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1865-1868
NEW BOMBAY—DR. WILSON AMONG THE EUROPEANS—DR. LIVINGSTONE—THE ABYSSINIAN
EXPEDITION.
The Changes in Anglo-Indian Society—Dr. Wilson leaves Ambrolie for “ The
Cliff ”—The Memories of Thirty Years—American Slavery and Bombay
Cotton—Rise of prices in India—The Bombay Mania of 1863-66—The Crash in
1867—Dr. Wilson’s Letters on the Crisis—His Hospitalities— Distinguished
Visitors from 1863 to 1870—Mission in South Arabia— Discoveries in East
Africa—Origin of Nyassa Settlement—Lord Elphinstone’s Letter—Dr.
Livingstone’s First Visit—His Organisation of last Expedition—Address in
the Town Hall—Chuma and Wykatane—Letter from Dr. Livingstone—The
Abyssinian Converts Gabru and Maricha Warka—A Father in Christ—Four
Years’ Imprisonment of Captives by Theodorus—Sir George Yule’s Offer of
Rs. 20,000—Military Authorities apply to Dr. Wilson — His Abyssinian
Converts become Counsellors of Prince Kassai—The Prince, now King John
of Ethiopia—Dr. Wilson entrusted by [Government with more Abyssinian
Youths—The Light radiating from Bombay.
Not the least of the
results of the Mutiny was a change in Anglo-Indian society. On the one
hand the influx of artisans for the railways, and of adventurers from
Australia with consignments of horses or in search of employment, was
accompanied by the military mistake which disbanded the East India
Company’s European army, flooded the cities and stations with
discontented and injured soldiers, and in too many cases doomed the
widows and wives of the men who had regained the empire to a life of
shame. The “loafer” class was called into existence, and for the first
time in our history white prostitution was seen in India. Now the ablest
even of the English authorities who were responsible for the blunder, in
spite of the protests of Lord Canning, Sir Henry Durand, and all the
experienced officers on the spot, begin to see that the only solution of
the difficulty of recruiting 60,000 soldiers for India, is to fall back
on a local army attached to the new organisation of Lord Cardwell. On
the other hand, the ruling class, the civil, military, and mercantile
communities, who emerged from the two years’ conflict with barbarism in
its worst form, had lost all confidence in the permanence not of our
rule but of our institutions. They ceased to trust the natives, to like
the country. The “old Indian” was no more. The change had really begun
in 1S56, when the first set of Competition-Wallas arrived, and the
Haileybury monopoly passed away. But when complete peace once more
settled down on the empire with the first day of 1859, there was a rush
home. Xew furlough rules, the substitution of England for the Cape of
Good Hope as the furlough sanitarium, more rapid and frequent means of
communication, cheaper postage, and finally new men, changed the whole
character of Anglo-Indian society. "Whether for good or evil we shall
not here determine, so far as England is concerned. But the change has
not been, either politically or socially, for the good of the people of
India thus far. India is undoubtedly better ruled so far as systems of
administration are concerned. Is it more wisely governed as to the mode
in which these systems are applied?
Very much against his will Dr. Wilson had to submit to the social
revolution, which, however, he continued to influence to the last in
Bombay. The attendant rise of prices led the native owner of the
Ambrolie mission-house to demand a rent of Bs. 300 a month. This, wrote
Dr. Wilson to Dr. Tweedie, “is much beyond the ability of both the
mission and myself to give;” and, accordingly, the home of thirty years
was vacated.
To the adjoining Institution were added sheds, tents, and other
temporary accommodation, and there Dr. and Mrs. Wilson, his colleague
Mr. Stothert, who had brought new strength to the work some time before,
the female schools, the book depository, and even some of the native
catechists, were accommodated. Twelve years before, when her husband was
subject to frequent attacks of fever, Mrs. Wilson had urged him to take
up his abode permanently in the cottage given him by Dr. Smyttan on
Malabar Hill. She did so, seconding the orders of the physicians, and
pointing out that the good air of the higher region had made Dr.
Stevenson a new man. But Dr. Wilson had persisted in living among the
natives whom he sought to benefit, all these thirty years, trusting to
his almost annual tour, and an occasional holiday at Poona or
Mahableshwar, for the restoration of such robustness as may be possible
in the tropics. Now, when the hot season of 1862 came on, he was fairly
forced to reside in “The Cliff,” which thenceforth became indentified
with him. There, and in a guest chamber which he added, he kept open
house for English and Natives. Thence it was his delight, on coming up
from the day’s toil at Ambrolie, or before returning to it in the
morning, to watch the glories of the scene from the busy harbour away to
the Western Ghauts, as he sat at work in his library, or pointed out to
his friends the spots of historical and scientific interest. The house
soon became more than classical in its associations j1 his death made it
sacred.
Hardly had he taken permanent possession of “The Cliff,” when, on the
9th June 1862, the United States Senate decreed the abolition of slavery
in all territories of the Union. The secession of South Carolina,
eighteen months before, had another meaning also, which Bombay, of all
cities, was the first to feel, if not intelligently to recognise. For
five years the cotton trade of the world was transferred from the
Southern States of the Union to Western India—from New Orleans to
Bombay. The raw cotton of India rose in price from threepence to
nineteenpence the pound, and the export gradually doubled in quantity.
The normal value of the export and import trade of the one port of
Bombay, in merchandise and treasure, had gradually risen during Dr.
