; but the church
building was altogether unworthy, and he made up his
mind that this state of things must be altered. " Be
frightened," he wrote in a letter to Mr. Wigram,
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The Second Missionary Journey
"and talk about new brooms, but we have quite
decided to appeal for a new church. Not a tin ark,
nor a cocoa-nut barn, but a proper stone church, a
church to the glory of God ; and so, in spite of
famine and other difficulties, let us strike for it
now."
His workers soon felt the force of his influence ; and
although his authority was insisted upon most gently
and kindly, and with consummate tact, it was always
there. His energy, too, was boundless, and they soon
came to regard him as almost ubiquitous. He was
here, there, and everywhere, helping, directing, inspiring
everybody, and rousing in one and all a hitherto unrealised
sense of the importance and urgency of their mission.
The Bishop had not long been at Frere Town when
the needs and the difficulties of the work of the Church
Missionary Society at Taita then the most distant
mission outpost along the western route claimed his
attention. The station, situated on the mountain
Ndara, and distant some two hundred miles from the
coast was in charge of Mr. Wray. He was doing a
splendid work; but the little band of learners and workers
whom he had gathered round him were in danger,
partly through a prolonged famine, and partly from the
anger of neighbouring tribes, who were inclined to blame
the missionary and his adherents for the scarcity of food.
Supplies had been sent at intervals from Frere Town;
but the distance to be traversed, and the fact that the
greater part of the journey was across the terrible,
waterless desert of Taro, made the work one of great
danger and difficulty. Hannington, therefore, resolved
that he would place himself at the head of an expedi
tion to Taita, in order to make himself personally
117
James Hannington
acquainted with the state of affairs prevailing there,
and to devise measures for the protection of Mr. Wray
and his gallant little band. By 25th February he was well
on the way, with a caravan of porters, and the evening
of that day found him at the mission station of Rabai,
where news of his coming had preceded him, and where
the natives welcomed him with a four hours carnival of
gun-firing, shouting, and dancing. To their great delight
he joined in one of the dances " a kind of puss-in-the-
corner-drop-handkerchief," is his description of it.
In return for their hospitable welcome the Bishop
gave a great feast, at which he entertained about six
hundred guests. An unfortunate incident, which rather
marred for him the pleasure of the feast-day, was the
detection of his boys in the act of stealing. As a
punishment all four of them were tied up to separate
posts in sight of the guests. It had been the Bishop s
intention to keep them prisoners for the rest of the day,
but he relented before the feast was over, and released
them. And they rewarded his leniency by stealing his
sugar the next morning ! He spent one Sunday in this
place, and preached to a crowded congregation from the
text, " What must I do to be saved ? "
Nearly a week he remained at llabai, and then the
caravan started on the really arduous part of the
journey. The party mustered about a hundred in all,
as they had to carry with them a month s food for the
starving Wa-Taita, in addition to their own goods.
The heat was overpowering, and the fatigue of marching
in the scorching sun was at times almost unbearable.
The Bishop was accompanied by Mr. Handforcl, who
had had charge of the church at Frere Town ; and his
knowledge of the natives and their ways proved very
118
The Second Missionary Journey
useful. Episcopal dignity was at a discount on this
journey across the desert. Gaiters, shovel-hat, and
apron were all laid aside ; and at the first camping-
ground Hannington was as busy as perhaps busier
than ! any of his porters; rushing about for fire-wood,
lighting the fire, putting up his own tent, fixing his
bed "a mysterious puzzle which entirely defies an
African head," he found; and finally retiring to his
well-earned rest at eleven o clock.
The rest was not of long duration. In order to take
advantage of the comparative coolness of the very early
morning hours, everyone was roused at two o clock,
and by four o clock the caravan was again on the move.
During the heat of the day they were obliged to halt ;
and some idea of what that heat must have been may
be gathered from the fact that in what Hannington
called " the cool of the evening " his thermometer
registered 100 Fahrenheit.
At seven o clock the next morning they reached
Taro a beautiful spot an oasis in the desert, with
plenty of water, "if," as Hannington observed, "you
don t mind toads and tadpoles, and such like denizens
of stagnant pools." At this place the party rescued
eight slaves a woman and seven children from a
gang of Swahilis, who had run away as soon as some of
the Bishop s porters raised the alarm, leaving their
slaves behind in the bush. The Bishop took part in
the chase, in shirt-sleeves and slippers, but as his
slippers kept coming off, Handford soon outdistanced
him. The poor slaves were sent, in charge of some of
the men, to the coast, where the Consul freed them,
but all except one succumbed to the cruel treatment
they had received.
U9
James Hannington
Another day s march brought them to the dreaded
Taro desert, the waterless waste which stretches almost
as far as Taita. It is a dreary, silent wilderness,
covered with a dense growth of thorn bushes which
afford no shelter from the terrible heat, and which tear
the clothing and the flesh of the unfortunate traveller
at almost every step. The discomfort of a two hundred
mile journey through such a veritable land of death
can hardly be imagined. "The sun literally seemed to
bake one through," said the Bishop ; and in recount
ing the hardships of African travel, he remarked :
" How little we appreciate our comforts at home the
blessing of a wash, for instance. No water means
almost no wash. Being an old traveller I meet the
difficulty by filling my sponge before starting, and
tying it tightly in its bag. If we have two days with
out water, the first day I have what a school-boy would
call a lick and a promise ; then the second day I
wring out the water and get quite a brave wash, the
water afterwards coming in for the dog and the
donkey."
Another night s march, and the caravan reached the
foot of Mount Ndara ; and a hard climb of two thousand
five hundred feet over a steep, rugged road brought
them at last to the mission station of Taita, where they
found Mr. Wray in a state of semi-siege. The Wa-
Karnba had attacked and burned villages in sight of
him, and for two days he and his people had been on
guard. He was greatly relieved at the arrival of the
Bishop with the much-needed food. The situation was
so desperate that Hannington decided the station must
be abandoned. Arrangements were therefore made for
the few families residing at Taita to be received at
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The Second Missionary Journey
Rabai, and Mr. Wray accompanied the Bishop on a
further expedition beyond Taita.
On 12th February, Hannington had his first view of
the mighty mountain, Kilimandjaro. The sight, which
must have been a magnificent one, impressed him
greatly, and he thus described it : " As we topped a rise,
suddenly before our astonished gaze flashed Kilimand
jaro in all his glory ! How lovely the great mountain
looked all radiant with the rays of the rising sun.
We had, by the best fortune, arrived at this point of
vantage just at the hour of sunrise, when the vast silver
dome for a short time shakes aside the mist wreaths
which during the rest of the day so frequently enswathe
his snow-crowned summit. . . . The sight was so
surpassingly beautiful that it called forth long and loud
exclamations from the stolid Africans around us, many
of whom were well acquainted with the snow-giant.
That an African should exclaim, or even take note of
any natural scenes, however grand, is something quite
uncommon ; but now, all, black and white alike, were in
ecstasy at the magnificence and beauty of the sight. We
at once called a halt, and as long as time permitted, we
feasted our eyes on snow under the burning sun of Africa."
Soon the caravan was on the march again ; and the
travellers met with many striking incidents and some
amusing experiences as they went forward. At the
village of Burra they passed a foot-track which led in
the wrong direction, and Hannington, according to his
custom in stich a case, drew a line across it with his
stick, as an indication to those who were following
him not to go that way. A woman of the village
happened to be standing on the path when Hannington
did this, and she was seized with a paroxysm of terror.
121
James Hannington
She believed he had bewitched her, and at once she
began to give vent to the most fearful shrieks, and
shouted for some one to come and kill him. Her shrill
cries resounded on all sides, and nothing the Bishop
could say or do by way of trying to pacify her had any
effect ; so, not knowing what might come of the matter
if her friends arrived on the scene, he hurried away, and
left her screaming and shouting after him.
The caravan was now on the verge of the vast plain
which stretches between Taita and Taveta. Hannington
had been warned that his party might be without
water for at least two days on this plain, so he prepared
for the worst. The plain abounds in game of all kinds
zebra, hartebeest, eland, giraffe, and other wild
creatures were to be seen on every hand ; and their pres
ence gave an interest to the journey, which made the way
seem short,and helped the travellers to forget their weari
ness and thirst. They were at such an altitude, too,
that the air was much cooler at night it was even cold.
At one place the party came upon a fire, round which
a group of starving people was seated. They had come
from Taita, and were endeavouring to struggle on to the
more fertile districts that surround Kilimandjaro.
They were positively destitute, and had already
abandoned one woman and child. The mother was
dead, but Hannington enabled them to save the child
by giving them food, and encouraging them to go back
and search for the infant.
The approach to Taveta was through a magnificent
forest, honeycombed with luxuriant growths of maize,
Indian corn, and banana trees. The caravan crept
along noiselessly, fearing lest the inhabitants of the
village should hear them and shut the gates against
122
BEWITCHED BY THE BISHOP !
A native woman s terror of the Bishop s harmless, necessary stick !
123
James Hannington
them until hongo bad been paid. But they found
after all that their fear was groundless. The village
was open to them ; confidence in the white man had
already been fully established, and the people received
them in the most friendly manner.
Hannington described the villagers as peculiarly
gentle and attractive in manner and conversation.
The locality, however, is very unhealthy for Europeans,
by reason of the poisonous vapours which the rich,
black vegetable soil exudes during the rainy season.
For this reason, the Bishop was uncommonly glad to
get away from the place, notwithstanding its many
natural beauties j and although his stay lasted only
three days, he was long enough there to receive what
he called a " loud warning " of fever. During his brief
visit he made a thorough inspection of the place, with,
a view to future missionary work there.
The highland district on the southern and eastern
spurs of Kilimandjaro is known as Chagga. The chief
of the most powerful of the tribes inhabiting this
district was Mandara, and with him Hannington
had some interesting experiences. As the caravan
approached Moschi, Mandara s capital, messengers
arrived, bringing an ox as a present from the king ;
and the Bishop s party fired the royal salute with
which the potentate expected all his visitors to greet
him. This was answered by a salvo from his two
cannon ; and although it was quite dark when the
expedition made its entry into Moschi, the Bishop was,
much to his surprise, at once ushered into the presence
of the king. He was agreeably impressed with his
kindliness and intelligence ; and although the interview
was a brief one, it was very satisfactory.
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The Second Missionary Journey
The next morning, at dawn, Mandara, attired in a
red robe, returned Hannington s visit. He was
accompanied by a bodyguard of twenty warriors, fine,
athletic young men, looking very fierce and formidable.
Mandara was presented with a box and uniform, which
greatly delighted him; and when, after breakfast,
Hannington called upon him, he offered his guest a goat
and a cow. This interchange of visits and presents
having been satisfactorily accomplished, Hannington
unfolded the real purpose of his visit the establish
ment of a Mission Station in Mandara s country.
Throughout his travels Hannington never forgot that
his great object -was the establishment of a chain of
mission stations westward to the Lake; and all his
efforts were made with that one end in view.
Mandara was not averse to Christian teaching for his
people. Like almost every other African chief whom
Hannington met, he would have preferred guns and
gunpowder ; but failing these, he considered the next
best thing would be a white teacher to live in the land.
Having completed his business with Mandara, and
satisfied himself that any missionaries who might
subsequently be sent to Chagga would be favourably
received by this friendly chief, Hannington found that
before leaving Moschi he had a day to spare which
he might legitimately devote to an exploration of
Kilimandjaro, with a view to collecting as much of its
fauna and flora as he could in that brief time. So,
with three of his boys, he started soon after dawn.
