ANNINGTON
AST AFRICA
JAMES HANNINGTON
THE MARTYRDOM OF BISHOP HANNINGTON
Frontispiece
JAMES HANNINGTON
THE MERCHANT S SON WHO
WAS MARTYRED FOR AFRICA
BY
CHARLES D. MICHAEL
AUTHOR OF "THB SLAVE AND HIS CHAMPIONS"
PICKERING & INGLIS
14 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C.4
229 BOTHWELL STREET, GLASGOW, C.2
M
BRIGHT BIOGRAPHIES
STIRRING LIFE STORIES OF
CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN
ROBERT MORRISON OF CHINA
THE PIONEER OF CHINESE MISSIONS AND
TRANSLATOR OF THE BIBLE INTO CHINESE
JAMES HANNINGTON OF UGANDA
THE BISHOP WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR
THE EVANGELISING OF CENTRAL AFRICA
WOMEN WHO HAVE WORKED AND WON
MRS. CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
The Helpmeet of a World-wide Preacher
EMMA BOOTH-TUCKER
The Amazon of a World-wide Holy War
FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL
The Poetess of a World-wide Church
PANDITA RAMABAI AND HER WORK
The Cause which had World-wide Support
Other Titles in Preparation
CROWN OCTATO SIZE ILLUSTRATED
MADE AMD PR1N7ID IN GREAT BRITAIN
PREFACE
T ENJOY the uphill, struggling path most
A of all." So wrote James Hannington of
himself ; and his whole life was a testimony
to the truth 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
6 PREFACE
all that he undertook. Alike in his home
life, in his ministerial work, and in his brief
but glorious missionary career, he proved
himself capable of complete devotion 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
those 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 Hanning
ton loved even unto death.
It only remains for the author to acknow-
PREFACE 7
ledge his indebtedness for many of the facts
contained in this volume to James Hanning-
ton : A History of his Life and Work, by the
Rev. E. C. Dawson, M.A. ; The Wonderful
Story of Uganda, by Rev. J. D. Mullins ;
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
CHAP. PACK
I. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD . . . -13
II. A GENTLEMAN AT LARGE . . .26
III. A MOMENTOUS DECISION. . . -35
IV. ORDINATION AND A COUNTRY CURACY . 40
V. PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFE AT HURSTPIER-
POINT . . . . . .64
VI. THE CALL TO SERVICE . . . -75
VII. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY . . 91
VIII. ADVENTURES BY THE WAY . . .119
IX. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY . . 133
X. THE GOAL IN VIEW . . . .150
XI. THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM . .165
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
DEATH OF BISHOP HANNINGTON . . Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
BISHOP HANNINGTON . . . . .44
AN AWKWARD SITUATION . . . -45
A VIEW OF JORDAN S NULLAH, THE SOUTH ARM OF
THE VICTORIA NYANZA . . . .60
TRAVEL BY HAMMOCK . . . . .61
BEWITCHED BY THE BISHOP .... 140
A CRITICAL MOMENT . . . . .141
A TRYING TIME WITH INQUISITIVE NATIVES . 156
THE BISHOP S BETRAYAL . . . .157
JAMES HANNINGTON
CHAPTER I
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD
JAMES HANNINGTON was born on
3rd September, 1847, m the pretty
Sussex village of Hurst pierpoint, about
eight miles from Brighton. He was the eighth
child of his father, Mr. Charles Smith Hanning-
ton, who owned a large drapery business in
Brighton. The family had long been estab
lished in the busy seaside town, and lived
there until just before the birth of James,
when they removed to St. George s, Hurst-
pierpoint, 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
14 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 light stands at the entrance to Hurst
for so the inhabitants shorten the some
what 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 of 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
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD 15
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. *S|
To the end of his life the love of nature
was one of the most strongly marked char
acteristics of James Hannington ; and no
holiday or expedition was considered by him
worth while unless it afforded opportunities
for adding to his store of knowledge of the
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 punish
ment. 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
16 JAMES HANNINGTON
he once declared he did not possess. But in
this self-depreciation he did himself an in
justice. The story of his life makes it abund
antly 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 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
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD 17
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
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
i8 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 enjoy
ment, the little adventure of " Uncle Joe "
only having added to the fun.
So much had the yachting trip been ap
preciated 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 adven
tures 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
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD 19
to " try " one. He and his companion-in-
mischief attempted to light one with touch
paper. The result was not quite to their
satisfaction ; 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 splutter
ing squib. At the same instant there was a
tremendous explosion, and James found him
self 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 hand
kerchief, 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 com
pletely shattered by the force of the explosion.
