Solution Manual for Android How to Program 3rd Edition Deitel

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Welcome App 2
Ob j e cti v e s
In this chapter you’ll:
■ Learn the basics of the
Android Studio IDE, which
you’ll use to write, test and
debug your Android apps.
■ Use the IDE to create a new
app project.
■ Design a graphical user
interface (GUI) visually
(without programming)
using the IDE’s layout editor.
■ Display text and an image in a
GUI.
■ Edit the properties of views
(GUI components).
■ Build and launch an app in
the Android emulator.
■ Make the app more accessible
to visually impaired people by
specifying strings for use with
Android’s TalkBack and
Explore-by-Touch features.
■ Support internationalization
so your app can display
strings localized in different
languages.

© 2017 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

© Copyright 2016 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

2 Chapter 2 Welcome App

Self-Review Exercises
2.1 Fill in the blanks in each of the following statements:
a) Layout files are considered app resources and are stored in the project’s fold-
er. GUI layouts are placed within that folder’s layout subfolder.
ANS: res.
b) When designing an Android GUI, you typically want it to be so that it dis-
plays properly on various devices.
ANS: scalable.
c) You can easily your app by creating additional XML resource files for string
resources in other languages.
ANS: localize.
d) The two measurement units for density independent pixels are and .
ANS: dp and dip.
e) enables the user to hear TalkBack speak what’s on the screen where the user
touches.
ANS: Explore by Touch.
f) Android uses a special folder-naming scheme to automatically choose the correct local-
ized resources—for example, the folder would contain a strings.xml file for
French and the folder would contain a strings.xml file for Spanish.
ANS: values-fr, values-es.
2.2 State whether each of the following is true or false. If false, explain why.
a) Android Studio is used to create and test Android apps.
ANS: True.
b) A RelativeLayout arranges views relative to one another or relative to their parent con-
tainer.
ANS: True.
c) A LinearLayout arranges views horizontally.
ANS: False. A LinearLayout arranges views horizontally or vertically.
d) To center the text in the TextView, set its alignment property to center.
ANS: False. To center the text in the TextView, set its gravity property to center.
e) Android’s accessibility features help people with various disabilities use their devices.
ANS: True.
f) For people with visual disabilities, Android’s SpeakBack can speak screen text or text
that you provide to help the user understand the purpose of a GUI component.
ANS: False. The feature is named TalkBack.
g) It’s considered a best practice in Android to ensure that every GUI component can be
used with TalkBack by providing text for the contentDescription property of any
component that does not display text.
ANS: True.

Exercises
2.3 Fill in the blanks in each of the following statements:
a) Android Studio’s allows you to build GUIs using drag-and-drop techniques.
ANS: layout editor.
b) For an app based on the Empty Activity template, the GUI layout is stored in an XML
file called , by default.
ANS: activity_main.xml.

© 2017 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

© Copyright 2016 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 Exercises 3