Wilson’s residence to forty millions sterling in value, or nearly half
that of all India. In the year 1865-66, when the effect of the American
civil war told most fully, that value was almost doubled, having risen
to £75,693,150, exclusive of Sindh, which increased it to above eighty
millions sterling, equal to the ordinary sea-board trade of Bengal,
Madras, and Burma. Whereas in 1860-61, the year before that war began to
tell, Bombay received only seven millions sterling for 35 5 b millions
of lbs. of cotton, in the last year of the war she got upwards of thirty
millions sterling for little more than the same quantity, or 380\
million lbs.
This was only one, though
the chief, of a series of causes which had raised prices in India at a
rate disproportionate to that throughout the civilised world. The gold
discoveries had been working contemporaneously with the Russian War,
which transferred the fibre and seed trade of Europe to Calcutta ; with
the Mutiny campaigns which poured into India an army and the materiel of
war on a scale not witnessed since Napoleon Buonaparte exhausted France;
with the progress of public works made from borrowed capital to the
amount of a hundred millions sterling; and finally with the Hindostan
famine in 1860-61. The consequent rise of prices in a poor country, with
only a silver currency, was alarming. First in Eastern India Government
had been driven to appoint Mr. H. Ricketts commissioner for the revisal
of civil salaries and establishments. Then, when the wave threatened to
engulf Bombay in 1863, Sir Bartle Frere nominated a commission to report
on “ the changes which had taken place during the preceding forty years
in the money prices of the principal articles of consumption, in the
wages of skilled and unskilled labour, and in house rents at the
principal military stations.” Their conclusion was this—since 1829 the
prices of grain had trebled, and were in 1861 double the average of
1860-63 ; meat and other necessaries had doubled in price; wages had
increased fifty per cent; the hire of carriage had gone up from 200 to
400 per cent. Contrasted with Bengal, Bombay prices were pronounced
double or treble, and in some cases at famine rates.
Visiting Bombay, as an outsider, at the height of the mania in 1864-65,
and one of the earliest to make the journey by mail-cart across the
province and Central India to the railway at Agra, we witnessed a state
of things, economic and social, which no report could gauge. In the five
years during which the cotton market of the world was transferred from
New Orleans to Bombay, Western India received eighty millions sterling
over and above the normal price of her produce before and since. So far
as this reached the cultivators it was well. That it largely reached
them, in spite of their ancestral usurers backed by the civil court
procedure, has been unhappily proved by the quantities of silver
ornaments sent down to the local Mint, in years of enhanced land-tax and
repeated scarcity and famine. So far as the sudden profit could be
utilised for the public good it was also well. Against the fatal
mismanagement of the semi-Government Bank of Bombay must be set Sir
Bartle Frere’s sale of the land on which the walls of the old fort
stood, to form a fund for the creation of New Bombay. But the bulk of
the profit was literally thrown into the sea, and with it the reputation
and the happiness of not a few of the leading European, Parsee, and
Hindoo merchants and bankers of the province. The catastrophe culminated
in 1867, in the fall of the old Bank of Bombay, which led even members
of the Government of India to recommend the prosecution of the guilty
parties in the criminal courts; in the collapse of the fund for building
New Bombay, which necessitated an addition to the ever-increasing Debt
of India; in the flight of speculators like him who, after buying the
Government-House at Dapoorie with paper, left an umbrella as his assets
; and in the exposure of countless scandals under the insolvent
jurisdiction of the High Court by Mr. Chisholm Anstey, who as an acting
Judge was no less pitiless to the gambling traders than he had proved to
be to the obscene high priests of Krishna. But England cannot throw a
stone at Bombay, for it was in the year before 1867 that Overend,
Gurney, and Company had led the panic race.
The millions which might have enriched and beautified Bombay and its
varied communities, were early and almost altogether directed to the
mania of reclaiming the foreshore of an Island which already covered
eighteen square miles. The harbour, beautiful and spacious by nature,
was destitute of wharf and jetty accommodation for the necessary
commerce. Before the mania there had been undertaken the legitimate and
praiseworthy enterprise of removing the reproach by establishing the
Elphinstone Company. The prospects and success of this really sound
project fired the possessors of the surplus capital of the cotton trade
with a dream of the profits to be obtained from reclaiming land. The
foreshore of the shallow and useless Back Bay, fit only for fisher
craft, became the object of the maddest of the Companies. Just above
that, forming the eastern side which shelters it from the great Indian
Ocean, rises Malabar Hill, and looking down on the generally peaceful
water is “The Cliff.” One morning when we happened to be breakfasting
with Dr. Wilson, he handed to us a letter received by urgent messenger.
“That,” he said, “will show you to what we have come in Bombay; but I do
not give the mania more than a year to collapse.” It was an offer from a
substantially rich native speculator, to purchase the cottage and garden
for a sum twenty times their original value. He of course put it from
him at once ; for, all other reasons apart, he was one of the few sane
men of Bombay at that time. Officials, chaplains, bankers—none escaped
the infection, it was said, save three, of whom he was the chief. His
entreaties, his counsels, his warnings, especially to his native
friends, were in vain. A half share of the Port Canning Company, which
threatened to lead away Calcutta also at one time, was assigned to him,
but the friend who did so took care not to tell him. When some time
after it was sold out and he became aware of the fact for the first
time, he devoted the money (Rs. 4194) to those benevolent purposes which
had seriously suffered from want of support at such a time.