The accident weakened him for a time, but
he soon got over it.
20 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 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.
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 inclina
tions 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 age he gained greatly
by the development of that keen power of
observation which he possessed in such a
marked degree, and which his almost un
limited liberty gave him such rare chances
of using. The result was that, at an age
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD 21
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
22 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 was old enough to regard them dis
passionately. 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 him
self 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 main
tained the reputation he had already gained
as "a pickle of a boy." Naturally head
strong and passionate, with a marked in
dividuality, 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
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD 23
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 headmaster as " verging on insanity " ;
and the report can hardly be regarded as
unreasonable 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 mis
deeds ; for on one occasion he was caned
more than a dozen times ; and, sorely smart
ing 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 dis
pleasure, Hannington, with lofty disregard
of probable consequences, offered to fight
24 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 un
accustomed 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 provok
ing him ; and for a while, bound by his
promise to his 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 after-
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD 25
wards 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 headmaster, 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 pain
fully 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 training was not entirely
a misfortune, since it gave him opportunities,
which he fully used, of developing an inde
pendence 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.
CHAPTER II
A GENTLEMAN AT LARGE
AT the close of his school career Hanning-
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 count
ing-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 develop 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
A GENTLEMAN AT LARGE 27
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 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
28 JAMES HANNINGTON
glad that the Archbishop is dead ; we are
going to see him lying in state."
The trip to Paris was followed by a deter
mined 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 accom
panied by Mr. Gutteridge, and this time the
travellers went farther afield. Brussels, Ant
werp, Luxembourg, and many other places
were included in their itinerary amongst
them Wiesbaden, where the facilities for
gambling greatly concerned him. Of the
habitues of the gambling saloons he declared
that those who seemed to be regular pro
fessional 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.
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
A GENTLEMAN AT LARGE 29
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 to them, their captain not un
naturally 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
30 JAMES HANNINGTON
the margin of safety that the crew of the
yacht shouted in alarm as the steamer ap
parently headed straight for them.
In 1864, Hannington joined the ist Sussex
Artillery Volunteers ; and he threw himself
into his new hobby of soldiering with char
acteristic 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
company 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 change that was
later to alter the whole current of his life.
I
A GENTLEMAN AT LARGE 31
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 some
thing 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 uncon
sciously to himself, beginning to take into
account, albeit at first in a strange, un
reasoning 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
32 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 ; 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 existence ; 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 im
portant Russian cities. The return journey
A GENTLEMAN AT LARGE 33
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 in future any man break
ing leave would be discharged. The first
man to do so, as it happened, was the captain,
who remained ashore, and, by his own con
fession, 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 con
sternation of the crew, and the amazement of
the captain, the latter found himself sum
marily dismissed, and ordered to convey
34 JAMES H \NNINGTON
himself and all his belongings ashore as
speedily as possible.
There was no further trouble on board the
yacht during that voyage. The crew re
cognised 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.
CHAPTER III
l
A MOMENTOUS DECISION
I "HE Hannington family had been hither-
X to Independents ; and in the grounds
of St. George s, James s father had built a
chapel, in which Nonconformist 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 sur
vivor ; and the charge of the newly licensed
chapel became a curacy under the Rector of
Hurstpierpont.
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. Un
doubtedly they exercised a considerable influ
ence over him, and he began to think earnestly
and seriously of religious matters.
The year 1868 was, in a sense, one of the
36 JAMES HANNINGTON
most eventful of his life, for it was then that
he first entertained the idea of offering him
self 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 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
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 severity, fasting twice a week. He
interested himself in all the special religious
functions held in the neighbourhood, and
took advantage of every opportunity of hear
ing the distinguished preachers who from
time to time visited the district. He took as
A MOMENTOUS DECISION 37
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 Uni
versity. 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 aversion 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
38 JAMES HANNINGTON
practically no study at all ; and even in his
school days his intellectual efforts had 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 discrimin
ating in his friendships, and such a keen judge
of character that he seldom, if ever, made a
mistake 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
associates ; 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
Hannington 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
A MOMENTOUS DECISION 39
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 in
tellectual well-being ; and this 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 Mar
tinhoe 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.