c) The default GUI for an app based on the Empty Activity template consists of a(n)
(layout) and a TextView containing "Hello world!".
ANS: RelativeLayout.
d) The documentation for supporting multiple screen sizes recommends that you use den-
sity-independent pixels for the dimensions of GUI components and other screen ele-
ments and for font sizes.
ANS: scale-independent pixels
e) One density-independent pixel is equivalent to one pixel on a screen with 160 dpi (dots
per inch). On a screen with 240 dpi, each density-independent pixel will be scaled by a
factor of .
ANS: 240/160 (i.e., 1.5).
f) On a screen with 120 dpi, each density-independent pixel is scaled by a factor of
. So, the same component that’s 100 density-independent pixels wide will
be 75 actual pixels wide.
ANS: 120/160 (i.e., .75).
2.4 State whether each of the following is true or false. If false, explain why.
a) For images to render nicely, a high-pixel-density device needs lower-resolution images
than a low-pixel-density device.
ANS: False. For images to render nicely, a high-pixel-density device needs higher-resolution
images than a low-pixel-density device.
b) It’s considered a good practice to “externalize” strings, string arrays, images, colors, font
sizes, dimensions and other app resources so that you, or someone else on your team,
can manage them separately from your application’s code.
ANS: True.
c) You can use the Layout editor to create a working app without writing any Java code.
ANS: True.
2.5 (Scrapbooking App) Find three open source images of famous landmarks using websites
such as Flickr. Create an app in which you arrange the images in a collage. Add text that identifies
each landmark. Recall that image file names must use all lowercase letters.
ANS: This is nearly identical to the Welcome app, but consists of three ImageViews and
three TextViews. Using the layout editor, place an ImageView then TextView onto a
LinearLayout, then repeat this process two more times. Use smaller font sizes for the
captions, so that more space can be used to display the images.
2.6 (Scrapbooking App with Accessibility) Using the techniques you learned in Section 2.7, en-
hance your solution to Exercise 2.5 to provide strings that can be used with Android’s TalkBack ac-
cessibility feature. If you have an Android device available to you, test the app on the device with
TalkBack enabled.
ANS: This requires the same steps we demonstrated in Section 2.7 for the Welcome app’s
TextView and ImageViews. For this exercise, apply the steps to all three TextViews and
all three ImageViews.
2.7 (Scrapbooking App with Internationalization) Using the techniques you learned in
Section 2.8, enhance your solution to Exercise 2.6 to define a set of strings for another spoken lan-
guage. Use an online translator service, such as translate.google.com to translate the strings and
place them in the appropriate strings.xml resource file. Use the instructions in Section 2.8 to test
the app on an AVD (or a device if you have one available to you).
ANS: This requires the same steps we demonstrated in Section 2.8 for the Welcome app’s
Strings. To translate the app’s Strings, students can use an online translation service
such as http://translate.google.com or http://www.bing.com/translator/. When
localizing a for-sale app, Strings should be translated by someone with locale-specific
exp©er2t0is1e7toPenarssuoren tEhdaut ctahteiotne,xtInm
c.a, kHeos bso
enkesen,inNeJa. cA
hllspriogkhetsn rleasnegruvaegde. and dialect.