These are extracts from a journal sent to his wife who had gone to
Scotland for six months:—
“22nd May 1865.—Many of the native firms are in great jeopardy from the
time bargains. The Kamas (a Parsee firm) have failed with upwards of
three millions sterling of responsibilities, and involve many. This is
but the beginning of the evil day, now instant.
“ 27th June.—I breakfasted this morning with the Heycocks. was present.
Poor fellow! his failure, I hear, is for £100,000. When my work at the
Institution was done I went to the Union Press, where our report is
printing. I there met Dr. Bhau Daji. He and his brother, and most of our
reforming friends, are ruined in their pecuniary positions by their rash
speculations. Even Mr.-, who had lately a fortune of £300,000, is in
great jeopardy. If--does not get through (and his liabilities amount to
two or three millions) our friend will almost certainly fail. He was
lately seized with the share-mania, and acted quite contrary to the
advice of all his friends. The close of this month is by the whole city
looked forward to with great apprehensions. Mr.--, your fellow-voyager,
has been telegraphed for by his Financial Association. Most of the
bankers are in a most perilous position as far as the shareholders (not
I believe the deposits) are concerned. The Bombay Bank Shares have been
selling at a discount! It is hoped, however, that Government will come
to its aid. Back Bay shares have been down to a Rs. 1000 premium, though
bought for Rs. 50,000 in some instances.
“22nd June.—In the Government Gazette of this morning the announcement
of Sir Alexander Grant as Director of Public Instruction, in succession
to Mr. Howard, appears. Mr. Howard remains to practise as a barrister ;
he has lost much by late speculations. I had the usual Marathee meeting
after the Institution work in the evening. David Manaji is now out of
employment in consequence of the curtailment of the Back Bay works. I
wish our friends would allow us to take him into the employment of the
mission, according to his request; hut our prospects for the present
year are very low, owing to the great losses following the bursting of
the share bubble.
“30th June.—I went through my ordinary duties. Much anxiety felt
throughout the city on account of the morrow being settlement day.
“1st July.—My lecture to-day, after my Sanskrit class, was on the
History of David. The payments on account of time bargains, etc., have
to a good extent been modified or postponed. Our friend had (it is said,
but I doubt it) £120,000 paid him by one of his creditors, which carries
him through his immediate difficulties ; -owes him £350,000 for shares,
etc.--’s liabilities are for £2,400,000. His assets are valued at
£1,600,000.”
TO DR. MURRAY MITCHELL.
“Bombay, 24th July 1867.—Since you left India great changes, both for
the better and the worse, have occurred. Bombay has had her day of
unequalled madness, and now it has her day of great sadness. The
mercantile failures (especially among the natives), and the losses to
our banks, have been astounding and far-reaching in their consequences ;
and there has been much fraud connected with them, by which the innocent
in many cases have suffered. It is scarcely to be wondered at that our
religious and philanthropic Institutions have their local resources much
curtailed, though it is sad to see retrenchment appearing so prominent
in that direction. It is our prayer that the affliction which has fallen
upon the city, in the retributive justice of God, not unmingled with
mercy, may be sanctified to many. The native mind is certainly more
sober at present than it has been for several years. The reforming party
(including about one hundred of our mission friends) have founded a
meeting for the social worship of God, but they have not yet come to a
conclusion about the treatment and practice of idolatry in their own
houses. We have some encouragement with the lads in our Institution. The
attendance at it is large, but I do not know that our Christian
influence over it expands with its extension. In other respects the
mission is getting on well. Colonel Tripe of Kampthee, who was much with
the converts and inquirers lately, formed a very favourable opinion of
them. He presented each of them with a book on practical religion, which
he gave them at an entertainment which they provided for him in the
Institution. The ordination of Baba Pudmanjee at Poona is appointed for
the 8th of August.”
Gradually, after the Mutiny, Bombay became the port of arrival and
departure for Anglo-Indians, as the railways extended eastward and
westward between it, Madras, and the metropolis of Calcutta. Thus the
flow of guests through “The Cliff*” steadily increased, till it might be
said that its hospitable owner became the best known man in India as
well as Bombay. From the first Viceroy Lord Canning, and his truly noble
wife, to the visit of the Prince of Wales, he was always in request as
guide, philosopher, and friend, amid the antiquities not only of Bombay
but of Salsette, Karla, and elsewhere. No distinguished person visited
the Governor without seeking an introduction to “the king of Bombay.” Of
these continuous hospitalities and intercourse we find few traces in his
correspondence, for, much as he delighted in them, they were too much a
part of his everyday life to demand chronicling, save when, as in Lord
Lawrence’s case, they crossed his one great work. The thirtieth
anniversary of his landing, and the passing of that statesman through
Bombay, led him to write thus to Dr. Tweedie:—
“I should require every missionary now coming to India to pass an
examination in the vernacular before his induction as a full missionary.
The Church Missionary Society is here acting on this principle. It is
one the propriety of which cannot for a moment be disputed. I intend to
show cause in it to yourself in a distinct letter. I have lately
received two letters on the subject from Bengal, but I intend to discuss
it entirely free of personal and local considerations. I do not think
that the missionaries are always to blame in the matter. We have thrust
work prematurely upon them ; and we cannot blame them for neglecting, in
the first instance, those studies for which we have left them no
leisure.