CHAPTER IV
ORDINATION AND A COUNTRY CURACY
r I "HE out-of-the-way corner of North
J[ Devon hi which Hannington now found
himself was very beautiful, and very fascinat
ing 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 accord
ance with the usage of the district the
bereaved made a great feast for all who were
invited ; and any others who chose to attend
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 41
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.
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 de
clined 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
superstition, 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
42 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 Hannington 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.
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 Responsions, 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 remark
able caves there greatly delighted him. The
chief attraction of these caves for him seems
to have been that they were almost inacces
sible ; 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
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 43
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 under
taking. 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
farther, 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, and
climbed up and stood by his side, pale and
breathless. Richard was quite cool. " I
don t like the look of that old rougey place
where you have been climbing," 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.
44 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 pronounced the
dread decree no hope. Mrs. Hannington s
illness was declared to be of such a nature
that recovery was, humanly speaking, im
possible. 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 commencing sentences. Especially she
would repeat again and again : "I will take
the stony heart out of their flesh, and will
BISHOP HANNINGTON
To fact page
AN AWKWARD SITUATION
Hannington had barely time to dodge the boulder as it whizzed past his
head, accompanied by a volley of small stones. [Page 43
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 45
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 peace
fully 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, kissing 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
Hannington 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 presently to
possess and dominate him. After this sad
event he settled down to work in earnest,
with ordination always in view as the goal of
his ambition ; and on I2th 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 de
spondent frame of mind. He felt all unready ;
and, to make matters worse, he found the
46 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 almost frenzied study until the very eve
of the examination, 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 per
severe. 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
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 47
contemplated such a step. Though he
shrank from the possibility of further failure,
he felt impelled by a power outside himself
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. 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 ex
plained, 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.
48 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 impossi
bility for him to do himself justice. The
result was that although this time he did not
altogether fail he was only partially suc
cessful. The Bishop passed him for the
Diaconate ; but instead 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 char
acteristic grufmess of manner the Bishop
dismissed him.
You ve got fine legs, I see," said his
lordship, " mind that you run about your
parish. Good morning ! " The young deacon
did not forget that episcopal admonition !
The following day, ist March, 1874, James
Hannington 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
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 49
Sunday at Hurst pierpoint, 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.
The 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, doubt
less, did not come amiss to him.
On one occasion, after a week of excep
tionally hard work, in the course of which he
had ridden his pony 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 hope
lessly lost. For two hours he galloped hither
50 JAMES HANNINGTON
and thither in the mist. To add to his dis
comfort 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 whereabouts.
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 eventually to a gate which led him off
the moor. Still keeping 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 con
cluded that he was lost on the moor. He
whispered to the clerk the story of his hours
of wandering 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 get back to dinner." Dripping wet
as he was, he put on the surplice as directed,
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 51
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 3Oth July, 1874,
he attended his first missionary meeting at
Parracombe. 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 Han
nington 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
52 JAMES HANNINGTON
ought to have had in his work for God. But
light and knowledge came to him vouch
safed 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 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 unworthiness ; 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 re
mained 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
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 53
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 port
manteau, 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 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."
54 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 in his own
esteem so little for God. He complained 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 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 manu
script, 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 dis
course 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.
Soon he was back again amongst his
56 JAMES HANNINGTON
Devonshire friends, working harder than ever.
The population of the parishes in which he
laboured was so widely scattered that visita
tion 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 in
creased ; but he never forgot for an instant
that he was before all things an ambassador
of God ; and often, when his medical know
ledge 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 permanent return to Hurstpier-
point, and proposed that he should come
back and take charge of the Chapel of St.
George s. James, however, received the pro
posal 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
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 57
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 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 con
ditions from those which prevailed at Martin
hoe, 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 iyth 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
58 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 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
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 59
and Barley, 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 working 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.
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
loving 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
60 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 temperance 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 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 Secretary-
I
TRAVEL BY HAMMOCK
Bishop Hannington s humorous sketches of a trying ordeal. \ Pa^e 120
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 61
ship of the Hurstpierpoint Temperance Associa
tion. 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
hi 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 re
cognise 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 parish
ioners 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
5
62 JAMES HANNINGTON
his parish. He called to see him, and found
him in a pitiable state. The family had been
forsaken by 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 re
covered.
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.
ORDINATION AND COUNTRY CURACY 63
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.
CHAPTER V
PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFE AT
HURSTPIERPOINT
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 considered 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
PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFE 65
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
loth February of the following year they were
married, and the marriage proved an exceed
ingly happy one.