© Copyright 2016 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

© 2017 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.
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 The lads, girls and women who were not permitted to go to the fight
brought out their most powerful fetish, and placing it in the middle of a
cleared space, danced round it, and as they circled about the ugly image
they sang: “You fetish, you must kill any one who is bewitching our
fighting men.” Hour after hour, through all the long morning and
afternoon they assiduously danced and repeated their wearisome and
monotonous injunction to their fetish.
Meanwhile, Satu led his men towards his insulter’s town; but in a
valley that skirted the hill upon which his enemy’s town was built he saw
Dimbula and his followers drawn up in fighting array. They were
arranged in a long line behind trees, stones, ants’ nests, hillocks and any
other cover they could find. Satu took his men to within sixty yards of
the enemy, and then spread them in a long line. Abusive expressions of
defiance were hurled at each other, each side ridiculing the bravery of the
other, and asking if they had enough powder for the fight.
When they became tired of shouting, they began to fire their guns at
one another across the open bush. One man would load, run out and fire
his gun, and return to cover; then another did the same, and sometimes
there was simply a flash in the pan and no report at all. Through the
whole of the day they fired at one another in this desultory manner, and
not a single person on either side was hit. Their guns carried only about
thirty yards with any effect, but they generally fired at a distance of
about fifty yards. Again, as the butts of their guns were not pressed
against their shoulders to steady them while taking aim, but held against
the palms of the hands, or against nothing at all, they had free play, and
the kick of the guns sent the slugs anywhere but in a straight line. In fact
Tumbu, a lad, one day was standing well up the hill some distance above
the combatants when a spent slug struck him on the leg, scratching the
skin. You see it was not steady, calm aiming that caused a bullet to go
straight; but the concoction the “medicine man” put in their charms, and
if the bullets went in any direction but the right one it was not their fault,
but their charms were not properly compounded, or their enemies had
more powerful “medicine.”
The fighting had lasted some ten days when it was noticed by Satu’s
party that their enemy’s firing was neither so frequent nor so loud, an
evident proof that Dimbula’s boasted supply of gunpowder was running
short.
It was now that a slave belonging to one of Satu’s head men ran
forward in reckless bravado to fire at the enemy, and was himself struck
by a bullet in the stomach. A fight with knives and clubbed guns took
place over the fallen man.
Dimbula’s men wanted to secure the body, and Satu’s men resisted the
attempt for the following reason: If the corpse fell into the hands of the
enemy they would cut off the head, and soak it in water until the skull
was freed of all flesh. Then the victor would either put it in a prominent
place on a pole as a reproach to the conquered, or he would use it as a
drinking-cup. The spirit of a man thus mutilated haunts and kills by
witchcraft, not the man who slew him, but the members of his own
family. Thus, on the one hand they fight to preserve the body intact so as
not to have the vengeance of the spirit falling on them as a family; and
on the other hand they fight to mutilate the enemy’s body so that his
family may be done to death by the angry spirit. Hence the fight now
raged over the body of the fallen man.
But Satu’s men were too strong, and, at really close quarters, too
brave[62] to give way to the insulter of their popular chief, and after a
short, sharp scuffle, in which several were wounded on both sides,
Dimbula’s men took to their heels and bolted towards their town,
shouting loudly to the women and children to fly to the forest.
Satu, calling his men about him, gave chase up the hill and into the
town, simply to find it deserted. They raided the houses, taking the little
treasures that had been overlooked in the hurried flight of their owners,
gathered fowls, goats and pigs, and drove them off to their town; but
before leaving they pulled out the ridge-pole of Dimbula’s house, and
carried it away in triumph--for to take the ridge-pole of a chief’s house
against whom you are fighting is like capturing a royal standard in an
English battle.
Satu and his fighters returned with their loot in great jubilation; but on
arriving in their town their victorious ardour was somewhat damped by
hearing that the slave had died from his wound, and several others had
severe cuts and gashes gained in the mêlée over the fallen man. The
owner of the slave was very much annoyed at the destruction of his
property, and said: “How is it my slave was killed and no one else?
Surely he was bewitched!” He accused Satu of bewitching him, and the
chief would have had to take the ordeal to clear himself of the charge;
but the slain man was a slave, and no free man or chief ever takes the
ordeal on account of a slave. Satu, however, soothed the vexed man by
promising to make Dimbula pay for the slave, or give another in his
place.
 Next morning Satu led his men out again; but no sooner had they
begun to fire than Dimbula’s voice could be heard shouting: “Luve!
luve! luve!” or “Peace! peace! peace!”
Instantly upon hearing this cry for peace all fighting, according to
custom, must cease; consequently Satu told his men to stop firing. Then
a small company of men coming across the valley could be seen, the
foremost of whom was Dimbula, and behind him came a neighbouring
chief carrying on his shoulders a white goat. Dimbula took the white
goat, and kneeling in front of Satu, said: “I do not want any more
fighting, and in token of my submission I offer you this white goat.”
Satu accepted the goat, and said: “I am glad to receive your white goat
of submission; but I cannot promise you a lasting peace until you have:
First, paid homage to me as a noble of rank; secondly, compensated my
head man for a slave killed in the fight; and lastly, paid one hundred kegs
of gunpowder and fifty pieces of cloth to compensate us.”
Dimbula begged for better terms, and pleaded poverty, stating truly
that he had not the powder and cloth. All the swaggering arrogance of
the bully had gone out of his tone and demeanour as he cringed on the
ground before his conqueror; and as he crouched there he was seen in his
true character--a coward.
To him Satu replied: “The homage you can pay now while you are
kneeling before me; the slave you can also repay at once to my head
man, for I know you have slaves; and for the rest you can hand over one
of your brothers and two of your nephews for me to hold in pawn until
you have paid the agreed price. This is fair, and I have only one mouth.”
Dimbula knew that it would be waste of time to plead further, and in
his heart he was surprised that the conditions were so generous; so
swallowing his pride he paid homage to his victor as N gudi a nkama
Katendi. He then called one of his slaves and offered him to Satu’s head
man, who, being satisfied with his healthy appearance, accepted him
with alacrity. He then called his young brother and two nephews, and,
promising to redeem them as soon as possible, put their hands in Satu’s,
thus completing the conditions of peace.
In the meantime, a nganga was called who came with some stalks,
leaves and palm-wine. He pressed the juice out of the stalks into the
wine, and well mixing them he dipped the leaves in the liquid, touched
the chiefs with the leaves and sprinkled the rest of the mixture
indiscriminately over the fighters and people of both sides. Thus peace
was established. To ensure this peace for all time, so far as these two
men were concerned, the nganga let a little blood from them, and gave
each to drink the blood taken from the other; then two needles were
solemnly buried and the whilom enemies became henceforth staunch
friends and blood brothers.
Down somewhere in Dimbula’s cruel, bullying, arrogant nature was a
soft place for his nephews and brother, for at once he began to trade, nor
did he rest until he had gained sufficient to redeem his relatives by taking
the hundred kegs of powder, the fifty pieces of cloth, and the necessary
three white goats to cleanse them from all taint of slavery. Besides, he
was eager to reinstate himself with the neighbouring chiefs, among
whom he had lost his position as a defeated man too poor to meet the
terms of peace. And Satu, as a proof of his increasing friendship for
Dimbula, gave him back the ridge-pole that had been torn from his
house.
 Chapter XVIII
Governing, Marketing, and Trading Customs
The making and enforcing of laws--Fines imposed--Division of fines--Congo week of four days
probably named after their markets--Raids and robberies--Preparing a caravan for the road--
Rules of the road--Arriving at a trading-station--Mode of trading--Goods given and
received.