“To India I feel a growing attachment from year to year, its very woes
and miseries, in which I am constantly making new discoveries,
increasing the tender regard which I cherish in its behalf. I feel no
despair in connection with any of its interests. I see that it is a
part, an important part, of the Saviour’s purchased inheritance, and I
believe that ere long it must become His possession. My only regret is
that I can do so little to advance its interests. They will not fail in
the hands of Him who has on His vesture and on His thigh a name written,
King of kings and Lord of lords. I feel much encouraged, in connection
with its present destiny, by a conversation I had last night with Sir
John Lawrence, who proceeds to Europe by this mail. He s certainly one
of the most courageous of men, both physically and spiritually, his
Christian principle regulating and controlling all his movements. His
judgment and tact are equal to his courage. The very appearance of such
characters on the Indian scene on the day they have been specially
wanted, is a pledge from God of His purposes of mercy towards this great
and interesting land.”
Again, we find him mourning the death of Bishop Carr, in a letter to Mr.
Farish; seeking to comfort the widow when announcing the movement from
Serampore to raise a fund in commemoration of the services of the
accomplished Dr. Buist; and bidding farewell to old friends on their
final departure home, like Mr. Fraser Tytler, Dr. Harkness, and Sir
Bartle Frere. To one who has proved himself the most learned and
generous of true pundits in his own Edinburgh, as he long was the friend
of the Christian education of the Hindoos at Benares and elsewhere, Dr.
John Muir, C.I.E., he writes of Sanskrit MSS. Dr. Hanna he welcomes as
the new superintendent of the Foreign Missions of his Church at home,
and delights him with a report of the success of Mikhail Joseph’s
mission in South Arabia. All this time, and every year, a stream of
visitors passing east and west through Bombay, rested for a time at “The
Cliff,” from Dr. Livingstone and the Maharaja Dhuleep Singh, to the
young missionary and inexperienced traveller who sought counsel. Take
this specimen from the Notes of Miss Taylor, Dr. Wilson’s niece:—
1861 March 8th.—Maharanee’s body burned at Nasik. Dr. and Mrs. Wilson,
Miss Taylor, Madame Surtoo, a Native lady, who had been in England with
the Maharanee and became a Christian there, her little boy, and the
Maharaja, spent the day quietly at the Vehar Lake, Salsette.
12th.—Party in the Institution given by the Maharaja to all the
missionaries and Native Christians in Bombay; 300 Natives were present;
the Maharaja wore the Star of India.
13th.—Maharaja called to say good-bye. He took a very decided stand in
Bombay as a Christian.
22d.—Dr. Wilson lectured on board the “ Ajdaha,” to sailors, on “The
Shores of the Red Sea.”
June 23d.—Dr. Livingstone called. Dr. Wilson took him over the
Institution. Dr. Livingstone came to Bombay for a few days on his way
home from Africa. He crossed from Africa in the “Lady Nyassa,” a small
steamer, 115 feet long and 11 feet broad, built for lake navigation,
with a crew of seven Natives who had never seen the sea before. They
came down with him to the coast at Zanzibar. He did this in the monsoon,
too. Somehow they entered the harbour of Bombay unobserved, and Dr.
Livingstone landed with no one to meet him—no one knew he was coming—and
found his way in a deluge of rain in an old shigram to Dr. Wilson’s. The
Governor was in Poona. Dr. Livingstone left with Dr. Wilson, to be
educated, two African boys, Chuma and Wykatane. They attended the
Institution for a year and a half, and learned a little English. They
boarded in a Native Christian family. They were baptized by Dr. Wilson
at Dr. Livingstone’s request, just before he took them back to Africa,
in the end of 1865. Dr. Livingstone thought it would make a good
impression on their minds, and be a safeguard to them in their future
life. Every one knows how faithfully Chuma kept by Dr. Livingstone to
the last, and brought his body to England. Wykatane had been rescued by
Bishop Mackenzie and his party from a slave-catching gang, and was a
great favourite of Bishop Mackenzie’s. On Dr. Livingstone’s last journey
he became lame, and had to be left behind.
Dec. 23d.—Dr. Wilson went with Sir Bartle Frere to visit the Rajah of
Dongurpore. He was staying in Dr. Wilson’s old house at Ambrolie, and
Sir Bartle recalled how he himself had gone there as a young man with a
letter of introduction to Dr. Wilson.
1865. Jan. 16th.—Dr. Wilson lectured in the Town-Hall on “ The Wandering
Tribes of India.”
Feb. 1st.—Sir Dinkur Rao, ex-minister of Sindhia, called.
Sept. 11th.—Dr. Livingstone arrived from England on his way to make his
last journey of discovery in Africa. He called on Dr. Wilson the day
after his arrival, but Dr. Wilson was out. He went immediately to Poona
to see the Governor, and to Nasik to arrange about some of the African
Christians there going with him to Africa.
October 6th.—Dr. Livingstone came from Poona and stayed with Dr. Wilson
till the 20th—a fortnight.
7th.—Dr. Wilson and Dr. Livingstone walked to see the temples at
Walkeshwar (Malabar Point).
8th.—Dr. Livingstone at the Free Church, and at the Marathee Service in
the Native Church.
9th.—Dr. Livingstone called with Sir Bartle Frere on the Sultan of
Zanzibar.
10th,.—Dr. Livingstone went with Captain Leith to select men from the
Marine Battalion to go with him to Africa.
11th.—Durbar in Town-Hall in honour of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Dr.
Livingstone there.
12th.—Dr. Livingstone lectured on Africa in the Town-Hall. Dr. Wilson
said it was the most enthusiastic meeting he had ever seen in Bombay.