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. Hanning-
ton 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
66 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 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 hofland pinafore, and painting away
PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFE 67
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 under
stood 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 (Hurst-
pierpoint), 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
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 pro
vided. 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
68 JAMES HANNINGTON
good health. The future Bishop not in
frequently 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 complete 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 con
gregation 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 re
member 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 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 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.
PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFE 69
When the Bishop spoke he had a thought
ful 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 watch
words 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 impossible ; 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 re
maining with us.
" Calling once, before ever the subject of
missionary work was mooted as a personal
one in that quiet, contented 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,
70 JAMES HANNINGTON
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."
Hannington 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 some
times 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 theie 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
PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFE 71
this particular mission, though there was
much to discourage 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 the preacher by
continual interruptions. But Hannington
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 com
plained most bitterly because one of his
parishioners had been converted 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 directions as to
what he might and might not do ; and by
72 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 out
ward 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.
No man enjoyed life more than did James
Hannington. 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 wanderings they
reached Bude, they were so dusty and travel-
stained, and generally disreputable in appear
ance, that mine host of the inn viewed them
with suspicion much to Hannington s amuse-
PARISH WORK AND HOME LIFE 73
ment. During this holiday 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 appro
priated 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
misappropriated 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, Hanning
ton found himself owner of St. George s
Chapel ; but, although the building had
been bequeathed to him, no monetary pro
vision 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 he remained in charge
himself, since he had private means sufficient
for his own requirements ; but his successor
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.
74 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 under
took all responsibilities connected with it.
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 outcome of a sudden resolve, or a passing
whim. Since the occasion eight years pre
viously 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 hi 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 missionary enterprise in Central
76 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 culminated in his offer to go
there himself as a missionary 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 missionary 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 offering 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
THE CALL TO SERVICE 77
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 had but one answer. He did not
attempt to 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 find a man able and willing to under
take 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 ! "
78 JAMES HANNINGTON
In February, 1882, Hannington made a
definite offer of himself to the Church Mis
sionary 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 undertook 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 mis
sionary service if he could have done so.
The opinion of the Society as to Hanning-
ton s fitness for the work is evident from the
fact that not only was his offer accepted, but
it was decided to make him 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
THE CALL TO SERVICE 79
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 adventurous journeys
into the interior at that time an undis
covered country. They were the first
Europeans who beheld the snow-clad moun
tains of Kilimandjaro ; 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, how
ever, 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
kingdom on their shores a kingdom with an
organised government whose power was recog
nised 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,
8o JAMES HANNINGTON
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 communica
tion between the Society s representatives and
their friends.
THE CALL TO SERVICE 81
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 offered
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 Zanzi
bar, the party followed an old trade route,
proceeding westward for about 230 miles,
then continuing for some 300 miles farther 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
82 JAMES HANNINGTON
journey on the great lake itself, skirting
the shores in canoes until they reached
Uganda.
Some idea of the difficulties of the under
taking may be gathered from the fact that
the journey from the coast to the shore of the
lake about 530 miles in all 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 ex
haustion and depression from the overpower
ing 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 them
selves 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
THE CALL TO SERVICE 83
falling ill and dying, some attacked by
robbers."
Not until 26th June, 1877 a day for ever
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 splendid 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, 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 pre
parations to continue their journey in a small
steam launch, the Daisy, which they had
84 JAMES HANNINGTON
brought with them in sections. In this little
vessel they made good progress until, at
tempting 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, who tells that after the formal recep
tion 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
THE CALL TO SERVICE 85
whom they had purchased a dhow. The
Arab got into difficulties through a quarrel
with a native king, and fled to the mis
sionaries 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 yth 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 im
patiently 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
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
86 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 Isling
ton. 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 com
paratively 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.
THE CALL TO SERVICE 87
Nor was this the only difficulty with which
the English missionaries had to contend ; for
soon after their arrival a couple of French
Roman Catholic priests made their appear
ance, and at once began to act in opposition
to them. Not only did these priests decline
to attend the worship which Mackay con
ducted 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 missionaries 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
elsewhere. The three remaining Mackay,
Litchfield, and Pearson had to endure much
petty persecution and annoyance from many
88 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 in
tolerable to Litchfield and Pearson, and
they left Uganda the former in June, 1880,
and Pearson in March of the following
year.
Before Pearson left, he and Mackay
managed between 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 per
sonality. He quickly adapted himself to the
conditions of life as he found it in Uganda,
and speedily learnt the language ; and with
his splendid help Mackay managed to con
tinue and improve upon the work that
THE CALL TO SERVICE 89
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 baptized,
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.