It was, unfortunately, a day of mist and rain ; but
he persevered ; and until he reached an altitude of
some five thousand feet he made fairly good progress.
After this, however, the Bishop and his boys entered
125
James Hannington
an almost impenetrable forest, and here they soon
found themselves in difficulties. To add to their
troubles, a drenching rain set in, and Hannington
had not proceeded far when he fell with a crash into an
elephant pit. Fortunately he was not hurt ; but his
boys became panic-stricken. The situation certainly
was serious. To be hopelessly lost in the deep gloom
and intense stillness of an African forest is an experience
sufficiently alarming to terrify the boldest. The
Bishop confessed that he never felt more bewildered ;
but he did his best to encourage the boys ; and
presently one of them found, amid the maze of animal
footprints, traces of the steps of human feet. These
they followed ; and the track brought them back to the
right way, and they reached home at last, tired out and
drenched with the rain. Some idea of the Bishop s
condition may be gathered from the fact that on the
way home he waded through a stream almost up to his
neck without getting any wetter. He managed to
secure a great number of mosses and plants ; but
unfortunately many of them were spoilt by the rain.
Mandara maintained his princely bearing and his
gentlemanly demeanour to the end of Hannington s
visit ; and the Bishop considered that a Mission Station
might be successfully established at Moschi. " May God
give Chagga to His Son ! " was his prayer as he left
that neighbourhood of beautiful hills and valleys.
After leaving Mandara, Hannington began the
descent of the mountain, returning to Taveta by way
of Fumba s country, where his stay was marked by a
curious and not too pleasant ceremonial. The chiefs
father arrived in the camp, bringing with him a sheep.
Hannington and the old man had first to spit on its
126
The Second Missionary Journey
head, and then it was killed. Next some strips of
skin were cut off and made into rings, one of which was
put on Hannington s finger, while he placed one on a
finger of one of the chiefs party. Then the liver of the
sheep was examined ; and finally Bishop and chief were
freely splashed with the entrails, and the ceremony
which made them brothers was completed.
Having established himself on this friendly footing
with the chief, Hannington began to converse with him ;
but their conversation was of no particular interest. It
resolved itself into the endlessly repeated request for
gifts which becomes so wearisome and monotonous in
the intercourse of Europeans with Africans.
The journey down the mountain was difficult and
trying. Rain fell in torrents ; and one night the
Bishop s tent-carriers lost their way. For an hour
after reaching the camping place the Bishop stood
in the drenching rain waiting for his tent, which never
arrived ; and in the end he had to spend the night in
the open in his wet clothes, and with nothing but a
blanket between him and the wet ground. For the sake
of warmth, and in order if possible to avoid taking a chill
he made two of his boys lie one on each side of him ;
and there, huddled together as close as possible, they
lay till morning.
At daybreak they were aroused, and their chilled
bodies effectually warmed, by a shrill war-cry, which
heralded the approach of a large body of armed men
who sprang from the bushes and bore down upon them.
It was a critical moment. The least false move on the
part of the Bishop s men would probably have led to a
general massacre, but he managed to restrain them, and
ran forward alone and unarmed to meet the warriors.
]27
James Hannington
Picking up a branch as he ran, he waved it as a
signal of peace, and shouted, " Jambo ! Good-morning !
Do you want to kill a white man ? " At this they
suddenly halted, and replied, " No, we don t ; but we
thought you were Masai." The explanation of the
exciting incident was quite simple. The attacking
party, having heard the Bishop s men talking during
the night, thought that a group of their old enemy, the
thieving, murdering Masai, were about to descend upon
them, and they had arranged to take them by surprise
and kill them all !
After another long and exhausting tramp through
terrible rain, the Bishop brought his caravan in safety
to Taveta. Thence they moved on as quickly as possible
to Taita, and made arrangements to take the starving
natives on with them to Rabai. Here the Bishop left
the poor, famished Wa-Taita in good hands, to be fed
and cared for ; and himself, without stopping, went
straight through to Frere Town.
So ended Bishop Hannington s first great missionary
journey in his vast diocese. Enough has been set clown
in these pages to show that this tramp of something like
five hundred miles had not been accomplished without
considerable risk, and a great deal of personal discom
fort and actual suffering ; but all this was forgotten in
the joy of success. " I have to praise God," the Bishop
wrote, "for one of the most successful journeys, as a
journey, that I ever took. . . . May its result be the
planting of the Cross of Christ on Kilimandjaro."
The result for which the Bishop prayed was
achieved later ; but there was another hope in his
mind. The goal of all his ambitions was Uganda ; and
he had a great longing to mark out a new and more
128
A CRITICAL MOMENT
How the Bishop s bravery averted a general massacre
129
James Hannington
practicable route to that country than that which he
had attempted two years previously, and which had
so nearly cost him his life.
The fierce and lawless Masai appeared to be the
only serious difficulty; but this had been overcome
by others, and why need he fail where others had
succeeded ? Caravans were already being taken
regularly by native traders through the heart of the
Masai country; and Hannington felt confident that,
although the difficulties in the way were great, he
could surmount them all, and ultimately establish a
series of Mission Stations which should extend from
Mombasa, through Taita or Chagga, by Lakes Naivasha
and Baringo to Uganda.
It all seemed perfectly feasible, though admittedly
a difficult task ; but in all his thought about it one
great factor was overlooked. The Bishop had no
knowledge of the suspicion and fear with which all
strangers from the north-east were regarded by the
people of Uganda. It was, alas ! an ignorance which
was to bear tragic consequences.
130
CHAPTER X
THE GOAL IN VIEW
HAVING made up his mind to attempt the heroic
task of opening a road to Uganda through the
midst of the Masai country, the Bishop lost no time in
commencing his preparations for the great journey.
The preliminaries occupied about three weeks ; and a
very worrying and harassing interval this must have
been. Not only had the Bishop to gather about two
hundred porters, but he had to overcome their fear of
the Masai, whom they regarded with extreme dread.
He decided that he would not allow any white man
to accompany him. He knew something of the risk of
the undertaking, and he did not wish to involve any of
his friends in the troubles and dangers that might
await him; so he unselfishly resolved to forego the
comfort and help that a friend of his own nationality
might have given him, and went forth with none but
native helpers about him. Chief of these was Mr.
Jones, a newly ordained native clergyman, who proved
most useful, relieving him of many small responsi
bilities.
The journey was commenced on Thursday, 23rd July,
1885, when the Bishop led the way out of Rabai with
his caravan of two hundred souls, and began his march
towards the far north-west. The burning desert of
Taro was safely passed, and when Taita was reached,
the caravan branched off northwards, and turned their
131
James Hannington
faces towards the dreaded Masai-land. They had now
left the beaten track, and had to find their way through
a vast country, covered with thick jungle, and destitute
of roads. The compass was their only guide, and they
went forward in as straight a line as possible.
The perils of the way were many. Starvation, and
desertion, and treachery on the part of the porters were
only 3, few of the dangers that had to be faced. But
the greatest danger of all was lack of food. The
district through which they were passing had recently
been in the grip of famine ; and to find daily food for
two hundred men in a country where great tracts had
been deserted by the natives through fear of starvation
was a constant anxiety. But the Bishop would not
allow even this responsibility to daunt him, though he
recognised the gravity of it. " If this is God s time for
opening up this road," he said, " we shall open it up."
Truly he was a man of marvellous faith, as well as
invincible courage.
Personal discomforts soon became everyday matters,
but as was his habit, the Bishop laughed at them even
when they were of a kind that would have vexed and
irritated most men almost beyond endurance. At one
point of the journey his watch went wrong; candles
and lamp-oil were forgotten and left behind, and all the
illumination he had at night was the light from the
camp-fire ; then his donkey died, so that he was
compelled to walk every step of the way. Commenting
on these annoyances he said, " Well ! Having no watch,
I don t wake up in the night to see if it is time to get
up, but wait till daylight dawns. Having no candle, I
don t read at night, which never suits me. Having no
donkey, I can judge better as to distances, and as to
132
The Goal in View
what the men can do; for many marches depend upon
my saying, We will stop here and rest, or sleep. "
The letter from which the words above are quoted
was the last the Bishop wrote. Nothing more was
heard of him until the telegram received from Zanzibar
on New Year s Day, 1886, which prepared his friends
for the subsequent news of his death. The telegram
stated that the Bishop had been seized by order of the
king, within two days march of Uganda ; and its last
sentence conveyed the dread news that " the latest
report is that the king has given secret orders to have
the Bishop executed."
Fortunately Mr. Jones had kept a journal during the
expedition, and had entered in it careful notes of each
day s doings ; and Hannington s own tiny diary, with
his own full comments, was recovered by a Christian
lad at Rubaga, who bought it from one of the men who
murdered him. From these two sources it has been
possible to compile a complete record of all that
happened during the last few days of the Bishop s life ;
and the following incidents have been gleaned from
these two sources.
When the caravan had been about three weeks on
the way, a serious mishap occurred. The boy who
carried the medicine chest was missing! Had he
disappeared a week or two earlier it would naturally
have been thought that he had deserted and returned
to the coast, as many of the porters try to do soon after
starting on a long journey. But the boy could hardly
have done this ; and, as much for his own sake as for
the sake of the valuable and almost indispensable load
that he carried, a diligent search was made for him.
He was never found, however, although the Bishop
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James Hannington
offered a big reward for his recovery, and the caravan
had to proceed without him.
At various stages of the journey the natives proved
exceedingly troublesome and unreasonable in their
demands for hongo ; but they usually found the Bishop
more than a match for them, and proof against all their
efforts to intimidate him. On one occasion, when
camping at the foot of the Nzawi hill, by the Kiver
Charnela, the people demanded more hongo than the
Bishop considered they had any right to expect. He
offered them three doti of cloth, which they accepted
merely as an instalment, and then impudently asked
for more. Instead of complying with their request, the
Bishop, no doubt to their great amazement, immediately
ordered the hongo to be taken from them, and then
walked away to his tent. This treatment was so
entirely different from the deference and almost eager
compliance with which their demands were usually met
by passing caravans, that they hardly knew what to
make of it; but when they realised that the Bishop
was not to be frightened into submission to their unjust
demands, they sent for the interpreter, begging him to
tell his master not to be angry, and to return the three
doti to them which he did.
On a similar occasion, at a later stage of the journey,
the Bishop, rather than submit to the imposition of the
natives, moved on into the jungle, taking the hongo
with him. In his surprise and bewilderment, one who
had been most insistent in his demands turned to Mr.
Jones and explained that he had been " only making
fun." Mr. Jones retorted that the Bishop had been
doing likewise ; and the difficulty was then quickly
overcome by the payment of a moderate amount.
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The Goal in View
The necessity for showing a firm front to these
greedy savages, and steadily resisting their unreasonable
demands arose very frequently, and sometimes under
circumstances which would have caused a weak leader
to give way almost without protest. A mob of armed
men one day descended on the caravan with a demand
for gifts, and threatened that they would fight unless
presents were at once forthcoming. The Bishop simply
ignored them and ordered the caravan to proceed ; but
their attitude became so menacing that the interpreter
strongly urged submission ; otherwise he feared the
whole caravan would be massacred.
The porters evidently feared this, too, and the native
who carried the Union Jack was so terrified that he
trembled as he walked. Up to this point the Bishop
had kept out of sight ; but now, seeing that his personal
intervention was necessary in order to put an end to
an unpleasant incident, he made his appearance. The
effect on the bold band of would-be despoilers was
electrical and ludicrous. Mr. Jones said that at the
mere sight of him they gave way " like a cloud before
the wind. They were all amazed to see him, for
many of them had never seen a white man before.