The lecture was very simple. Dr. Livingstone said much the same things
and in much the same way as he did in conversation. A subscription was
begun then which soon realised more than Rs. 7000, to help the
expedition. Dr. Livingstone refused to accept it as a personal gift. The
Bombay branch of the Geographical Society wished to present him with an
address, and Captain Sherard Osborn was to read it, but Dr. Livingstone
declined to come forward, and said he would rather have it if he should
be spared to come back from Africa.
19th.—Drove through the native town to see the Diwallee illuminations.
Nov. 18th.—Dr. Wilson called on Lord Edward Seymour (eldest son of the
Duke of Somerset) at the Governor’s bungalow, Malabar Point. Lord E.
Seymour went out to travel in India. He visited the Institution, and
examined some of the classes himself, and took a great interest in all
that he saw. He died soon after, at Belgaum, from the effect of injuries
he got when hunting a bear.
14th—Dr. Wilson, Dr. Livingstone, Lord Edward Seymour, and some others
went to Elephanta.
Dec. 8th.—Dr. Wilson, Dr. Livingstone, and a party of gentlemen went to
the Kanheri Caves, Salsette. Party was arranged by Mr. Alexander Brown,
son of Dr. Charles Brown, Edinburgh.
10th.—Chuma and Wykatane baptized by Dr. Wilson in presence of Dr.
Livingstone.
12th.—Large party at Dr. Wilson’s to meet Dr. Livingstone.
21st—Dr. Wilson went to Nagpore to the Exhibition.
1866. 1st Jan.—Dr. Livingstone and the two boys came to say good-bye.
3d, Wednesday.—Dr. Livingstone sailed for Africa in the “ Thule.” Dr.
Livingstone was engaged most of the time he was in Bombay in
preparations for his expedition. He also visited Goojarat. The Rev.
Joseph Taylor (son of the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of Belgaum), of the Irish
Presbyterian Mission in Goojarat, was at college with Dr. Livingstone,
and they lodged together in Glasgow. Dr. Livingstone left for Africa,
accompanied by eight or nine Christian Africans from Nasik, the same
number, I think, of Sepoys of the Marine Battalion Bombay (they deserted
him in Africa, and found their way back to Bombay with a story of his
having been murdered), Chuma and Wykatane, and the Africans who had come
across with him in 1864. They stayed in Bombay while he was in England,
and used to come to Dr. Wilson’s to get news of him. Dr. Livingstone
wished to have no European companion.
In January 1866 Lady Franklin visited Bombay, and Dr. Wilson saw her a
few times. She spent one evening with Dr. and Mrs. Wilson.
Nov.—In this month Dr. Norman Macleod and Dr. Watson arrived in Bombay.
They stayed with two young merchants. They spent most of a day with Dr.
Wilson, going over the Institution, and another day in the Boarding
School and Female Schools, and calling on several native gentlemen. They
attended the Marathee service, and sat down with the native congregation
at the Communion. Dr. Macleod read Wee Davie in the Town-Hall, for the
benefit of the Scottish Orphanage.
1868. March 20th.—Mr. Clarke of Gya and Dr. Watson called.
23rd.—Kesliub Chunder Sen came to breakfast.
Oct. 23rd.—Dr. Wilson visited the Rajah of Kolhapore.
Dec. 21st.—Dr. Wilson attended a reception at Parell for Lord and Lady
Mayo and Lord Napier.
29th.—Foundation-stone of University laid by Lord Mayo, Dr. Wilson,
Vice-Chancellor. Dr. Wilson, after the ceremony, went to Elephanta with
the Government-House party.
1869. Jan. 28th.—Native Church opened. First service in the morning at
eight.
March 17th.—Dr. Wilson and I started for Calcutta. Lord Napier was a
fellow-passenger to Nagpore, on his way to the Durbar at Umballa. We
stayed a day or two at Nagpore with the Coopers, then went on to
Serampore and Calcutta.
April 3d.—Large party at Mr. Fyfe’s, of Europeans and Native Christians,
to meet Dr. Wilson.
From Serampore we went to Benares, and spent a day with Messrs. Hutton
and Blake, London Mission; next to Mirzapoi'e, and stayed with Mr.
Sherring; Allahabad, with Mr. and Mrs. Walsh, American Mission ;
Cawnpore, Agra, Umballa, with Dr. Morrison; Subathoo, with Dr. Newton,
Medical Missionary. At Simla Dr. Wilson was the guest of Lord Mayo for
about ten days. His old friend, Sir Donald M‘Leod, was there at the same
time, also Sir Douglas Forsyth.
June 28th.—Dr. Wilson dined with Mr. H. Rivett-Carnac, at the Byculla
Club, to meet General Vlangally, Russian ambassador from China.
Aug. 31st.—Lord Napier went home. Dr. Wilson went to say good-bye to him
at the Boree Bunder Station.
Nov. 13th.—Bishop of Madras called. Dr. Wilson dined with Mr. Fox to
meet him.
10th.—Captain Beaumont and Mr. J. Candlish, M.P. for Sunderland, at
breakfast.
29th.—Mr. Shaw called—the traveller who had been a year in Kashgar.
1870.—Dr. Wilson went, in January, to Jalna and Nasik.
22d.—Dr. Wilson called on Dr. Prime, editor of New York Observer,
travelling with a party round the world. Dr. Elmslie, Cashmere, at tea.
Feb. 1st.—Dr. Wilson lectured in Town-Hall on “Marathee Country and
People.”