F rom this time Satu could not engage in trading expeditions, but
devoted himself to governing the country by helping to make new
laws or administering old ones. As a noble of exalted rank he presided
over the chiefs of his district at the big palavers when difficult cases
were judged, or called them together to give their sanction to new
regulations.
Recently there had been much quarrelling on the markets, resulting in
severe wounds and a few deaths. After much thought and many talks
with his head men, Satu determined to stop these fatal fights by making a
law that in future no guns should be carried on a market-place nor force
used during market-time. He therefore sent for all the chiefs of the
district, and on their arrival laid clearly and forcibly before them the new
law and the reasons for it. He also suggested that for every breach of the
law a fine of three pieces of good cloth should be inflicted.
This was discussed, and it was finally settled that for taking a gun on
the market the fine should be two pieces of cloth, and for originating a
quarrel the fine should be five pieces, and the defaulter to pay all the
damages of the disturbance.
As soon as this was settled Old Plaited-Beard was nominated as the N
enkondo, or enforcer of the new law; and Satu divided the flesh of three
pigs among the assembled chiefs; and they accepted it as a proof of their
assent to the new law, and their promised aid in enforcing it. After this
the witnessing chiefs went to a cross-road and one of their number
proclaimed the new law. Lying on the ground he rubbed his mouth in the
dirt, and then striking his knees with his hands he called down a bitter
curse on any one who dared to break this edict.
This ceremony has often a very terrifying effect on the people, and he
will be a bold fellow who risks the curse.
Each chief returned to his village or town, and told all his people of
the new law and its penalties; thus, a day or two after the new rule was
made and promulgated at the cross-roads, every one affected by it had
heard of it.
 It was now the duty of Old Plaited-Beard to follow up quickly any
infringement of the new command, no matter who the culprit might be;
and it was not long before a slave of a neighbouring chief carried a gun
on to a market and in a drunken quarrel severely wounded a man. Old
Plaited-Beard, the N enkondo, had to bestir himself at once to follow up
the man who had broken the law.
This activity was necessitated by a curious view taken by the natives
of laws in general. From the time a law was broken until the breaker of it
was punished, that particular law did not exist, it was broken, dead;
hence, for instance, any man could take a gun on a market and shoot
another person and go unpunished, because the law against that crime
was dead and could not be mended or brought again to life until the first
breaker of it was punished by paying the penalty. This ensured quick
dealing with culprits, and impartial administration of the law, for if a
chief broke the law he was judged immediately like an ordinary man and
paid the penalty, otherwise anarchy reigned until the law was vindicated
by the infliction of the fine on the law-breaker. To neglect to punish the
chief would mean that any one could repeat the crime with impunity, for
the law was dead.
The slave was quickly caught and brought before the chiefs; but as a
master is responsible for the actions of his slave, it was really the owner
who was on his trial and had to pay the fine of five pieces of cloth and
compensate the wounded man. On meeting all the demands the master
received his slave again, and did with him as he liked. The slave was his
property in the same sense as his goats, fowls or pigs, and after cruelly
punishing the man he sold him away from his wife and children to a
distant tribe of people, and we never saw nor heard of him again.
The fines imposed on law-breakers are periodically divided among the
chiefs of the district. They are one source of their income, and repay
them for the trouble of administering the laws and governing the people.
Satu, of course, took a larger share of the fines than the other chiefs. He
not only presided over the palavers, but he also acted as treasurer and
stored the fines until the time of division, and if he had failed to give the
other chiefs their proper share at stated intervals, they would have
refused to judge cases with him, and the country would have quickly
become unmanageable and disorderly.
A share of the fines, however, would not support Satu as a chief and
noble; consequently he had to turn his attention to trading on the markets
and with the white men down at the coast. Bakula on account of his
smartness was often employed by his chief to sell pigs, cloth, goats,
gunpowder and other goods on the markets.
There are four days in a Congo week--Konzo, N kenge, N sona and N
kandu, and these are also the names of the markets held on those days.
All the markets on a certain day all over our part of the Congo are called
Konzo, and all the markets next day are called N kenge, and so on. These
markets are all held in different places, e. g. all the Konzo markets are
held in different places from all the rest of the markets on the other three
successive days; and these markets are so arranged that one in four
comes within two to five miles of every town or village on the Lower
Congo.
Thus one of the Konzo markets was only four miles from our town;
the nearest N kenge one was nine miles away from us, but near some
other towns, the nearest N sona market was sixteen miles away, and the
N kandu market was nearly twenty miles distant from us, but not far
from some other villages. Again, some of these markets were famous for
certain articles that were always to be found on sale at them. For