They stood thunderstruck and gazing at him. The
Bishop made his way through the crowd, and many of
them resisted him with all their might ; but he walked
rapidly on, quite regardless of their yellings and
ferocious cries. Twice they barred our way with a
human fence, and twice we passed through them, to
their great astonishment. The Bishop all this time
was quite calm, and only smiled at all their gestures
and menaces. At last we came to a stream which
divided one district from another. They refused to let
135
James Hannington
us pass, but the Bishop went straight ahead, and was
followed by all the caravan."
The sequel to the incident is significant. The very
men who had caused all the trouble and made them
selves so objectionable came later the same day to
the camp, and in the most friendly and peaceable
manner offered their goods for sale.
When two hundred hungry men have subsisted for
days together on Indian corn, they hail with keen
delight the prospect of a meal of fresh meat ; and there
was naturally great excitement in the Bishop s caravan
when, after marching for three days towards Ngongo-
a-Bagas, across a vast plain where no food is obtainable,
a rhinoceros was sighted. The Bishop and Mr. Jones
at once decided to stalk him. It is a peculiarity of this
monster of the African jungle that although he has
extraordinarily keen scent, he has very short sight. So,
by keeping behind and to windward, they managed to
approach to within about twenty yards of him. Then
a whiff of their scent seemed to reach him, for with a
terrific snort he bounded round. The Bishop leaped to
his feet and fired, but the bullet made no impression on
the tough hide of the creature, which calmly made off;
and after a short chase the disappointed hunters were
obliged to return to camp without the rhinoceros steak
which they had hoped to secure.
Ngongo-a-Bagas is situated on the edge of a dense
forest inhabited by a fierce and treacherous tribe,
known as the Wa-Kikuyu. These people dwell in
remote fastnesses of the forest; and from their safe
vantage ground they shoot poisoned arrows at any
strangers who venture near them. Yet it is from
these people that food must be procured to replenish
136
137
James Hannington
the empty larders of the caravans that travel that way,
for the plain yields nothing; and so shy as well as
fierce are they that a caravan is sometimes reduced to
the verge of starvation before they can be induced to
come out of the forest and sell food.
This was what happened to the Bishop s caravan ;
and the camp resounded with the cries of men made
desperate through hunger. The Bishop did his
utmost to persuade the natives that his intentions
were friendly and honourable, but they had been
so often deceived in the past by the Swahili traders,
who, on the pretext of barter had caught them and
made slaves of them, that he could not induce them
to believe in his honesty of purpose ; and it was only
after some days of delay, and much difficult negotia
tion, that he was able to persuade them to part with
a few sweet potatoes, and so avert what threatened to
be a real disaster.
For many days the Bishop was only able to buy
sufficient food for the immediate needs of his men ;
and it was long before he succeeded in accumulating
enough to make it prudent or indeed possible to con
tinue the journey. At last, however, this was accom
plished ; but it had taken a fortnight of anxious and
arduous work to complete the task. And even then
the Wa-Kikuyu would not allow the travellers to
depart peacefully ; for while the caravan was making
its way down a deep defile they swarmed out of the
brushwood on either side and tried to cut off the sick,
who were being carried in the rear. The noise of the
attacking party fortunately reached the ears of the
Bishop, who was at the head of the column, and he rushed
back in time to quell the disturbance and prevent the
138
The Goal in View
flight of his men. But a volley from the shot guns of
some of his followers was necessary before the trouble
some Wa-Kikuyu were finally dispersed.
The only explanation of their behaviour is that they
were so accustomed to the harshness and cruelty of
the slave-dealing Arabs who sometimes raided them,
that they regarded all travellers as their natural
enemies and treated them accordingly. It was a dis
appointing ending to a very unpleasant episode. The
Bishop had greatly desired to prove to these poor,
ignorant savages that the word of a Christian may
be trusted implicitly, and it was a grief to him that
he had failed to convince them of this.
But the troubles of the travellers in their journey
across the great plain were not yet over. They had
nearly reached the end of it when they sighted a fine
tree, towards which the men joyfully hastened, in order
to rest beneath its shadow. Alas ! they had hardly
sat down when an enemy worse even than the Wa-
Kikuyu descended upon them ; for they were suddenly
attacked by an immense swarm of bees. The men
ran for their lives, many of them dropping their loads
as they ran. Their naked bodies were covered with
the furious insects, which stung them till they cried
like children. The Bishop, covering himself with
a mosquito net, went back to try to recover some
of the discarded loads, and in this he was successful ;
but in spite of all precautions he was stung severely ;
while Mr. Jones received such injuries that he was
almost blind for two days.
Until now the travellers had seen nothing of the
dreaded Masai warriors ; but as they approached Lake
Naivasha they found- traces of these fierce savages
139
James Hannington
from which they concluded that they could not be
far away; and a day or two later they encountered
them. As soon as the Bishop s caravan had encamped,
the young warriors of the tribe came forward, and,
with the insolence usual to them, asked for presents.
Their demands were extortionate, but remonstrance
was useless ; and when the Bishop tried to resist them
they brandished their spears and threatened to kill the
whole caravan.
Exasperating as was their cupidity, their curiosity
was almost worse. They insisted on seeing everything,
and handling everything; and as it is their custom
to anoint themselves freely with oil and daub their
bodies liberally with red earth it may be imagined that
their interest in the Bishop s goods and in his person
had results which were anything but desirable. They
tormented him mercilessly stroking his hair, pulling
his beard, feeling his cheeks, and even trying on some
of his clothes. They had no idea, however, that their
attentions were offensive, and as a matter of fact they
greatly admired him, calling him " Lumuruo Kito ! "
which being interpreted means " A very great old
man ! "
One day amongst these people was more than
enough. When night came every man in the caravan
was thoroughly tired out, and early next morning the
camp was broken up and the caravan resumed its
journey northward. The Bishop s experience with the
Masai had been very trying, but on the whole it was
not so dreadful as he had been led to expect, and
he considered himself fortunate in getting away from
them so easily.
The Bishop declared that his nerves were quite
140
A TRYING TIME WITH INQUISITIVE NATIVES
[From Pen-and-ink Sketches by Bishop Hannington
141
James Hannington
unstrung after his adventures with the Masai ; but at
any rate he had sufficient nerve and energy left to
indulge in an exciting elephant hunt. He charged a
herd of these creatures in the hope of being able to
provide the hungry caravan with a supply of fresh
meat. In return, a cow elephant promptly charged
him ; and while he was engaged with the elephants,
two rhinoceroses, which he did not see, came along
from another direction, straight towards him. Mr.
Jones, standing on a high precipice overlooking the
scene of the conflict, shouted to the Bishop to beware
of the fresh danger that menaced him. But he was
too fully occupied to heed the warnings ; and so the
extraordinary spectacle was seen of the Bishop volleying
the elephant, the elephant chasing the rhinoceroses,
and the caravan men dashing down their loads and
scattering in every direction before the great beasts.
The excitement was soon over, however. The Bishop
secured his elephant, to the great joy of the men, who
hurried to the scene with their knives, and quickly cut
the great beast in pieces. Some of the men ate the
flesh raw, while others made great fires and sat round
to enjoy their feast.
After this adventure the party lost their way, and
wandered about for two days before they discovered
their whereabouts. The Bishop s trust in God s guiding
hand led him to say of this incident, " I seem to see
now why we lost our way. We have been enabled to
spend Sunday here in a beautiful spot, free from
natives, and in peace and quiet ; otherwise we should
have been in Njemps in the thick of worry and bustle.
We had our two pleasant services, and the day passed
in the most absolute rest and peace. I lay stretched
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The Goal in View
on my back in quiet contemplation and sweet dreams
of dear ones at home, and often longing, often wonder
ing whether I shall be permitted to see them." Alas !
he was destined never to see them in this life again.
The next day the Bishop entered the village of
Njemps, and thence the caravan moved on towards the
almost unknown country of Kavirondo. All that they
knew of it was that it was highly dangerous for
strangers to traverse ; but retreat now was impossible,
and the men of the caravan fully realised that their
only safety lay in pushing forward to Victoria Nyanza
and thence to Uganda.
Hard work and tiring marches were now the order
of the day. The Bishop did not spare himself, though
often very fatigued. " As a sign how tired one can be,"
he wrote, " on Friday last when going to bed I took a
bite from a biscuit, and fell asleep with the first mouthful
still in my mouth, and the rest in my hand."
Much of the country traversed was now very beauti
ful, and the Bishop would, doubtless, have enjoyed this
part of the journey if he had had leisure, to do so.
But the natives of the country, which is thickly
populated, proved very troublesome ; and their insist
ent demands for hongo were a continual worry. But
at last the long and difficult journey was almost ended
to the Bishop s great joy.
From Kavirondo onwards the country was entirely
unknown ; and the Bishop resolved to leave Mr. Jones
with the greater part of the caravan at a village called
Kwa Sundu, and proceed to the Lake alone with fifty
men. So on 12th October, 1885, he parted for ever
as it proved from his faithful and devoted chaplain,
and went on alone into the unknown. Thirteen days
143
James Hannington
passed without news of the Bishop, and Mr. Jones
became exceedingly anxious, both for the safety of his
friend and for the caravan left in his charge.
Vague rumours of disaster at length began to reach
Mr. Jones, and on 8th November two natives arrived
with a story of having met three of Hannington s men,
who told them the Bishop and all his followers except
themselves had been killed. After a time the three
refugees reached the camp. Mr. Jones questioned them
closely, and although their narratives differed some
what in detail, they all agreed that the Bishop was
dead. But they could give no satisfactory account of
the manner of their own escape, and Mr. Jones there
fore declared that their report was false ; that they
had wickedly deserted the Bishop ; and he told the
members of the caravan to inform the villagers that
the rumour of the Bishop s death was untrue. Yet
he was greatly distressed. " Can it be true," he
asked himself, " that the Bishop is killed ? "
144
CHAPTER XI
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM
TT is necessary, in order properly to understand what
had happened, to know something of the events
that had transpired in Uganda since Bishop Hanning-
ton s previous visit to the lake in 1882.
King Mtesa, the enlightened and friendly chief who
had first invited the missionaries to visit his country,
and who was far-seeing enough to appreciate the good
that would result from their settlement amongst his
people, was dead. He had been succeeded by his son,
Mwanga, a lad of eighteen. The new chief had
received instruction from Church Missionary Society
missionaries, and also from Roman Catholic priests;
but it had made little impression on him, and he showed
himself cowardly, weak, and passionate. Moreover, like
all cowardly people, he was cruel; and he was dominated
by the prevailing vice of the African greed.
He hated all Europeans, and this hatred was born of
fear, which sprang from quite intelligible causes. News
had reached him that the Germans were annexing large
tracts of African territory ; and although their opera
tions were carried out at some considerable distance
from Uganda, he was convinced that eventually his
country also must come under the rule of the hated
European, unless he took energetic measures to avert
10 145
James Hannington
such a catastrophe. For reasons which we have already
explained (see page 74) the Arabs encouraged this
conviction ; and Mwanga was advised to kill all the
missionaries, who, the people about his court assured
him, were certain forerunners of invasion.
The vindictive and cruel young chief decided to adopt
this policy ; and, as a preliminary, commenced a fiendish
persecution of those of his own people who had adopted
Christianity. Three boys, servants of the Mission, were
tortured with knives and then slowly burned to death.
But these brave young martyrs bore their terrible
sufferings with such fortitude that one of their execu
tioners, impressed with their dauntless heroism, came
afterwards secretly to the Mission and asked that he,
too, might be taught to pray.