Feb. 3d.—Dr. Wilson at a party given by Chief of Jamkhundee.
12th.—Addresses to students and Native Christians of Bombay.
19^.—Left Bombay for Scotland.
It was a Bombay officer, Richard F. Burton, who, in 1857, set out from
Aden to East Africa to find the great lake reported by the Church
Missionaries at Zanzibar. That proved to be Tanganika. In 1860 Baron
Yonder Decken first struck out what has thus far proved a more important
route into the lake region of Africa, that to Lake Nyassa from Kilwa.
But it was Dr. Livingstone, in many respects a man like Dr. Wilson, who,
after discovering Lake Nga-mi so early as 1849, and crossing South
Africa from the Atlantic to the Zambesi and the Indian Ocean in 1854-5,
opened up Lake Nyassa itself, and pronounced it the spot, of all Africa,
for such a missionary settlement as had killed the slave-trade by lawful
commerce at Sierra Leone. His great Zambesi expedition, which lasted
from 1858 to 1864, confirmed his desire to see Nyassa the centre of
light to Eastern Africa. His passing visit to Bombay in June 1864,
described by Miss Taylor, was repeated in September 1865, when he
returned from England to organise in that capital the greatest of all
his journeys of exploration, in which, after seven years, he died. We
remember well the enthusiasm which his address, first at Poona and then
in Bombay, excited all over India, when he compared Eastern Africa
physically to the low Konkan and high Ghauts and uplands of Western
India, and declared that all Great Britain was doing for the people of
India she must yet do for the negroes of Africa. And there, he said,
Nyassa is the spot. How well his vision is being realised, first by Mr.
Young, B.N., who went to help him, and then by his companion Dr. Stewart
of Lovedale, who together have there established the Livingstonia
settlement of the Free Church of Scotland, every year is revealing.
In all the public enthusiasm which bore rich pecuniary fruit for the
last expedition, and in organising the details, as in the relaxation of
delightful social intercourse, Dr. Wilson was foremost. But perhaps his
best gift to Livingstone was the Christian training of the two little
slave-boys left with him eighteen months before—Chuma and Wykatan6. The
baptism was to both the heroic missionaries a joy, and all know the
fruit it bore. The beginning of 1866 saw Dr. Livingstone at Zanzibar
with a letter of commendation from Sir Bartle Frere to the Sultan, and
charged with the pleasant duty of presenting to his Highness the
gun-boat “Thule,” in which he had crossed the Indian Ocean, as a gift
from the Government of Bombay. From that sad hour on the 27th April
1873, when Livingstone made his last note in his Journal, Chuma became
leader of the caravan, and brought safely to Lieutenant Cameron the
precious remains which find fit resting-place in the nave of Westminster
Abbey. To him, and to Susi, Amoda, and the two Nasik boys, his faithful
comrades since 1864-5, Mr. Waller, the editor of the Last Journals, has
expressed the nation’s gratitude. And hardly less is due to Wykatane, of
whom, in his Nyassa, Mr. Young, RN., gives us this glimpse, showing how
the light from Bombay had penetrated all the darkness of the slave-boy’s
life, and continued to shine, however dimly, as years passed on. The
scene is the jungle at night, near Livingstonia, among the Maviti; the
time is September 1876. “I called to Wykatane, who lay in the next hut,
and asked him who was singing: he replied that it was he. On telling him
to repeat it, I found it was one of the chants used by the missionaries
sixteen years ago in the hills at Magomero. Remembering how much pains
Dr. Livingstone had taken with him, and good Dr. Wilson too, I asked him
if he remembered anything of the former days. He said, ‘ This is what
Dr. Livingstone taught me :—
“This night I lay me down to sleep,
I give my soul to Christ to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray to God my soul to take. Amen.’
In the long interval since he had seen white men he had forgotten nearly
all the English he ever knew; but those lines, together with some few
simple questions and answers taught him by Dr. Wilson, he could repeat.”
When, at the end of 1864, we presided at the examination of Dr. Wilson’s
college, Chuma and Wykatane were prominent in the class of catechumens
gathered from all the natives of the East. Chuma is now assisting Mr.
Thomson, representing the Royal Geographical Society, in his attempt to
reach the head of Lake Nyassa from Dar-es-Salaam.
During Livingstone’s wanderings in the last seven years of his life he
wrote to no friend so frequently as to Dr. Wilson. This is one of his
then confidential communications, which Dr. Wilson at once submitted
both to the Viceroy of India and to Dr. Duff, in the Free Church Foreign
Missions’ Office :—
DR. LIVINGSTONE TO DR. WILSON.
“About twelve days east of Tanganyika,
“{Private.) 24th January 1872.
“My dear Dr. Wilson—This is not my first letter to you, but I have been
in the slave-mart of East Africa, and looked on as a spy, and letters to
and from me have nearly all been destroyed between this and the sea. All
who have an interest in the slave-trade hate to think of me as sure to
expose their proceedings. The sources of the Nile they know to be a
sham, and what I have seen of the horrid system makes me feel that its
suppression would be of infinitely more importance than all the
fountains together; so my Arab and Banian friends are not so far wrong.