instance, at one N kenge a person could always find pigs, and buyers and
sellers of pigs consequently travelled to that particular N kenge; another
N kenge was noted for pots, calabashes and sauce-pans. One N sona
would be noted for cloth and another for palm-wine. At all the markets
cassava roots, kwanga, or native bread, peanuts, beans and various other
food-stuffs were on sale, besides the speciality of the market.
There are also five important markets that are held every eight days,
not on the same but on the successive eighth days. These are called N
kenge Elembelo, held not far from the King’s town; Konzo Kinsuka,
about two days north of the previous one; two days farther north is
Konzo Kikandikila; three days north of that is Konzo Makwekwe, and
about another two days north, but on the other side of the great river, is
the N kenge N kila. Perhaps these great markets are to be found well
established much farther north and south of the points I have named, and
are only limited by the boundaries of the old kingdom of Congo, which
formerly included Landana on the north and Bihe on the south.
While there were stringent laws against fighting, raiding, quarrelling
and capturing people on the markets, no law could be enforced to guard
small, unprotected parties on the way to or from the markets. Rowdy
rascals would lie in wait and pounce on any defenceless child or adult,
and, hurrying them away to some distant place, sell them into slavery, to
the intense grief of their relatives.
 I heard Bakula once tell how his young sister was sent by her mother
to buy a saucepan at a market only four miles from home. She had
bought the vessel and was returning to her town in the company of some
neighbours, when, in a forest, she strayed from the path and was never
heard of again, although the whole town turned out to search the forest.
Now and again some of these daring, reckless scamps were caught,
and the whole countryside would wreak its vengeance on them, for there
was scarcely a family but had lost one or more of its members or some of
its goods by these kidnappings and robberies.
Bakula and some of the men were sent to the various markets far and
near to buy up rubber and tusks of ivory. Sometimes they would take
pigs and goats to sell, and having sold them would then buy what rubber
and ivory there were for sale on the market. At other times they would
take cloth and gunpowder to give in exchange for those products that
white men bought at the coast--rubber and ivory. Occasionally they had
to go to distant markets to buy pigs for cloth, and then travel to another
market to exchange the pigs for rubber, peanuts and tusks.
Thus the rubber and ivory were gradually accumulated by the richer
natives, and when enough were gathered a large caravan of men, from
eighty to a hundred and twenty in number, was dispatched to the trading
houses at the coast. As the natives could neither read nor write, it needed
a clear head and a complicated system of knots and notches to keep a
record of what was spent in pigs, goats, cloth and gunpowder in buying
up the little stores of rubber and ivory on the markets. A man would tie a
knot in a string for every pig sold, another string was used for every goat,
another for every keg of gunpowder, and a notch was cut in a stick for
every piece of cloth. By counting the knots and notches he knew just
how much the ivory, rubber and peanuts had cost him; he also knew how
much each man would “eat” on the road, and therefore he was quite able
to ask of, and only accept from, the white traders a price that would pay
for his stuff, meet the expenses of his carriers, and leave him a fair
margin of profit for his risk of capital and trouble.
After months of petty trading on the markets, sufficient rubber,
peanuts and ivory were collected to warrant a journey to the coast. Satu
himself could not go, so he sent one of his head men, and told him how
much he wanted for the produce he was sending, which would require
forty men to carry it. Satu’s agent had ten loads, and neighbouring chiefs
and head men joined the caravan with their porters, so that when all were
ready to start there were nearly one hundred and forty men and lads in
the party, and as most had knives, guns or spears they were well able to
protect themselves on the long, wearisome road.
When all was arranged for the journey a “medicine man,” named N
gang’ a mpungu, or the Luck-giver, was called. He came with his bag,
containing pieces of leopard’s skin, hyæna’s skin, lion’s skin, and, in
fact, a piece of the skin of every strong animal he could procure, and also
some albino’s hair; and he carried with him his wooden fetish image with
grass tied round its neck, knotted back and front.
The “medicine man” sat in the middle of the caravan, which stood
round him with their bundles tied ready for the journey, and put the fetish
image in front of him. The nganga spoke to the image, telling it to give
the traders good luck on the road and at the trading-station. A man then
held a fowl by the head and the “medicine man” took it by the body and
cut its head off and let the blood drop on the image. After this the fowl
was cooked and eaten outside the houses; and during and after this
ceremony no one could enter a house or turn back from the road.
The fowl having been eaten, a shell was brought containing very small
pieces of everything that was in the fetish bag of charms, and this shell
was placed on the road by which the men had to travel to the coast.
Every one in the caravan had then to step carefully over the shell, for if
any one had touched it he would not have been allowed to proceed or he
would die on the journey. Having passed safely over the shell of charms,
we were not to look back or our luck would have been destroyed. Bakula