This martyrdom was followed by many others ; but
although Mwanga threatened to burn alive any of his
subjects who were found in communication with the
missionaries, and although he actually did on one
occasion seize thirty-two converts and burn them in a
heap on one great funeral pyre, still there were many
who, for Christ s sake, defied him and continued to serve
the Lord whom they had learnt to love.
And it was thither, towards what was virtually a
death-trap, and in complete ignorance of the state of
the country and the temper of its new ruler with regard
to all Christians, that Bishop Hannington was steadily
journeying. His belief was that once he had crossed
the Nile his troubles would be at an end; that he
would find Mwanga as friendly and kind as Mtesa had
been. There was no one to warn him that all who
attempted to enter Uganda from the east were con
sidered by Mwanga to be in league with the Germans,
146
The Story of the Martyrdom
who were acquiring land on the coast, and that in thus
entering he was walking to his doom.
News of the Bishop s approach was conveyed to
M \vanga, and he at once called his chiefs together in
council. The advice of the chiefs varied. The most
merciful of them urged that the white man should be
seized and sent round to the south of the Lake ; but
the nervous and the vindictive insisted that the
Europeans were all conspiring to wrest their country
from them, and that every white man in Uganda should
be put to death. After much argument it was decided
secretly that the Bishop should be killed, although
publicly it was stated that he would merely be appre
hended and sent back.
Mr. Mackay and Mr. Ashe who, as already explained,
were at this time working in Uganda, learned all the
news of the Court through the Christian boys, and they
were in deepest distress when they heard of the fate
that awaited the Bishop. They tried to see Mwanga and
intercede for their friend; but the courtiers, doubtless
fearing the influence of the missionaries over their vacil
lating ruler, refused to let them see him. So they could
do nothing but await events in sorrowful helplessness.
Meanwhile the Bishop was rapidly drawing nearer ;
and here we resume the story at the point where we
left him bidding farewell to Mr. Jones at Kwa Sundu,
and entering alone upon the last stage of the journey
that was to have so tragic an ending.
When the Bishop left Kwa Sundu he was suffering
from an abscess in the leg, which gave him consider
able pain ; but in spite of all Mr. Jones entreaties he
would not delay his journey, and on 12th October he
started with his company of fifty picked men, on the
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James Hannington
journey which ended in the tragedy of his death. No
white man ever saw him again ; but the story of the
last few days of his brave and splendid life is recorded
in his own journal, which was unexpectedly recovered
after his death.
During the first eight days of his journey the Bishop
walked about two hundred miles ; and it was after this
interval that serious trouble began. From this point
we will quote from the Bishop s diary, and let him tell
in his own words of the events that led to his death.
"20th October. I fear we have arrived in a trouble
some country. We have, however, made fine progress
to-day, and almost all in the right direction that should
bring us to the Nile, near about the Ripon Falls, and
I don t think I am much out of my reckoning. Here,
at least, we seem to have peace for a night.
" 2lst October, Wednesday. About half an hour
brought us to Lubwa s. His first demand, in a most
insolent tone, was for ten guns and three barrels of
powder. This, of course, I refused, and when the same
demands were made I jumped up and said, I go back
the way I came. Meantime the war drums beat.
More than a thousand soldiers were assembled. My
men implored me not to move, but, laughing at them,
I pushed them and the loads through the crowd and
turned back. Then came an imploring message that
I would stay but for a short time. I refused to hear
till several messages had arrived; then, thinking
things were turning my way, I consented, said I would
give a small present, and pass. My present was
returned, and a demand made that I would stay one
day ; to this I consented, because I fancy this man can
send me on in canoes direct to Mwanga s capital, and
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The Story of the Martyrdom
save a week s march. Presently seven guns were
stolen from us ; at this I pretended to rejoice exceed
ingly, since I should demand restoration, not from these
men, but from Mwanga. A soldier was placed to
guard me in my tent, and follow me if I moved an
inch. I climbed a neighbouring hill, and to my joy
saw a splendid view of the Nile, only about half an
hour s distance, the country being beautiful ; deep
creeks of the Lake visible to the south. I presently
asked leave to go to the Nile. This was denied me.
I afterwards asked my headman, Brahim, to come with
me to the point close at hand whence I had seen the
Nile, as our men had begun to doubt its existence ;
several followed up, and one, pretending to show me
another view, led me farther away, when suddenly
about twenty ruffians set upon us. They violently
threw me to the ground, and proceeded to strip me of
all valuables. Thinking they were robbers I shouted for
help, when they forced me up and hurried me away, as
I thought, to throw me down a precipice close at
hand. . I shouted again in spite of one threatening to
kill me with a club. Twice I nearly broke away from
them, and then grew faint with struggling, and was
dragged by the legs over the ground. I said, * Lord,
I put myself in Thy hands, I look to Thee alone. Then
another struggle and I got to my feet, and was then
dashed along. More than once I was violently brought
into contact with banana trees, some trying in their
haste to force me one way, others the other, and the
exertion and struggling strained me in the most
agonizing manner. In spite of all, and feeling I was
being dragged away to be murdered at a distance,
I sang Safe in the arms of Jesus, and then laughed at
149
James Hannington
the very agony of my situation. My clothes torn to
pieces so that I was exposed ; wet through with being
dragged along the ground ; strained in every limb, and
for a whole hour expecting instant death, hurried
along, dragged, pushed, at about five miles an hour,
until we came to a hut, into the court of which I was
forced. Now, I thought, I am to be murdered. As
they released one hand I drew my finger across my
throat, and understood them to say decidedly No.
We then made out that I had been seized by order of
the Sultan. Then arose a new agony. Were all my
men murdered ? Another two or three hours awful
suspense, during which time I was kept bound and
shivering with cold, when to my joy, Pinto (the
Portuguese cook) and a boy were brought with my bed
and bedding, and I learnt that the Sultan meant to keep
me prisoner until he had received word from Mwanga,
which means, I fear, a week or more s delay; nor can I tell
whethertheyare speaking the truth. I am in God s hands.
"22nd October, Thursday. I found myself, perhaps
about ten o clock last night, on my bed in a fair-sized
hut, but with no ventilation, a fire on the hearth, no
chimney for smoke, about twenty men all round me,
and rats and vermin ad lib.; fearfully shaken,
strained in every limb, great pain, and consumed
with thirst, I got little sleep that night. Pinto may
cook my food, and I have been allowed to have my
Bible and writing things also. I hear the men are in
close confinement, but safe, and the loads, except a few
small things, intact. Up to one o clock I have received
no news whatever, and I fear at least a week in this
black hole, in which I can barely see to write. Floor
covered with rotting banana peel, and leaves, and lice ;
150
The Story of the Martyrdom
a smoking fire, at which my guards cook and drink
pombe ; in a feverish district ; fearfully shaken, scarce
power to hold up small Bible. Shall I live through it?
My God, I am Thine.
" Towards evening I was allowed to sit outside for a
little time, and enjoyed the fresh air; but it made
matters worse when I went inside my prison again, and
as I fell exhausted on my bed I burst into tears
health seems to be quite giving way with the shock.
I fear I am in a very caged-lion frame of mind, and yet
so strained and shattered that it is with the utmost
difficulty I can stand ; yet I ought to be praising His
Holy Name, and I do.
"Not allowed a knife to eat my food with. The
savages who guard me keep up an unceasing strain of
raillery, or at least I fancy they do, about the Mzungu.
" 23rcZ October, Friday. I woke full of pain, and
weak, so that with the utmost difficulty I crawled out
side and sat in a chair, and yet they guard every move
as if I was a giant. My nerves, too, have received such
a shock that some loud yells and war cries arising out
side the prison-fence I expected to be murdered, and
simply turned over and said : ( Let the Lord do as He
sees fit ; I shall not make the slightest resistance.
Seeing how bad I am, they have sent my tent for me
to use in the daytime. Going outside I fell to the
ground exhausted, and was helped back in a gone con
dition to my bed. I don t see how I can stand all this,
and yet I don t want to give in, but it almost seems as
if Uganda itself was going to be forbidden ground to
me the Lord only knows.
" Afternoon. To my surprise my guards came kneel
ing down, so different to their usual treatment, and
151
James Hannington
asked me to come out. I came out, and there was the
chief and about a hundred of his wives come to feast
their eyes on me in cruel curiosity. I felt inclined to
spring at his throat, but sat still, and presently read to
myself Matthew v. 44, 45, and felt refreshed. I asked
how many more days he meant to keep me in prison.
He said four more at least. He agreed, upon my
earnest request, to allow me to sleep in my own tent,
with two armed soldiers at each door. The object of
his visit was to ask that I would say no bad things of
him to Mwanga. What can I say good ? I made no
answer to the twice repeated request. He then said if
I would write a short letter, and promise to say nothing
bad, he would send it at once. I immediately wrote a
hasty scrawl (I scarce know what), but said I was
prisoner, and asked Mackay to come. God grant it
may reach. But I already feel better than I have
done since my capture, though still very shattered.
" 24fth October, Saturday. Thank God for a pleasant
night in my own tent, in spite of a tremendous storm,
and rain flowing in on the floor in streams. Personally
I quite forgave this old man and his agents for my
rough treatment, though even to-day I can only move
with the greatest discomfort, and ache as though I had
rheumatic fever. I have, however, to consider the
question in another light ; if the matter is passed
over unnoticed, it appears to me the safety of all white
travellers in these districts will be endangered, so I shall
leave the brethren, who know the country and are most
affected, to act as they think best. The day passed away
very quietly. I amused myself with Bible and diary.
" 25/i October, Sunday. (Fourth day of imprison
ment.) Still a great deal of pain in my limbs. The
152
The Story of the Martyrdom
fatigue of dressing quite knocks me over. My guards,
though at times they stick to me like leeches, and
with two rifles in hand remain at night in my tent,
are gradually getting very careless. I have already
seen opportunities of escape had I wanted so to do,
and I doubt not that in a few days time, especially
if I could get a little extra pombe brought to them,
I could walk away quite easily, but I have no such
intention. I should be the more inclined to stay
should they say go, to be a thorn in the old gentle
man s side, and I fear from that feeling of contrariness
which is rather inborn. I send him affectionate greet
ings and reports on my health by his messengers twice
a day. What I fear most now is the close confinement
and utter want of exercise ! When I was almost
beginning to think of my time in prison as getting
short, the chief has sent men to redouble the fence
round me. What does it mean? I have shown no
desire or intention of escaping. Has a messenger
arrived from Mwanga? There is just time for him to
have sent word to tell them to hold me fast. The
look of this has cast me down again.
" One of my guards, if I understand him rightly, is
making me offers of escape. He has something very
secret to communicate, and will not even take my boy
into confidence. I do not, however, want to escape under
the present circumstances ; but at the same time I take
great amusement in watching andpassing by various little
opportunities. My guards and I are great friends, almost
affectionate, and one speaks of me as * My whiteman.
" Three detachments of the chief s wives they say
he has a thousand nearly have been to-day to see me.
They are very quiet and well-behaved, but greatly
153
James Hannington
amused at the prisoner. Mackay s name seems quite a
household word ; I constantly hear it.
" My men are kept in close confinement, except two,
who come daily backwards and forwards to bring my
food. This they take in turns, and implore, so I hear,
for the job.
"26th October, Monday. (Fifth day in prison.)
Limbs and bruises and stiffness better, but I am heavy
and sleepy. Was not inclined to get up as usual, and,
if I mistake not, signs of fever creep over me. Mackay
should get my letter to-day, and sufficient time has
passed for the chief to receive an answer to his first
message, sent before I was seized, the nature of which
I know not ; propably Whiteman is stopping here.