I am now going east to a point called by Speke Kazieh, but by the
natives and Arabs Unyanyembe, in order to get the remains of some £500
worth of goods, which were unfortunately entrusted to slaves, and these
slaves like jolly fellows have been feasting on my stores ever since the
end of October 1870. A precious £500 or £600 worth of goods were also
committed to slaves, and at Ujiji the headman sold off all for slaves
and ivory for himself. He divined on the Koran and found I was dead ! My
friend Dr. Kirk has unintentionally inflicted these losses by going to a
Banian for money when my cheques on Bombay were destroyed. He put the
affair in the hands of his slaves, and I lost all. The second £500 was
half of £1000 sent most kindly by H.M. Government, and this was given by
the same Banian, called Sudha, to slaves again. I thought every one knew
that our Government is stringently opposed to its officers employing
slave labour, but Dr. Kirk—‘companion of Livingstone,’ Sir Koderick
calls him—evidently did not; so he has, most unwittingly of course,
inflicted a loss of two years’ time, at least 1800 miles of tramp, and
what money I don’t exactly know. Sudha probably told him that he could
not get pagazi or carriers, but Mr. Stanley, travelling correspondent of
the New York Herald, was told the same tale by Sudha, and went over to
the mainland where my slaves lay and feasted four months, and secured
one hundred and forty pagazi in a few days. Mr. Stanley was sent to my
aid by James Gordon Bennett junior, at an expense of over £4000, and
with the goods he offers I hope to finish up my task. I don’t wish to
injure Kirk, but I expected better than the ignorance and gross neglect
he has displayed. [This was afterwards explained.] Nearly all the
slave-trade is carried on by Sudha’s and other Banians’ money, and they
manage adroitly to let the odium rest on their Arab agents, ancl being
English subjects we protect them; and they instilled it into the minds
of all the slaves they sent not to follow but force me back.
“I wish I could give a better report of the Africans I took with me from
Bombay. Those from Nassick began by sending me at Bombay an anonymous
letter, abusing the teachers who had fed, clothed, and taught them for
years. On sending it to Mr. Price for identification, he made a whine
about the ‘ poor boys,’ and quashed it. All their desires in Africa were
to get back to live in idleness at Nassick; and to annoy me they
reiterated perpetually ‘ Mr. Price told us lies.’ They knew that I could
not relish a clergyman being called a liar. On demanding an explanation,
they replied that he said that they were first to go to Mozambique and
then return and get wives at Nassick. This was so evidently false I let
them rave to each other about their benefactor unnoticed. All pretended
that they did not know what tribes they came from. I was to leave them
with their friends, but they knew that they had all been slaves, and
would be treated as slaves again, and forced to work. We met the two
uncles of one called Abram or Ibrahim. I advised him to remain with
them, but he said, ‘ I have no mother, no sister here ; I cannot live
with my uncles.’ The mother and sisters would have cultivated for him,
hence his desire to have them. On the desertion of the Johanna men they
did pretty fairly, because I employed the country people to do my work ;
but on coming in contact with Arab slaves they turned back to their
youthful habits of lying, stealing, and every vice. One called Simon
Price begged ammunition from some Arab traders when I refused it, and
being able to shoot in safety came and reported to me that he had killed
two of the men who had been most kind to us. Other two boasted of having
committed murder too. Price first bragged of the two slain, then
justified himself, then denied it. All showed eagerness to engage
uninvited in slave-hunting, and it was mortifying to see them march into
the Arab camp, as I did, with captive women. Simon Price and Ibrahim
even begged Muhamad Bagharib to make them his slaves.
I was afraid to call Price a Christian carpenter or Ibrahim a
blacksmith—one could not cut a piece of wood straight even when chalked
out for him ; the blacksmith had never welded iron. Mr. Price cannot
have known this, but if you can inform the Bombay Government privately,
and propose a ship anchored in a healthy spot as a school where real
bona fide work would be taught, it would be a benefit to the community.
Taught to cook, wash, sew, all the jobs sailors can do, and discipline
enforced, these poor unfortunates would prove a blessing. At present the
teachers fear them ; they dread their desertion, and bringing an ill
name on Nassick school; and the Africans see it and take full advantage
of it either to work or play.—Salaam to Dr. Birdwood and Mrs. Wilson.
David Livingstone.”
Unyanyembe, 13th March 1872.
“This goes off to-morrow by Mr. Stanley, kindly sent to my aid by James
Gordon Bennett of New York at an expense of over £4000. I have got all I
need to finish up my work. Please not to publish this, but keep it for
yourself. D. L.
“I am obliged to draw on the £645 collected at Bombay. Thought two years
sufficient; it is now six years, and I am not finished until I see the
ancient fountains of Herodotus, if they exist. What do you say about
them?”
Still more remarkable than in Chuma’s case was the providence which in
1837 led Dr. Wilson unconsciously to prepare two Abyssinian youths for
the deliverance of their country by Lord Napier’s expedition of 1867. We
have told how, in the former year, Dr. Wolff sent to Bombay for
instruction in Dr. Wilson’s college, and residence under his roof, Gabru
and Maricha Warka, with their father, a high officer in the Abyssinian
army. The two lads became most active catechists, occasionally
accompanied Dr. Wilson in his tours, and left him only at Aden, whence,
in 1843, he sent them with his benediction to evangelise their own
people, and the oldest but most corrupt of Christian Churches. They
found the almost chronic conflict of chief with chief raging, and
attempted by personal intercourse and discussion to influence the
priests. Very close, and at this time very pathetic, seems their
correspondence with Dr. and especially with Mrs. Wilson to have been.