performed these various rites in a very half-hearted manner, for he was
losing faith in them.
As we were starting the members of our party shouted to the people
left in the town: “Good health to you, and let no one follow us to give us
bad luck in trading”; and those left behind said: “Good journey to you,
and do not any of you return to bewitch us, or carry us to sell to the white
traders.” The idea behind these requests was that any living person who
is a ndoki, or witch, can visit a place by his nkwiya, or evil spirit, and
take a person away, or work them great harm by his witchcraft. Hence
they live in constant fear of each other, and all their charms, fetishes, and
witch-doctors are employed in protecting them from one another. Before
Bakula reached the shell his mother came hurrying towards him, and,
pretending to spit on his face, said: “May you have all that you desire,
may you have happiness and good luck, and may your words find favour
with the people.” It was her mode of saying farewell to her son.
We were now fairly started on the road, and as all the omens were in
our favour and the nganga had performed his ceremonies without the
slightest hitch, everybody was in good spirits, and more ready to laugh
and sing than grumble at the weight of the loads. Many points of
etiquette had to be remembered as we passed through the numerous
towns and villages on our road to the coast.
On passing through a village we were not allowed to let our sticks
touch the ground or we should destroy the luck of that place and that
would mean a heavy fine. While in the open country or bush many of the
men hitched up their cloths (exposing their thighs) to give greater
freedom to their legs; but on passing through a town they dropped their
cloths out of respect to the town, or otherwise they would have been
taken to the chief’s house and well beaten. In passing through any town
every carrier was careful not to put his load on his head, as that was
regarded as an exhibition of insolent pride, and would have aroused the
anger of the towns-people, and a fight, with heavy fines, would have
resulted. If we sat resting on the ground in any town we had to be careful
not to shake off the dust from our cloths until we got outside the town, as
such an action was regarded as putting a curse on the place.
Tolls had to be paid for using all bridges and canoes in crossing the
larger rivers in our path; and a tax, according to the number of carriers
and the value of their loads, was demanded by the overlords of the
districts through which we passed. The non-observance of these customs
and points of etiquette led sometimes to quarrels and fights between
insolent travellers and insulted townsfolk.
On our arrival at the coast we were met by a native interpreter, who
had visited our town and given Satu twenty pieces of cloth on the
understanding that he was to have the privilege of selling our chief’s
“trade produce” to one of the white traders. This interpreter showed us
much hospitality, hoping thereby to be seller for the whole caravan.
The morning after our arrival we sorted Satu’s stuff into three lots--ten
loads of ivory, eight loads of peanuts, and twenty-two loads of rubber. It
was decided to sell the rubber first, so the men carried their loads to the
trader’s store accompanied by the interpreter. The following
conversation then took place, the white man and the interpreter talking
Portuguese, and the native trader and the interpreter talking the
vernacular--
Interpreter to white man: “How much for this rubber?”
The rubber was carefully examined and weighed.
White man: “I will give 200 pieces of cloth.”
Interpreter to native trader: “He will give you 80 pieces of cloth.”
Native trader: “That is not enough, I want 170 pieces.”
 Interpreter to white man: “They want 250 pieces of cloth.”
White man: “That is too much; I will give 210 pieces.”
Interpreter to native trader: “He will give you 90 pieces.”
After much haggling the white man reached his limit of 220 pieces;
and after much talking, lasting nearly the whole day, the native trader
brought his price down to 150 pieces, and the interpreter worked his up
gradually to that amount. Being now agreed, the interpreter told the
white man to take the rubber, and pay 150 pieces to Satu’s agent. Satu
had instructed his agent not to take less than 135 pieces of cloth, and had
also informed him what goods he was to select from the store. Having
received fifteen pieces more than they anticipated, they reckoned that
they had sold to great advantage.
Having settled the price, we went over to the store to draw the goods.
Arranged round the store were the trade goods: cloths of various colours,
lengths and qualities; plates, dishes, basins, ewers, mugs, cups, glasses,
looking-glasses of different sizes, bright beads of gorgeous colours,
machets, knives and guns. In another store was a huge pile of bags of
salt, and isolated from the other houses was a store full of gunpowder.
Satu’s agent, according to his instructions, picked out fifty pieces of
cloth; gunpowder to the value of fifty pieces, and fifty pieces worth of
beads, mugs, trinkets, rum and gin.
All these articles were carried over to the shed in which we were
living while transacting our business with the trader. Then the ivory was
sold in the same manner, and, the price having been settled, guns,
powder, liquor, blankets, cloth, etc., were selected up to the agreed
amount. The sale of the peanuts was a very simple matter. We put the
nuts on the scale, and salt was weighed against them, and when they
balanced a gaudy coloured plate was put on top and the sale was
completed, i. e. we received weight for weight in salt for our peanuts and
a make-weight of a plate on top of each load.
 WHITE TRADER AND NATIVE TRADERS AND THEIR
PRODUCE.