Shall I send him on ? Waiting Your Majesty s
pleasure. If they do not guess who it is they will very
likely, African fashion, talk about it two or three days
first of all, and then send a message back leisurely with
Mwanga s permission for me to advance.
" About thirty-three more of the chiefs wives came
and disported themselves with gazing at the prisoner.
I was very poorly and utterly disinclined to pay any
attention to them, and said in English, Oh,
ladies, if you knew how ill I feel you would go. When
my food arrived in the middle of the day I was unable
to eat. The first time, I think, since leaving the coast
I have refused a meal. To-day I am very broken down,
both in health and spirits, and some of the murmur
ing feelings which I thought that I had conquered have
returned hard upon me. Another party of wives
coming, I returned into the hut, and declined to see
them. A third party came later on, and being a little
better I came out and lay upon my bed. It is not
154
The Story of the Martyrdom
pleasant to be examined as a caged lion in the Zoo, and
yet that is exactly my state at the present time. My
tent is jammed in between the hut and high fence of
the Boma, so scarce a breath of air reaches me. Then
at night, though the tent is a vast improvement on the
hut, yet two soldiers reeking with pombe and other
smells sleep beside me, and the other part of my
guard, not far short of twenty, laugh and drink and shout
far into the night, and begin again before daylight in
the morning, waking up from time to time to shout
out to my sentries to know if all is well. I fear all this
is telling on my health tremendously.
" 27th October, Tuesday. (Sixth day as prisoner.)
All I can hear in the way of news is that the chief has
sent men to fight those parts we passed through.
I begin to doubt if he has sent to Mwanga at all, but
thinks I am in league with the fighting party, and is
keeping me hostage. I begin the day better in health,
though I had a most disturbed night. I am very low
in spirits ; it looks so dark, and having been told that
the first messengers would return at the latest to-day.
Last night the chiefs messenger said perhaps they
might be here as soon as Thursday, but seemed to
doubt it. I don t know what to think and would say
from the heart, Let the Lord do what seemeth to Him
good. If kept here another week I shall feel sure no
messengers have been sent, and if possible shall
endeavour to flee, in spite of all the property I must
leave behind, and the danger of the undertaking.
" Only a few ladies came to see the wild beast to-day.
I felt so low and wretched that I retired within my den,
whither they, some of them, followed me ; but as it was
too dark to see me, and I refused to speak, they soon left.
155
James Hannington
" The only news to-day is that two white men, one
tall and the other short, have arrived in Akota, and the
Sultan has detained them. It is only a report that has
followed me. I am the tall man, and Pinto, my Goa
cook, the short one ; he is almost always taken for a
white man, and dresses as such. I fear, however, with
these fearfully suspicious people, it may affect me
seriously. I am very low, and cry to God for release.
" 28th October, Wednesday. (Seventh day s prison.)
A terrible night, first with noisy drunken guard, and
secondly with vermin, which have found out my tent,
and swarm. I don t think I got one sound hour s sleep,
and woke with fever fast developing. O Lord, do have
mercy upon me and release me. I am quite broken
down and brought low. Comforted by reading Psalm
xxvii.
"In an hour or two fever developed very rapidly.
My tent was so stuffy that I was obliged to go inside
the filthy hut, and soon was delirious.
" Evening ; fever passed away. Word came that
Mwanga had sent three soldiers, but what news they
bring they will not yet let me know.
" Much comforted by Psalm xxviii.
"29th October, Thursday. (Eighth day s prison.)
I can hear no news, but was held up by Psalm xxx.,
which came with great power. A hyena howled near
me last night, smelling a sick man, but I hope it is not
to have me yet."
This is the last entry in the diary, and there is little
doubt but that the Bishop was actually writing the
final words when his guards came in to lead him to his
death. It is a noble and pathetic record, and presents
James Hannington at his best; quickened by every
156
THE BISHOP S BETKAYAL
157
James Hannington
earthly privation, and by affliction upon affliction, to
the last limit of endurance, into transcendent faith and
purest courage.
Of Mwanga s share in bringing about his death the
Bishop had no suspicion. To the last he had waited
and hoped for the return of the messengers sent to
Uganda, confident that they would bring instructions
for his release. Indeed it is probable that on the day
of his death he was told these messengers had actually
arrived, and that the lie was used as an excuse for
hurrying him from his prison hut to the place of
execution.
From the hut he was escorted through the forest to
a place at some considerable distance from the village.
He was told that at the end of the journey his men
would rejoin him, and buoyed up by this hope he
endured a toilsome two hours walk, which must have
been a terrible strain on his enfeebled frame. Most
likely he thought the worst was now over, and that
with his men he would now be permitted to proceed on
his way to Uganda. But this hope was quickly and
cruelly shattered. He did indeed rejoin his men :
but when he saw them, naked, bound, and huddled
together like sheep, he knew that for him and for
them the end had come. Yet even in that supreme
moment his courage did not fail him. His caravan
men except those who escaped, and carried news of
the massacre to Mr. Jones were speared to death by
the fierce warriors of Lubwa ; and then the natives told
off to murder the Bishop closed round him to do their
work. But for an instant he checked them. With
uplifted hand, and in that impressive manner which
never failed to secure respect for him, even from the
158
The Story of the Martyrdom
fiercest savage, he bade them tell their king that he
had died for the people of Uganda, and that he had
purchased the road to their country with his life. Then
the signal was given ; and a moment later the soul of
James Hannington was freed from the maimed and
tortured body ; the release for which he had prayed had
been given him.
His last words to his friends in England written,
probably by the light of some camp fire were these :
" If this is the last chapter of my earthly history, then
the next will be the first page of the heavenly no
blots and smudges, no incoherence, but sweet converse
in the presence of the Lamb ! "
When the men who had escaped the massacre reached
Kwa Sundu with their dread news, Mr. Jones could not
at first believe it ; and for a month or so he remained
there, hoping always that the report of the Bishop s
death might not, after all, be true. He would have
tried himself to reach Usoga, but the effort would
probably have involved the sacrifice of the entire
caravan, and even had it succeeded no good purpose
would have been served. So, reluctantly and full of
sorrow, he began to make his way back to Rabai on
8th December, and two months later on 4th February,
1886 he reached his journey s end.
The travellers reached Rabai at sunrise, and the
little Christian community there were on their way
to early service when the sound of guns heralded the
coming of messengers, who brought the news that the
Bishop s caravan was approaching. Soon other guns
announced the coming of the travellers, and the whole
settlement turned out to meet the pitiful procession
of tired and travel-worn men. At its head was one
159
James Hannington
who carried a blue pennon the sign of mourning
amongst Africans on which was sewn in white letters
the word " Ichabod." " Behind the standard-bearer,"
writes Mr. Dawson, "amid a crowd of weeping and
distraught women and friends, limped a straggling
line of sorry-looking men, staggering beneath their
diminished loads, a feeble crew, lean and weary and
travel-stained, most of them garmentless or clothed
in hides. Behind them came a battered white helmet,
and the Bishop s friend and sharer in his peril was
grasping their hands, and taken into their arms.
None of them was able to say much ; all were
thinking of him who had gone out so hopefully, and
whose great heart was now stilled for ever."
And to-day the hope that sustained James Hanning
ton the hope of evangelising Central Africa is being
grandly fulfilled by those who have followed him.
Ichabod is no fitting epitaph for him. The glory is not
departed. The work for which he lived and died
received a tremendous impetus by his martyrdom.
Within a few weeks after the news came to England,
fifty men had offered themselves to the Church Mis
sionary Society for service in the mission-field ; and
Hannington s name has continued ever since to be an
inspiration to many. Being dead, he yet speaks ; and
so long as Christian Englishmen respect the last
mandate of their Lord and Master, so long will the
story of James Hannington be an incentive to them to
give up all that they hold dear even life itself, if
need be in obedience to the Divine command to
go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
creature.
LORIMER AND CHALMERS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
160
S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO. S
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Old Wenyon s Will. By John Ackworth.
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Hy S. II 7 . Partridge 6- Co., Ltd.
63.Cn (con imied).
HE^ HOME^LIBRARY (continued}.
"Helena s Dower; or, A Troublesome Ward. By Eglanton
Thorne.
The Red Mountain of Alaska. By Willis Boyd Allen.
True unto Death ; A Story of Russian Life. By E. F. Pollard.
By Bitter Experience : A Story of the Evils of Gambling. By
Scott Graham.
Love Conquereth ; or, The Mysterious Trespasser. By
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White Ivory and Black, and other Stories of Adventure by Sea
and Land. By Tom Bevan, E. Harcourt Burrage, and John
Higginson.
:: The Adventures of Don Lavington ; or, In the Days of the
Press Gang. By G. Manville Fenn.
"Roger the Ranger : A Story of Border Life among the Indians.
By E. F. Pollard.
Brave Brothers ; or, Young Sons of Providence. By E. M. Stooke.
"The Moat House; or, Celia s Deceptions. By EleanoraH. Stooke.
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In Battle and Breeze : Sea Stories by G. A. Henty, G. Maaville
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Edwin, the Boy Outlaw ; or, The Dawn of Freedom in England.
A Story of the Days of Robin Hood. By J. Frederick Hodgetts.
Neta Lyall. By Flora E. Berry, Author of " In Small Corners."
etc. Six Illustrations.
The Better Part. By Annie S. Swan.
John : A Tale of the Messiah. By K. Pearson Woods.
Leaders into Unknown Lands. By A. Montefiore-Brice, F.G.S.
Lights and Shadows of Forster Square. By Rev. E. H.
Sudden, M.A.
The Martyr of Kolin ; A Story of the Bohemian Persecution.
By H. O Ward.
Morning Dew-Drops : A Temperance Text Book. By Clara
Lucas Balfour.
Mark Desborough s Vow. By Annie S. Swan.
My Dogs in the Northland. ByEgertlm R. Young. 288 pages.
Norman s Nugget. By J. Macdonald Oxley, B.A.
io Catalogue of Books Published
C3.Cn (continued).
THE HOME LIBRARY (continued).
The Strait Gate. By Anne S. Swan.
Under the Sirdar s Flag. By William Johnston.
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Alfred the Great : The Father of the English. By Jesse Page.
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The Starling. By Norman McLeod.
* Here ward the Wake. By Charles Kingsley.
The Heroes. By Charles Kingsley.
The Channings. By Mrs. Henry Wood.
Ministering Children. By M. L. Charlesworth.
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"Hans Andersen s Fairy Tales.
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Coral Island. By R. M. Ballantyne.
Nettie s Mission. By Alice Gray.
Home Influence : A Tale for Mothers. By Grace Aguilar.
The Gorilla Hunters. By R. M. Ballantyne.
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Peter the Whaler. By W. H. G. Kingston.
Melbourne House. By Susan Warner.
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By S. 17. Partridge & Co., Ltd. 1 1
2S. 6aCh (continued).
LIBRARY OF STANDARD WORKS BY FAMOUS AUTHORS (contd.)
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Stepping Heavenward. By E. Prentiss.
John Halifax, Gentleman. By Mrs. Craik.
"Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. By Daniel Defoe.
Naomi ; or, The Last Days of Jerusalem. By Mrs. Webb.
The Pilgrim s Progress. By John Banyan.
Uncle Tom s Cabin. By Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Westward Ho ! By Charles Kingsley.
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Heroes of our Empire: Gordon, Clive, Warren Hastings,
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Heroes who have Won their Crown : David Livingstone and
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Great Works by Great Men. By F. M. Holmes.
Brave Deeds for British Boys. By C. D. Michael.