They were at first supported by the kirk-session of the native church in
Bombay, which thus early sought to evangelise the regions beyond. After
a visit to the old scenes, on Dr. Wilson’s return from Scotland they
settled down at Adowah, where for a long time they conducted a vigorous
mission school, encouraged by the periodical epistles from Ambrolie.
What a picture this is of the influence of the old mission home, in a
letter written by Maricha from Aden on his return to his native country
for the second time, in April 1849 :—
“Yes! it is a dream; and not only so, but it is a mystery and an awful
dream that troubles my thoughts. Let me only be thinking of that family
where I was brought up from my childhood, especially when now and then I
think myself to be seated round that family altar ; beside me I see
Hormasdjee and Gabru, and there I see you both—you, Sir, whom we love
like a father, and by you sitting one whom we love like a mother. I see
the large family Bible and the Psaim-book in your hands. I see you
meeting round that family altar to offer up a living sacrifice. I hear
you praying, especially for Ethiopia’s soon stretching out her hands
unto God. From upstairs let me take you down where I used to meet among
the different denominations that have come out from darkness to light,
and from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of Christ. From thence let
me convey you to that holy spot, which spot is to be desired more than
all the dwellings of Jacob. There I hear the harmonious songs of Zion,
that carry the heart, as it were, to the third heaven. And what shall I
not say more of Zion? yes, I might tell of the pure doctrines that are
taught Sabbath after Sabbath, but the time will not allow me to do so.
Alas ! is it true that I am to dwell with a people who have no fear of
God in their sight? Yes, my soul, thou art no more in that holy society,
thou art no more round that family altar where thou usedst often to sit,
where thou usedst to be glad when they said unto thee, ‘ Let us go up to
the house of God.’ Now then is the time for thee to cry out with a loud
voice, ‘ My soul longeth, yea fainteth, for the courts of the Lord ; my
heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.’ ”
The years passed as the young men married and carried on their
mission-school, when they suddenly became of vast importance to the
Commander-in-Chief of Bombay and the Viceroy of India. From the third
day of 1864 the chief Theodorus, who called himself emperor of
Abyssinia, had kept in confinement Consul Cameron and several German
missionaries. When Mr. Rassam, an Armenian friend of Sir Austen Layard,
along with Dr. Blanc and Lieutenant Prideaux of the Bombay army, had
been sent as an envoy for their release, they too were put in chains.
Still neither Lord Palmerston and the one party, nor Lord Stanley and
the other party moved, in spite of the most persistent representations
from the Government of India. The shame of it was such that, anonymously
at the time, Sir George Yule asked us to publish his offer of Rs. 20,000
to fit out a volunteer expedition to rescue the captives who had
languished under the power of a madman for nearly four years. That was
on the 1st August 1867. The close of that year saw an imperial
expedition of 50,000 men, including followers, on the way to Abyssinia,
and the advance guard above the Ghauts at Senafe, whence the march to
Magdala and its fall proved a holiday excursion that cost several
millions sterling. How much of the facility with which the work was
accomplished was due to the two Abyssinian students of Dr. Wilson, may
be imagined from these circumstances. They had risen to be the official
councillors of Kassai, the Prince of Tigre, who steadfastly supported
the British in spite of the urgent overtures of Egypt and Turkey. In
frequent telegrams and despatches Lord Napier of Magdala warmly
acknowledged their services. The special correspondents with the
expedition were even more emphatic, the most experienced of them writing
thus :—“ The belief that, in connection with the campaign in Abyssinia,
England owed more to the Free Church of Scotland’s Mission Institution
in Bombay than it does to any institution in the Presidency, the
Government itself and the commissariat department not excepted, was
entertained by not a few.”
In truth, when her Majesty’s Government had tardily resolved on the
expedition, the first men consulted by Lord, then Sir Robert Napier,
were two missionaries. Mr. Blumhardt, half a century before a Church
Missionary in the country, and then in the peaceful Bengalee villages of
Christian Krishnaghur, was asked for information, and was invited to
accompany the force as interpreter. At Lord Lawrdnce’s request we at
once published at Serampore the Amharic vocabulary which that missionary
hastily drew up, since old age denied him the privilege of going in
person. Dr. Wilson received several letters from the
Quartermaster-General of the army calling into requisition his
multifarious information and experience on all details, from the history
of the ancient church of Ethiopia to a certain breed of camels well
adapted for mountain work. All his replies were submitted to the new
Governor, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, who had succeeded Sir Bar tie Frere.
Lord Napier gladly accepted the Bible Society’s gift of books to the
soldiers of the expedition, and to the hospitals. The result, to
himself, of the war, for the humane and bloodless fruits of which, then
and since, Dr. Wilson is in a large sense responsible, was further work
for the people of Abyssinia. With the approval of the Government of
India General Merewether entrusted to his training two Anglo-Abyssinian
girls, and two Abyssinian boys, Pedro and Wuldee Magios, one of whom had
helped the captives, while the other had been presented by Prince Kassai
to the conqueror. Lord Napier desired to place the son of Theodoras
under his care, to fit the boy for a career in Abyssinia hereafter; but
the English authorities decided that the youth should be trained in
England, where he is passing through the Royal Military College at
Sandhurst. So the radius of light and life from the Bombay mission went
on ever extending. The prince whom Gabru and Maricha counselled so well,
has, as Negoos and King Johannes,1 given to the people of Abyssinia a
degree of peace and prosperity which only the unprovoked aggression of
the late Mussulman Khedive of Egypt broke for a time. |