In 1882 the first Protestant baptism took
place, and five converts were publicly ad
mitted 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 hope
less was accomplished, in so far that a founda
tion had been laid, upon which, in God s
good time, might be built a native Church of
go JAMES HANNINGTON
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.
CHAPTER VII
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY
WHEN 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 yth March, 1882 he
went straight back to Hurst pier point, 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
92 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 Mis
sionary Society expedition to Uganda pro
ceeding first for over two 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
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 93
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
and Felkin. The volume had been very favour
ably 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 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 mis
sionaries.
A valedictory service was held on i6th May,
1882, in St. James s Hall, Paddington,
at which eleven missionaries Hannington
amongst them were committed to God s
care ; and 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
7
94 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 i 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 inex
perienced ; 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 row of friends, who sought
from him a last hand-shake on that memor
able evening of the i6th 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
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 95
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 testi
mony to his popularity, and the place he had
gained in the affection of the people around
him was the fact that a publican s son crept
up to him and thrust into his hand a letter
of farewell, with a book-marker and a text
96 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 lef t 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
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 97
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 dirty, for it was verminous.
Less than half the size of the Quetta, it 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 igth 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
98 JAMES HANNINGTON
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, 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 !
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 99
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
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 consequently 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 considerable worry and
anxiety due chiefly to the exasperatingly
dilatory habits of the Zanzibar!, who ap
parently had no idea of the value of time, and
zoo JAMES HANNINGTON
could not be prevailed upon to hurry over
their labour.
But at length the last load was packed,
and everything 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.
J3When 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 humorously said, a swimming to a foot
bath, decided to jump into the water. Re
gardless of the risk from sharks, and the
discomfort of the sharp coral beneath his
feet, he stripped off his clothes, put them into
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 101
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 everything 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 diffi
culties 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 near
ness to the coast made desertion compara
tively 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
102 JAMES HANNINGTON
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, 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 else
where 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 the river Buzini the first stream
they had encountered on their journey.
They were all exceedingly hot when they
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 103
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 him across. The task was clearly
beyond their power ; but in spite of his
most vigorous objection and resistance, 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 Hanning
ton 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 totter
ing 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
104 JAMES HANNINGTON
footing on a slippery rock, and down he went
with his burden flat into the water ! The
consequences 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 them
selves.
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
on fire. Hannington shouted an alarm and
almost immediately everyone was hard at
work, some fighting 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
transpired afterwards that they were intent
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 105
on revenge. They had discovered that the
fire had been caused maliciously by the in
habitants 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 experi
ences 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 terrible of nature s forces
was a severe one, and it taxed the strength
and endurance of the men considerably ; but
106 JAMES HANNINGTON
it was successful, and again the campjwas
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 I7th 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 2ist 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 course
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, upstand
ing spears, so that animals falling into them
are at once impaled and killed. But, by a
merciful Providence this particular pit con
tained no spears. At the moment of his fall
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 107
he was carrying his gun at full cock in his
hand ; but he had the presence of mind to
let himself go, and concern himself only
about his weapon, which, fortunately, did
not 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.
io8 JAMES HANNINGTON
While he and Dr. Baxter were hunting for
specimens, they had the misfortune to en
counter a great colony of black ants, and
though they did their best to avoid them,
they were severely bitten. Hannington de
scribed 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 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 Hanning
ton 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 expedi
tion travelled to Khambe, a day s march
farther on. The march was a difficult and
trying one, through forest land and over the
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 109
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 anticipa
tion 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 forward, 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 tremend
ous 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 despair had taken
refuge in a deep, dry trench cut through the
sandy plain by a mountain torrent.
The whole scene was desolate and dis
heartening 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
no JAMES HANNINGTON
with sand gritting their teeth with every
mouthful of food, and almost smothering
them as they slept, they were anything 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-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
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY in
in the dark, with dense foliage overhead,
which made the way before them an im
penetrable blackness, and stony ground be
neath 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 f which had once before indicated
to Hannington the approach of robbers,
effectually roused the men. From inert,
listless 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
H2 JAMES HANNINGTON
they all marched on with new vigour, and at
11.30 a.m. reached Pero.
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 over
come 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
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 113
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 amuse
ment. In some of 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 com
pared 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 incon
venience 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
H4 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 without having paid
hongo always a heavy strain on the re
sources of travellers in Africa.