Two Great Explorers : The Lives of Fridtjof Nansen, and
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Her Saddest Blessing. By Jennie Chappell.
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Mick Tracy, the Irish Scripture Reader.
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By S. W. Partridge & Co., Ltd. 13
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THE UP-TO-DATE LIBRARY (continued).
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More Precious than Gold. By Jennie Chappell.
The Slave Raiders of Zanzibar. By E. Harcourt Burrage.
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The King s Daughter. By " Pansy."
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The Household Angel. By Madeline Leslie.
The Green Mountain Boys : A Story of the American War of
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A Way in the Wilderness. By Maggie Swan.
Miss Elizabeth s Niece. By M. S. Haycroft.
The Man of the House. By " Pansy."
Olive Chauncey s Trust : A Story of Life s Turning Points.
By Mrs. E. R. Pitman.
Whither Bound ? A Story of Two Lost Boys. By Owen Landor.
Three People. By " Pansy."
Chrissy s Endeavour. By " Pansy."
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Eaglehurst Towers. By Emma Marshall.
Uncle Mac, the Missionary. By Jean Perry. Six Illustrations
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Chilgoopie the Glad : A Story of Korea and her Children. By
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14 Catalogue of Books Published
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The King s Scouts. By William R. A. Wilson.
General John : A Story for Boy Scouts. By Evelyn Everett-
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Never Beaten ! A Story of a Boy s Adventures in Canada.
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The Adventures of Ji. By G. E. Farrow, Author of "The
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By C. D. Michael
Brown Al ; or, A Stolen Holiday. By E. M. Stooke.
The Pigeons Cave : A Story of Great Orme s Head in 1806.
By J. S. Fletcher.
Robin the Rebel. By H. Louisa Bedford.
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Little Gladwise. The Story of a Waif. By Nellie Cornwall.
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The Tender Light of Home. By Florence Wilmot.
Friendless Felicia: or, A Little City Sparrow. By Eleanora
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Keziah. in Search of a Friend. By Noel Hope.
Her Bright To-morrow. By Laura A. Barter- Snow.
Rosa s Mistake ; or, The Chord of Self. By Mary Bradford-
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The Mystery Baby ; or, Patsy at Fellside. By Alice M. Page.
Zillah, the Little Dancing Girl. By Mrs. Hugh St. Leger.
Salome s Burden ; or, The Shadow on the Home. By Eleanora
H. Stooke.
Heroines : True Tales of Brave Women. By C. D. Michael.
Granny s Girls. By M. B. Manwell.
The Gipsy Queen. By Emma Leslie.
Queen of the Isles. By Jessie M. E. Saxby.
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Follow my Leader !
Once upon a Time!
1 6 Catalogue of Books Published
IS, 6d. eaCh (continued).
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The Conquest of the Air : The Romance of Aerial Navigation.
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Surgeons and their Wonderful Discoveries. By F. M.
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The Life-Boat: Its History and Heroes. By F. M. Holmes.
The Romance of the Savings Banks. By Archibald G.
- Bowie.
The Romance of Glass Making. A Sketch of the History of
Ornamental Glass. By W. Gandy.
The Romance of the Post Office : Its Inception and Won
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Marvels of Metals. By F. M. Holmes.
Triumphs of the Printing Press. By Walter Jerrold.
Electricians and their Marvels. By Walter Jerrold.
Popular hlissionary Biographies.
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James Hannington : Bishop and Martyr. By C. D. Michael.
Two Lady Missionaries in Tibet : Miss Annie R. Taylor and
Dr. Susie Rijnhart Moyes. By Isabel S. Robson.
Dr. Laws of Livingstonia. By Rev. J. Johnston.
Grenfell of Labrador. By Rev. J. Johnston.
Johan G. Oncken : His Life and Work. By Rev. J. Hunt Cooke.
By S. W. Partridge & Co., Ltd.
IS. 6d. each (continued).
POPULAR MISSIONARY BIOGRAPHIES continued.
James Chalmers, Missionary and Explorer of Rarotonga and
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Griffith John, Founder of the Hankow Mission, Central Chin.?.
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Robert Morrison : The Pioneer of Chinese Missions. By William
J. Townsend.
Captain Allen Gardiner : Sailor and Saint. By Jesse Page.
The Congo for Christ : The Story of the Congo Mission.. By
Rev. J. B. Myers.
David Brainerd, the Apostle to the North -American Indians.
By Jesse Page, F.R.G.S.
David Livingstone. By Arthur Montefiore-Brice.
John Williams : The Martyr Missionary of Polynesia. By Rev.
James Ellis.
Lady Missionaries in Foreign Lands. By Mrs. E. R. Pitman.
Missionary Heroines in Eastern Lands. By Mrs. E. R. Pitman.
Robert Moffat : The Missionary Hero of Kuruman. By David
J. Deane.
Samuel Crowther : The Slave Boy who became Bishop of the
Niger. By Jesse Page, F.R.G.S.
William Carey : The Shoemaker who became the Father and
Founder of Modern Missions. By Rev. J. B. Myers.
From Kafir Kraal to Pulpit : The Story of Tiyo Soga, First
Ordained Preacher of the Kafir Race. By Rev. H. T. Cousins.
Japan : and its People. By Jesse Page, F.R.G.S.
James Calvert ; or, From Dark to Dawn in Fiji. By R. Vernon.
Thomas J. Comber : Missionary Pioneer to the Congo. By
Rev. J. B. Myers.
The Christianity of the Continent. By Jesse Page, F.R.G.S.
Missionaries I have Met, and the Work they have Done.
By Jesse Page, F.R.G S.
Amid Greenland Snows ; or, The Early History of Arctic
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Bishop Patteson : The Martyr of Melanesia. By same Author.
i8 Catalogue of Books Published
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John Wesley. By Rev. Arthur Walters.
Women of Worth. Sketches of the Lives of the Queen of
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Women who have Worked and Won. The Life Story of
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Noble Work by Noble Women : Sketches of the Lives of the
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inson, Mrs. Fawcett, and Mrs. Gladstone. By Jennie Chappell.
Four Noble Women and their Work : Sketches of the Life and
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Florence Nightingale : The Wounded Soldiers Friend. By
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Four Heroes of India. Clive, Warren Hastings, Havelock,
Lawrence. By F. M. Holmes.
General Gordon : The Christian Soldier and Hero. By G.
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C. H. Spurgeon : His Life and Ministry. By Jesse Page, F.R.G.S.
Two Noble Lives : John Wicliffe, the Morning Star of the
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George Miiller : The Modern Apostle of Faith. By Fred G.
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Life-Story of Ira D. Sankey, The Singing Evangelist. By
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Great Evangelists, and the Way God has Used Them.
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John Bright : Apostle of Free Trade. By Jesse Page, F.R.G.S.
The Two Stephensons. By John Alexander.
J. Passmore Edwards : Philanthropist. By E. Harcourt Burrage.
Dwight L. Moody : The Life-work of a Modern Evangelist. By
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The Canal Boy who became President. By Frederick T.
Gammon.
r>y S. W. Partridge & Co., Ltd. 19
IS. 6d. eaCh (continued).
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Heroes and Heroines of the Scottish Covenanters. By
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John Knox and the Scottish Reformation. By G. Bamett
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Philip Melancthon : The Wittemberg Professor and Theologian
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The Slave and His Champions : Sketches of Granville Sharp,
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By C. I). Michael.
William Tyndale : The Translator of the English Bible. By G.
Barnett Smith.
The Marquess of Salisbury : His Inherited Characteristics,
Political Principles, and Personality. By W. F. Aitken.
Joseph Parker, D.D. : His Life and Ministry. By Albert
Dawson.
Hugh Price Hughes. By Rev. J. Gregory Mantle.
R. J. Campbell, M.A. ; Minister of the City Temple, London.
By Charles T. Bateman.
Dr. Barnardo : "The Foster-Father of Nobody s Children." By
Rev. J. H. Batt.
W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D. ; Editor and Preacher. By Jane
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F. B. Meyer : His Life and Work. By Jennie Street.
John Clifford, M.A., B.Sc., LL.D., D.D. By Chas. T. Bateman.
Thirty Years in the East End. A Marvellous Story of Mission
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Alexander Maclaren, D.D. : The Man and His Message. By
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Lord Milner. By W. B. Luke.
Lord Rosebery, Imperialist By J. A. Hammerton.
Joseph Chamberlain : A Romance of Modern Politics. By
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Sir John Kirk: The Children s Friend. By John Stuart.
Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, is 6d. net.
2o Catalogue of Books Published
IS. 6d. each (continued).
" Onward" Temperance Library.
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The Bird Angel. By Miss M. A. Paull.
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Lyndon the Outcast. By Mrs. Clara Lucas Balfour.
Ronald Clayton s Mistake. By Miss M. A. Paull.
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Nearly Lost, but Dearly Won. By Rev. T. P. Wilson, M.A.
Author of " Frank Oldfield," etc.
Is. each.
Letters on the Simple Life. By the Queen of Roumania, Marie
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IS. eaCh (continued).
One Shilling Reward Books.
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Jeffs Charge : A Story of London Life. By Charles Herbert.
The Making of Ursula. By Dorothea Moore.
Jimmy : The Tale of a Little Black Bear. By May Wynne.
" Tubby " ; or, Right about Face. By J. Howard Brown.
Alan s Puzzle ; or, The Bag of Gold. By F. M. Holmes.
Auntie Amy s Bird Book. By A M. Irvine.
The Ivory Mouse : A Book of Fairy Stories. By Rev. Stanhope
E. Ward.
Billy s Hero ; or, The Valley of Gold. A Story of Canadian
Adventure. By Marjorie L C. Pickthall.
The Straight Road. By Marjorie L. C. Pickthall.
One Primrose Day. By Mrs. Hugh St. Leger.
The Reign of Lady Betty. By Kent Carr.
The Whitedown Chums. By Jas. H. Brown.
Sweet Nancy. By L. T. Meade.
Little Chris the Castaway. By F. Spenser.
All Play and No Work. By Harold Avery.
Always Happy; or, The Story of Helen Keller. By Jennie
Chanpell.
Cola Monti ; or, The Story of a Genius. By Mrs. Craik.
Harold; or, Two Died for Me. By Laura A. Barter- Snow.
Indian Life in the Great North- West By Egerton R. Young.
Jack the Conqueror ; or, Difficulties Overcome. By
Mrs. C. E. Bowen.
Lost in the Backwoods. By Edith C. Kenyon.
The Little Woodman and his Dog Caesar. By Mrs. Sherwood.
Roy s Sister ; or, His Way and Hers. By M. B. Manwell.
Norman s Oak. By Jennie Chappell.
A Fight for Life, and other Stories. By John R. Newman.
The Fairyland of Nature. By J. Wood Smith.
True Stories of Brave Deeds. By Mabel Bowler.
Gipsy Kit; or, The Man with the Tattooed Face. By Robert
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Dick s Desertion; A Boys Adventures in Canadian Forests.
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The Wild Swans ; or, The Adventure of Rowland Cleave. By
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22 Catalogue of Rooks Published
IS. each (continued).
ONE SHILLING REWARD BOOKS (continued).
George & Co. ; or, The Chorister of St. Anselm s. By Spenoer
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The Children of the Priory. By J. L. Hornibrook.
Ruth s Roses. By Laura A. Barter-Snow.
In Paths of Peril. By J. Macdonald Oxley.
Pets and their Wild Cousins : New and True Stories of
Animals. By Rev. J. Isahell, F.E.S.
Other Pets and their Wild Cousins. By Rev. J. Isabell, F.E.S.
Sunshine and Snow. By Harold Bindloss.
Donalblane of Darien. By J. Macdonald Oxley.
Crown Jewels. By Heather Grey.
Birdie and her Dog, and other Stories of Canine Sagacity. By
Miss Phillips (Mrs. H. B. Looker).
Bessie Drew ; or, The Odd Little Girl. By Amy Manifold.
Partridge s Shilling Library.
Crown 8vo. 136 pages. Illustrations printed on Art Paper. A Splendid
Set ies of Stones for A dults.
Nance Kennedy. By L. T. Meade.
Robert Musgrave s Adventure : A Story of Old Geneva. By
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The Taming of the Rancher : A Story of Western Canada.
By Argyll Saxby.
"Noodle": From Barrack Room to Mission Field. By S. E.
Burrow.
The Lamp in the Window. By Florence E. Bone.
Out Of the Fog. By Rev. J. Isabell, F.E.S.
Fern Dacre ; A Minster Yard Story. By Ethel Ruth Boddy.
Through Sorrow and Joy : A Protestant Story. By M. A. R.
A Brother s Need. By L. S. Mead.
Is. each net.
Crown 8vo. 192 pages. Stiff Paper Covers, 1s. each net. Cloth Boards,
1s. 6d. each net. (Not Illustrated).
Partridge s Temperance Reciter.
Partridge s Reciter of Sacred and Religious Pieces.
Partridge s Popular Reciter. Old Favourites and New.
Partridge s Humorous Reciter.
By S. W. Partridge 6- Co., Ltd. 23
IS. C 3.C H (continued) .
Cheap Reprints of Popular Books for the Toung.
Crown 8vo. 160 pages. Illustrated. Cloth Boards, 1s. each.
A Red Brick Cottage. By Lady Hope.
Dick s Chum. By M. A. Paull.
Mousey; or, Cousin Robert s Treasure. By E. H. Stooke.
Carola s Secret. By Ethel F. Heddle.
The Golden Doors. By M. S. Haycraft.
Marigold s Fancies. By L. E. Tiddeman.
Andrew Bennett s Harvest. By Lydia Phillips.
The Thane of the Dean. A Story of the Time of the Conqueror.
By Tom Be van.
Nature s Mighty Wonders. By Rev. Richard Newton.
Hubert Ellerdale : A Tale of the Days of Wicliffe. By W.
Oak Rhind.
Our Phyllis. By M. S. Haycraft.
The Maid of the Storm. A Story of a Cornish Village. By
Nellie Cornwall.
Philip s Inheritance ; or, Into a Far Country. By F. Spenser.
The Lady of the Chine. By M. S. Haycraft.
In the Bonds of Silence. By J. L. Hornibrook.
A String of Pearls. By E. F. Pollard.
Elsie Macgregor ; or, Margaret s Little Lass. By Ramsay Guthrie.
Hoyle s Popular Ballads and Recitations. By William Hoyle.
Heroes All ! A Book of Brave Deeds. By C. D. Michael.
The Old Red Schoolhouse. By Frances H. Wood.
Christabel s Influence. By J. Goldsmith Cooper.
Deeds of Daring. By C. D. Michael.
Everybody s Friend. By Evelyn Everett-Green.
The Bell Buoy. By F. M. Holmes.
Vic : A Book of Animal Stories. By A. C. Fryer, Ph.D., F.S.A.
In Friendship s Name. By Lydia Phillips.
Nella ; or, Not My Own. By Jessie Goldsmith Cooper.
Blossom and Blight. By M. A. Paull.
Aileen. By Laura A. Barter-Snow.
Satisfied. By Catherine Trowbridge.
Ted s Trust. By Jennie Chappell.
A Candle Lighted by the Lord. By Mrs. E. Ross.
Alice Western s Blessing. By Ruth Lamb.
Tamsin Rosewarne and Her Burdens. By Nellie Cornwall.
24 CiiLjfogue of Books Published
IS. each (continued).
CHEAP REPRINTS OF POPULAR BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
(continued).
Raymond and Bertha. By Lydia Phillips.
Gerald s Dilemma. By Emma Leslie.
Fine Gold ; or, Ravenswood Courtenay. By Emma Marshall.
Marigold. By Mrs. L. T. Meade.
Jack s Heroism. By Edith C. Kenyon.
Her Two Sons : A Story for Young Men and Maidens. By
Mrs. Charles Garnett.
Rag and Tag. By Mrs. E. J. Whittaker.
The Little Princess of Tower Hill. By L. T. Meade.
Clovie and Madge. By Mrs. G. S. Reaney.
Ellerslie House : A Book for Boys. By Emma Leslie.
Like a Little Candle; or, Bertrand s Influence. By Mrs.
Haycraft.
The Dairyman s Daughter. By Legh Richmond.
Bible Jewels. By Rev. Dr. Newton.
Bible Wonders. By the same Author.
The Pilgrim s Progress. By John Bunyan. 416 pages. Eight
coloured and 46 other Illustrations.
Our Duty to Animals. By Mrs. C. Bray.
Books for Christian Workers.
Large Crown 16mo. 128 pages. Chastely bound in Cloth Boards. 1s. each.
The Home Messages of Jesus. By Charlotte Skinner.
Deeper Yet : Meditations for the Quiet Hour. By Clarence E.
E her man.
The Master s Messages to Women. By Charlotte Skinner.
Royal and Loyal. Thoughts on the Two-fold Aspect of the
Christian Life. By Rev. W. H. Griffith-Thomas.
Thoroughness : Talks to Young Men. By Thain Davidson. D.D,
Some Secrets of Christian Living. By Rev. F. B. Meyer.
The Overcoming Life. By Rev. E. W. Moore.
Marks of the Master. By Charlotte Skinner.
Some Deeper Things. By Rev. F. B. Meyer.
Steps of the Blessed Life. By Rev. F. B. Meyer.
Daybreak in the Soul. By Rev. E. W. Moore.
The Temptation of Christ. -By C. Arnold Healing, M.A.
For Love s Sake. By Charlotte Skinner.
7?v S. IF. Partriih e & Co., Lid.
IS. each (continued}.
Everyone s Library.
A re-issue of Standard Works in a cheap form, containing from 320 to
500 pages, printed in the best style ; with Illustrations on art paper,
and tastefully bound in Cloth Boards. Js. each.
Ben Hur. By Lew Wallace.
Adam Bede. By George Eliot.
The Schonberg-Gotta Family. By Mrs. Rundle Charles.
Reminiscences of a Highland Parish. By Norman Macleod.
The Strait Gate. By Annie S. Swan.
Mark Desborough s Vow. By Annie S. Swan.
From Log Cabin to White House. By w. M. Thayer.
The Gorilla Hunters. By R. M. Ballantyne.
Naomi ; or, The Last Days of Jerusalem. By Mrs. Webb.
The Starling. By Norman Macleod.
The Children of the New Forest. By Captain Marryat
Danesbury House. By Mrs. Henry Wood.
Granny s Wonderful Chair. By Frances Browne.
Hereward the Wake. By Chai-les Kingsley.
The Heroes. By Charles Kingsley;
Ministering Children. By M. L. Charlesworth.
Ministering Children : A Sequel. By the same Author.
Peter the Whaler. By w. H. G. Kingston.
The ChanningS. By Mrs. Henry Wood.
Melbourne House. By Susan Warner.
Alice in Wonderland. By Lewis Carroll.
The Lamplighter. By Miss Cummins.
What Katy Did. By Susan Coolidge.
Stepping Heavenward. By E. Prentiss.
Westward Ho ! By Charles Kingsley.
The Water Babies. By the same Author.
The Swiss Family Robinson.
Grimm s Fairy Tales. By the Brothers Grimm.
The Coral Island. By R. M. Ballantyne.
Hans Andersen s Fairy Tales.
John Halifax, Gentleman. By Mrs. Craik.
Little Women and Good Wives. By Louisa M. Alcott.
Tom Brown s Schooldays. By an Old Boy.
The Wide, Wide World. By Susan Warner.
Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. By Daniel Defoe.
Uncle Tom s Cabin. By H. B. stowe.
The Old Lieutenant and His Son. By Norman Macleod.
26 Catalogue of Books Published
IS. each (continued).
New Series of One Shilling Picture Books.
Size 10^ by 8 inches. 96 pages. Coloured Frontispiece and nuwrous other
illustrations. Handsomely bound in .Paper Boards, covers printed in 10
colours and varnished.
Snowf lake s Picture Book. By Uncle Maurice.
Daisy land ! A Picture Book for Boys and Girls. By Aunt Ruth.
Playmates. By Uncle Maurice.
Frolic and Fun : Pictures and Stories for Everyone. By Aunt
Ruth.
My Dollies A.B.C. By Uncle Jack.
Merry Madcaps ! By Aunt Ruth.
By the Silver Sea. By R. V.
Funny Folk in Animal Land. By Uncle Frank.
A Trip to Storyland. By R. V.
Holiday Hours in Animal Land. By Uncle Harry.
Animal Antics ! By the Author of " In Animal Land with Louis
Wain."
Little Snow-Shoes Picture Book. By R. V.
In Animal Land with Louis Wain.
Scripture Picture Books.
Old Testament Heroes. By Mildred Duff.
Feed My Lambs. Fifty-two Bible Stories and Pictures. By the
Author of" The Friends of Jesus."
Bible Pictures and Stories : old Testament. By D.J.D.
Bible Pictures and Stories : New Testament. By James
Weston and D.J.D.
The Life of Jesus. By Mildred Duff. 112 pages.
Gentle Jesus.
Jesus the Good Shepherd.
The Prodigal Son.
The Prophet Elijah. > fully prmted m colours wlth
My Bible Picture Book.
Six Bible Picture Books beauti-
descriptive letterpress.
The Children s Saviour.
Commendations from all parts of the world have reached
Messrs. S. W. Partridge & Co. upon the excellence of their
Picture Books. The reading matter is high-toned, helpful, and
amusing, exactly adapted to the requirements of young folks ;
while the Illustrations are by first-class artists, and the paper is
thick and durable. Bound in attractive coloured covers, they
form a unique series.
liy S. W. Partridge & Co., Ltd. 27
9d. each.
Ninepenny Series of Illustrated Books.
96 pages. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. Handsome Cloth Covers.
Willie s Battles and How He Won Them. By E. M. Kendrew.
Into a Sunlit Harbour. By M. I. Hurrell.
Dick Lionheart. By Mary Rowles Jarvis.
A Regular Handful : or, Ruthie s Charge. By Jennie Chappell.
Little Bunch s Charge; or, True to Trust By Nellie Cornwall.
Mina s Sacrifice ; or, The Old Tambourine. By Helen Sawer.
Our Den. By E. M. Waterworth.
Only a Little Fault ! By Emma Leslie.
Marjory; or, What would Jesus Do ? By Laura A. Barter-Snow.
The Little Slave Girl. By Eileen Douglas.
Out of the Straight; or, The Boy who Failed and the Boy
who Succeeded. By Noel Hope.
Bob and Bob s Baby. By Mary E. Lester.
Grandmother s Child. By Annie S. Swan.
The Little Captain : A Temperance Tale. By Lynde Palmer.
Love s Golden Key. By Mary E. Lester.
Mystery Of Mamie. By Jennie Chappell.
Caravan Cruises : Five Children in a Caravan. By Phil Ludlow.
Secrets of the Sea. By Cicely Fulcber.
For Lucy s Sake. By Annie S. Swan.
Giants and How to Fight Them. By Dr. Newton.
How Paul s Penny became a Pound. By Mrs. Bowen.