On 30 th 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 un
dressed 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. Hanning
ton 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 lidn, which, calmly
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 115
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
opportunity had been lost. After this excit
ing 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 was at that time in
charge of Mr. Copplestone, who greeted his
brother missionaries most cordially. There
seemed every prospect of a few days happi
ness and peace amid the congenial surround
ings 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,
n6 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 disappoint
ment to him, but under the circumstances it
did not surprise him, and he accepted it in a
spirit of calm resignation. On I5th Septem
ber 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 inter
view 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 spirit
uality was very deep. Oftentimes he would
say, Come, Copplestone, sing me one of your
consecration hymns. His favourite was, I
am coming to the Cross. Nearly every night
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 117
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 in
sisted that part of the tribute should take
the form of guns and powder a kind of
hongo which the agents of the Church Mis
sionary 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
n8 JAMES HANNINGTON
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.
CHAPTER VIII
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY
IT 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 i6th 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 rearrange the porters loads, and
120 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 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 everything 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 in
competent as the four who had already failed
him, and the experiences of the previous
afternoon were repeated with the added
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY 121
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 con
tinued to make fair progress ; and although
Hannington was ill 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 suffer
ing 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 wonderful
mercy surrounds us. Truly, underneath are
the Everlasting Arms ! "
On ist 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
122 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 chief s appear
ance in his new finery created a great impres
sion. Hannington 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
improved ; 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 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
investigations of mosses and stones and the
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY 123
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 Sonda, 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. In
stead 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, You must
teach me." The incident may seem trivial,
but it gladdened the hearts of the missionaries
exceedingly ; and Hannington, though un
willing to attach too much importance to it,
yet could not help regarding it as an earnest
124 JAMES HANNINGTON
from heaven. It set his heart praising, and
filled him with assurance that God had not
forgotten those who, amid much discourage
ment, were trying to carry the Gospel light
to some of earth s darkest places.
On Qth 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 accom
plished his mission, made arrangements to
return to the coast with a number of the
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY 125
porters who were no longer needed. Han-
nington 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 loneli
ness 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 Hanning
ton obtained over the natives who accom
panied 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
9
126 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 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 be
wildered 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 bound
ing 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 ; and on the in
spiration of the moment an inspiration
which undoubtedly saved his life he sud
denly threw up his arms, gave vent to un-
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY 127
earthly yells, and began to dance like a mad
man. 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, Han-
nington 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 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
128 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 for
ward, 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 tre
mendous 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 not
yet arrived, and concerning whom disquieting
rumours were reaching him. It was ulti
mately 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 con
dition. Both Ashe and Gordon were very
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY 129
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 Hannington s account
of the Christmas 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.
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
130 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 de
clared he could not remember ever to 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. Hanning-
ton s opinion of him, after much painful
experience, was that he was as degraded a
ruffian as ever lived. His conduct was ex
asperating 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
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY 131
on gth January the party reached Romwa s.
His reception of them, after his first friendly
offers, was rather disappointing, 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 de
tained almost 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 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 de
parture 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.
132 JAMES HANNINGTON
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.
CHAPTER IX
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY
HANNINGTON was back in England
on loth 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
permitted to return to Africa. In the home
land 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 super
vision. The position demanded a man of
exceptional ability, and one who combined
134 JAMES HANNINGTON
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, 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 organis
ing his new diocese, in collecting funds for
the work, and in gathering about him a band
of workers.
The Archbishop of Canterbury com
missioned 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 de
scribed 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 a firing of guns and blowing of horns
they gave him a hearty if rather a noisy
welcome.
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 135
The Bishop s staff of workers consisted of
twelve clergy priests and deacons eleven
laymen, and four ladies wives of mission
aries. 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 heartiness 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, " 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 in
fluence ; 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
136 JAMES HANNINGTON
the work of the Church Missionary Society
at Taita then the most distant mission out
post 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 neigh
bouring 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, there
fore, resolved that he would place himself at
the head of an expedition to Taita, in order
to make himself personally 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 pre
ceded him, and where the natives welcomed
him with a four hours carnival of gun-firing,
shouting, and dancing. To their great delight
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 137
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 enter
tained about six hundred guests. An un
fortunate 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 congrega
tion from the text, " What must I do to be
saved ? >J
Nearly a week he remained at Rabai, 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.
Handford, who had had charge of the church
at Frere Town ; and his knowledge of the
natives and their ways proved very useful.
138 JAMES HANNINGTON
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
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 139
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 treat
ment they had received.
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 un
fortunate 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 recounting 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 without 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
140 JAMES HANNINGTON
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-Kamba 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 Rabai, and Mr. Wray accompanied the
Bishop on a further expedition beyond
Taita.
On I2th February, Hannington had his
first view of the mighty mountain, Kilimand-
jaro. 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
Kilimandjaro 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
r.i.xvi 1 1 ii KI> i;v TJIK BISHOP
A native woman s terror of the Bishop s harmless, necessary stick. [Page 141
To face page 140
A CRITICAL MOMENT
Hannington ran forward alone and unarmed to meet the warriors.
[Page 147
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 141
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 such 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. 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.
10
142 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 presence gave an interest
to the journey, which made the way seem
short, and helped the travellers to forget
their weariness 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 were
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 luxuri
ant growths of maize, Indian corn, and
banana trees. The caravan crept along noise
lessly, fearing lest the inhabitants of the
village should hear them and shut the gates
against them until hongo had been paid.
But they found after all that their fear was
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 143
groundless. The village was open to them ;
confidence in the white man had already been
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, notwith
standing its many natural beauties ; 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 interest
ing 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
144 JAMES HANNINGTON
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.
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
establishment of a Mission Station in Man-
dara 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 Man
dara, and satisfied himself that any mission-
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 145
aries 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 explora
tion of Kilimandjaro, with a view to collect
ing 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
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. For
tunately he was not hurt ; but his boys
became panic-stricken. The situation cer
tainly 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
146 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 con
sidered 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 chief s father
arrived in the camp, bringing with him a
sheep. Hannington and the old man had
first to spit on its 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 chief s 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
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 147
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 mono
tonous 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.
Picking up a branch as he ran, he waved it
148 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 ex
citing incident was quite simple. The attack
ing 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 Hanning ton s first great
missionary journey in his vast diocese.
Enough has been set down 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 discomfort 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
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 149
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 ambi
tions was Uganda ; and he had a great
longing to mark out a new and more practic
able 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 over
looked. 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 ignor
ance which was to bear tragic consequences.
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
forgo 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
responsibilities .
150
THE GOAL IN VIEW 151
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 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. Starva
tion, and desertion, and treachery on the part
of the porters were only a 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 every
day matters, but as was his habit, the Bishop
152 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 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. No
thing more was heard of him until the tele
gram 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
THE GOAL IN VIEW 153
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 ij 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 offered a big reward for his re
covery, and the caravan had to proceed
without him.
At various stages of the journey the natives
proved exceedingly troublesome and un
reasonable 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 river Chamela, the people demanded
154 JAMES HANNINGTON
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.
The necessity for showing a firm front to
these greedy savages, and steadily resisting
THE GOAL IN VIEW 155
their unreasonable demands arose very fre
quently, 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
156 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 us pass, but
the Bishop went straight ahead, and was
followed by all the caravan."
The sequel to the incident was significant.
The very men who had caused all the trouble
and made themselves 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 sub
sisted 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
A TRYING TIME WITH INQUISITIVE NATIVES [Page l6o
[From Pen-and-ink Sketches by Bishop Hannington
THE BISHOP S BETRAYAL
" Suddenly about twenty ruffians set upon us. When I shouted for help,
they, forced me up and hurried me away." [Page 170
THE GOAL IN VIEW 157
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 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 negotiation, that he
was able to persuade them to part with a few
ii
158 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 suc
ceeded in accumulating enough to make it
prudent or indeed possible to continue 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 flight of his men. But a volley from the
shot guns of some of his followers was neces
sary before the troublesome Wa-Kikuyu were
finally dispersed.
The only explanation of their behaviour
is that they were so accustomed to the harsh
ness and cruelty of the slave-dealing Arabs
who sometimes raided them, that they re
garded all travellers as their natural enemies
and treated them accordingly. It was a
disappointing ending to a very unpleasant
episode. The Bishop had greatly desired to
prove to these poor, ignorant savages that
THE GOAL IN VIEW 159
the word of a Christian may be trusted im
plicitly, 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, cover
ing 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, from which they con
cluded that they could not be far away ;
and a day or two later they encountered them.