How Peter s Pound became a Penny. By the same Author.
A Sailor s Lass. By Emma Leslie.
Polly s Hymn ; or, Travelling Days. By J. S. Woodhouse.
Frank Burleigh : or, Chosen to be a Soldier. By Lydia
Phillips.
Lost Muriel ; or, A Little Girl s Influence. By C. J. A. Opper-
mann.
Kibbie & Co. By Jennie Chappell.
Brave Bertie. By Edith C. Kenyon.
Marjorie s Enemy : A Story of the Civil War of 1644. By Mrs.
Adams.
Lady Betty s Twins. By E. M. Waterworth.
A Venturesome Voyage. By F. Scarlett Potter.
Robin s Golden Deed. By Ruby Lynn.
28 Catalogue of Books Published
9d. each (continued).
NINEPENNY SERIES OF ILLUSTRATED BOOKS (continued] .
The Runaway Twins; or, The Terrible Guardian. By Irene
Clifton.
Dorothy s Trust. By Adela Frances Mount.
Grannie s Treasures : and how they helped her. By L. E.
Tiddeman.
His Majesty s Beggars. By Mary E. Ropes.
Faithful Friends. By C. A. Mercer.
Only Roy. By E. M. Waterworth and Jennie Chappell.
Aunt Armstrong s Money. By Jennie Chappell.
The Babes in the Basket ; or, Daph and Her Charge.
Birdie s Benefits ; or, A Little Child Shall Lead Them. By
Ethel Ruth Body.
Carol s Gift; or, "What Time I am Afraid I will Trust in
Thee. By Jennie Chappell.
Cripple George; or, God has a Plan for Every Man. A Tem
perance Story. By John W. Kneeshaw.
Cared For ; or, The Orphan Wanderers. By Mrs. C. E. Bowen.
A Flight with the Swallows. By Emma Marshall.
The Five Cousins. By Emma Leslie.
How a Farthing Made a Fortune; or, Honesty is the Best
Policy. By Mrs. C E. Bowen.
John Blessington s. Enemy : A Story of Life in South Africa.
By E. Harcourt Barrage.
John Oriel s Start in Life. By Mary Howitt.
The Man of the Family. By Jennie Chappell.
Mattie s Home ; or, The Little Match-girl and her Friends.
Phil s Frolic. By F. Scarlett Potter.
Paul : A Little Mediator. By Maude M. Butler.
Rob and 1 ; or, By Courage and Faith. By C. A. Mercer.
Won from the Sea. By E. C. Phillips (Mrs. H. B. Looker).
6d. each.
Devotional Classics.
A New Series of Devotional Books by Standard Authors. \Vni printed OIF-
good paper. Size 6% by 4 inches. Beautifully bound in Cloth Boants.
6d. each, net. ; Leather, 2s. each, net. (Not illustrated).
The Imitation of Christ. By Thomas a Kempis.
The Holy War. By John Bunyan.
By S. W. Piirtiiiige & Co.,
6d. each (continued).
New Series of Sixpenny Picture Books.
Crown 4to. With Coloured Frontispiece and. many other Illustrations.
Handsomely bound in Paper Boards, with cover printed in ten colours.
Sunnylock s Picture Book. By Aunt Ruth.
Ring Roses. By Uncle Jack.
Two in a Tub ! By Aunt Ruth.
Little Tot s A.B.C. By Uncle Jack.
Full of Fun ! Pictures and Stories for Everyone. By Uncle
Maurice.
Hide and Seek. Stories for Every Day in the Week. By the
same Author.
Playtime ! A Picture Book for Boys and Girls.
Little Snowdrop s Bible Picture Book.
Sweet Stories Retold. A Bible Picture Book.
Happy Times ! A Picture Book of Prose and Rhymes.
Bible Stories.
Stories of Old.
Sunday Stories.
Coming to Jesus.
Four Bible Picture; Books with
coloured illustrations.
Mother s Sunday A. B.C. A Little Book of Bible Pictures,
which can be coloured by hand.
The " Red Dave " Series.
New and Enlarged Edition. Handsomely bound in Cloth Boards.
Well Illustrated.
ELSIE S SACRIFICE. By Nora C. A PLUCKY CHAP. By Louie
Usher. Slade.
Timfy Sikes: Gentleman. By FARTHING DIPS; or What can I
Kent Carr. do? By J S. Woodhouse.
GKHYPAWS : The Astonishing Ad-
itiin-s of a Field Mouse. By Paul
vo;
Creswick.
THE SQUIRE S YOUNG FOLK. By
Eleanora H. Stooke.
THK CHRISIMAS CHILDREN: A
Story of the Marshes. By Dorothea
Moore.
THK LITTLE WOODMAN AND HIS
Dog Cffisar. By Mrs. Sherwood.
BRAVE TOVIAK. By Argyll
Saxby.
THE ADVENTURES OF PHYLLIS.
By Mabel Bowler.
ROY CARPENTER S LESSON. By
Keith Marlow.
GERALD S GUARDIAN. By Charles
WHERE A QUEEN ONCE DWELT.
By Jet<a Vogel.
BUY YOUR OWN CHERRIES.
LEFT IN CHARGE, and other
Stories.
Two LITTLE GIRLS AND WHAT
They did.
THE ISLAND HOME.
Catalogue of Books Published
6d. eaC (continued).
THE "RED DAVE" SERIES (continued.)
CHRISSY S TREASURE.
DICK AND His DONKEY.
COME HOME, MOTHER.
ALMOST LOST. By Amethyst.
JEPTHAH S LASS. By Dorothea
By Mrs. H. C.
ROBINSON.
Moore.
KITTY KING.
Knight.
THE DUCK FAMILY
By A. M. T.
1 ROAST POTATOES !." A Temper
ance Story. By Rev. S. N. Sedg-
wick, M.A.
His CAP IAIN. By Constancia
Sergeant.
" IN A MINUTE ! " By Keith Mar-
low.
UNCLE Jo s OLD COAT. By
Eleanora H. Stooke.
THE COST OF A PROMISE. By
M. I. Hurrell.
WILFUL JACK. By M. I. Hurrell.
WILLIE THE WAIF. By Minie
Herbert.
A LITTLE TOWN MOUSE.
THE LITTLE GOVERNESS.
PUPPY-DOG TALES.
MOTHER S BOY.
THAT BOY BOB.
A THREEFOLD PROMISE.
THE FOUR YOUNG MUSICIANS.
A SUNDAY TRIP AND WHAT CAME
of it. By E J.Romanes.
LITTLE TIM AND His PICTURE.
By Beatrice Way.
MIDGB. By L. E T ddeman.
THE CONJURER S WAND. By
Henrietta S. Streatfeild.
BENJAMIN S NEW BOY.
ENEMIES : a Tale for Little Lads
and Lassies.
CHERRY TREE PLACE.
JOE AND SAI LY : or, A Good Deed
and its Fruits.
LOST IN THE SNOW.
RED DAVE : or What Wilt Thou
have Me to do ?
JESSIE DYSON.
4d. each.
The Young Folds Library
Of Cloth Bound Books. With Coloured Frontispiece. 64 pages.
Well Illustrated. Handsome Cloth Covers.
LITTLE JACK THRUSH.
A LITTLE BOY S TOYS.
THE PEARLY GATES.
THE LITTLE WOODMAN.
RONALD S REASON.
A BRIGHT IDEA.
SYBIL AND HER LIVE SNOWB \LI
THE CHURCH MOUSE.
DANDY JIM.
A TROUBLESOME TRIO.
PERRY S PILGRIMAGE.
NITA ; or, Among the Brigands.
By S. W. Partridge ^ Co., Lid.
3d. each.
New "Pretty Gift Book" Series.
With Beautiful Coloured Frontispiece, and many other Illustrations.
Paper Boards, Cover printed in eight Colours and Varnished, 3d. each.
Size, 6 by 5 inches.
JACK AND JILL S PICTURE BOOK.
LADY -BIRD S PICTURES AND
Stories.
PLAYTIME JOYS FOR GIRLS AND
Boys.
DOLLY S PICTURE BOOK.
BY THE SEA.
TOBY AND KIT S ANIMAL BOOK.
"PETS" AND " PICKLES."
OUR LITTLE PETS ALPHABET.
BIBLE STORIES-OLD TESTAMENT.
BIBLE STORIES-NEW TESTAMENT
Paternoster Series of Popular Stories.
An entirely New Series of Books, Medium 8uo. in s ; ze, 32 pages, fully Illustrated.
Cover daintily printed in two Colours, 1d. each. Titles as follows :
THE LITTLE CAPTAIN. By Lynde
Palmer.
TRUE STORIES OF BRAVE DEEDS.
By Mabel Bowler.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
THE DAIRYMAN S DAUGHTER.
ROBIN S GOLDEN DEED. By
Ruby Lynn.
THE BASKET OF FLOWERS.
BUY YOUR OWN CHERRIES. By
John Kirton.
JENNETT CRAGG : A Story of the
Time of the Plague. By M. Wright.
" OUR FATHER." By Alice Grey.
RAB AND His FRIENDS. By Dr.
John Brown.
THE SCARRED HAND. By Ellen
Thorneycroft Fowler.
THE GIPSY QUEEN. By Emma
Leslie.
A CANDLE LIGHTED BY THE LORD.
By Mrs. Rose.
GRANDMOTHER S CHILD. By
Annie S. Swan
THE BABES IN THE BASKET ; or,
Daph and her Charge.
JENNY S GERANIUM ; or, The
Prize Flower of a London Court.
THE LITTLE PRINCESS OF TOWER
Hill. By L. T. Meade.
THE GOLD THREAD. By Norman
Macleod, D.D.
THROUGH SORROW AND JOY. By
M. A. R.
THE LITTLE WOODMAN AND HIS
Dog Caesar. By Mrs. Sherwood.
CRIPPLE GEORGE. By J. W.
Kneeshaw.
ROB AND I. By C. A. Mercer.
DICK AND HIS DONKEY. By Mrs.
Bowen.
THE LIGHT CF THE GesweL.
32 S. II . Partridge & Co. s Catalogue.
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id. Monthly.
The Yearly Volume, 144 pages full of Illustrations, coloured paper boards,
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THE FAMILY FRIEND. A beautifully Illustrated Magazine for
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cloth, 2s. ; gilt edges, 2s. 6d.
THE FRIENDLY VISITOR. A Magazine for the people, full of
entertaining reading with sound religious teaching in the form of
story, article, and poem. Printed in good tjpeand fully illustrated.
Just the paper for " the Quiet Hour/ id Monthly
The Yearly Volume, coloured paper boards and cloth back, Is. 6d. ; cloth,
2s. ; gilt edges, 2s. 6d.
THE CHILDREN S FRIEND AND PLAY-HOUR COMPANION.
5ist year. A world-wide favourite. Charming School Stories.
Tales from History and of Adventure. Beautiful Pictures. Helpful
Competitions. "The Play-Hour," an international comradeship
for boys and girls, etc. id. Monthly.
The Yearly Volume, coloured paper boards, with cloth back and excellent
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THE INFANTS MAGAZINE. No other periodical can be coin-
pared with The Infants Magazine for freshness, brightness, and
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THE BAND OF HOPE REVIEW. The Leading Temperance
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Concerted Recitations, Prize Competitions, etc. Should be in the
hands of all Band of Hope Members. ^d. Monthly.
The Yearly Volume, coloured paper boards, Is. ; cloth boards, Is. 6d.
BX 5199 H32G6 M53 1910 TRIN
Michael , Charles D.
James Manning ton, bishop and
martyr 139985