As soon as the Bishop s caravan had en
camped, the young warriors of the tribe came
forward, and with the insolence usual to
them, asked for presents. Their demands
i6o JAMES HANNINGTON
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 every
thing ; 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 north
ward. 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 unstrung after his adventures with the
THE GOAL IN VIEW 161
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 rhino
ceroses, 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
162 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 on my back in quiet
contemplation and sweet dreams of dear ones
at home, and often longing, often wondering
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 beautiful, and the Bishop would, doubt
less, have enjoyed this part of the journey
THE GOAL IN VIEW 163
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 i2th October, 1885, he parted
for ever as it proved from his faithful and
devoted chaplain, and went on alone into
the unknown. Thirteen days 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 somewhat 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 therefore declared that their report
164 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 ?
CHAPTER XI
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM
IT is necessary, in order properly to under
stand what had happened, to know
something of the events that had transpired
in Uganda since Bishop Hannington 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 passion
ate. 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
i6 S
166 JAMES HANNINGTON
of African territory ; and although their
operations were carried out at some consider
able 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 such a
catastrophe. For reasons which we have
already explained (see page 87) 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 pre
liminary, 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
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 167
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 considered by Mwanga to be in
league with the Germans, 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 con
veyed to Mwanga, 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 apprehended and sent back.
Mr. Mackay and Mr. Ashe, who, as already
explained, were at this time working in
168 JAMES HANNINGTON
Uganda, learned all the news of the Court
through the Christian boys, and they were hi
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 vacillating
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 hi the leg, which
gave him considerable pain ; but in spite of
all Mr. Jones s entreaties he would not delay
his journey, and on I2th October he started
with his company of fifty picked men, on the
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
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 169
tell in his own words of the events that led
to his death.
" 2Oth October. I fear we have arrived in
a troublesome 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.
" 2ist 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 de
mands 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 dafy ; to this I consented,
because I fancy this man can send me on in
canoes direct to Mwanga s capital, and save
a week s march. Presently seven guns were
stolen from us ; at this I pretended to rejoice
170 JAMES HANNINGTON
exceedingly, since I should demand restora
tion, 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 strugg
ling, 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 vio
lently brought into contact with banana
trees, some trying in tljeir haste to force me
one way/others the other, and the exertion
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 171
and struggling strained me in the most agoniz
ing 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 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 ah 1 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 whether they
are 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 ventila
tion, a fire on the hearth, no chimney for
172 JAMES HANNINGTON
smoke, about twenty men all round me, and
rats and vermin ad lib. ; fearfully shaken,
strained in every limb, great pain, and con
sumed 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 con
finement, 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 ; a
smoking fire, at which my guards cook and
drink pombe ; in a feverish district ; fear
fully 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 un
ceasing strain of raillery, or at least I fancy
they do, about the Mzungu.
TH2 STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 173
" 2yd October, Friday. I woke full of
pain, and weak, so that with the utmost
difficulty I crawled outside 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 outside 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 condition 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 kneeling down, so different to their
usual treatment, and 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
12
174 JAMES HANNINGTON
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.
" 24th 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.
" 2$th October, Sunday. (Fourth day of
imprisonment.) Still a great deal of pain in
my limbs. The fatigue of dressing quite
knocks me over. My guards, though at
times they stick to me like leeches, and with
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 175
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 gentleman s side, and I fear from that
feeling of contrariness which is rather inborn.
I send him affectionate greetings and reports
on my health by his messengers twice a day.
What I fear most now is the close confine
ment 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 inten
tion 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 and
passing by various little^ opportunities. My
guards and I are great friends, almost
176 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 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 ; prob-
bably 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 chief s
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
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 177
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 murmuring
feelings which I thought that I had con
quered 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 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
huts 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
178 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 chief s 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.
" The only news to-day is that two white
men, one tall and the other short, have
arrived in Akota, and the Sultan -has de
tained 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.
" 2%th October, Wednesday. (Seventh day s
prison.) A terrible night, first with noisy
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 179
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.
" 2Qth 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
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
i8o JAMES HANNINGTON
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 shat
tered. 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
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 181
from the 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^Jsumise,
and the little Christian community there were
on their way to early service when the sound
182 JAMES HANNINGTON
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 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
Hannington 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 v impetus by his
martyrdom. Within a few weeks after the
news came to England, fifty men had offered
THE STORY OF THE MARTYRDOM 183
themselves to the Church Missionary Society
for service in the mission-field ; and Han-
nington s name has continued ever since to
be an inspiration to many. Being dead, he
yet speaks ; and so long as Christian English
men 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 com
mand to go into all the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature.
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By HELEN S. DYER
With many Illustrations 173 Pages 3/6 net
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