Every article in the white man’s store had a price on it. It was either
equivalent to one piece of cloth, or to two or more pieces, or so many of
it equalled the value of one piece. The first kind of cloth taken to Congo
was probably of a common quality worth about 2s. for a piece of twelve
yards. By and by other qualities were taken, and they were reckoned as
equal to one and a half, two, or three pieces of the original quality. Then
the natives wanted other things besides cloth, and as they were
introduced the traders put a cloth value on them, e. g. six knives were
equal to one piece of cloth, eight looking-glasses ditto, four strings of
one kind of beads, or twenty strings of another sort, were priced at one
piece; and thus through the whole list of goods stocked by the traders.
If a trader priced his goods high it was quickly known, and his store
was avoided by the natives. They always went to that store where they
received the best prices for their produce, where the articles in the store
were cheapest, and where they were treated properly.
We remained ten days at the coast, selling the rubber, peanuts and
ivory our caravan had brought from the interior. Some of the native
traders were dissatisfied with the prices offered by the white trader, or
were suspicious that the interpreter was retaining too much for himself,
and for these reasons went to other white men and employed other
interpreters; others of our party thought the prices of the store goods
were too high, and went to those traders whom they thought sold their
barter goods at reasonable rates.
It took us, as I have already stated, ten long, wearisome days of
haggling, bargaining and chaffering to dispose of our produce to the best
advantage. During this time our food supply was running low, and we
often had not half enough to eat. Food at the coast was very dear, and we
were all glad when our business was concluded and we could turn our
faces homeward.
The return journey was accomplished without any incident more
serious than the breaking of a few china ornaments belonging to Old
Plaited-Beard, who had seen such things in the King’s house and had
instructed his men to buy him similar ones with some of the produce he
had sent for sale. The man, however, who carried them slipped on some
huge boulders while crossing a river, and down he fell, cutting his own
knees and smashing the fragile contents of his load. The old man, when
he saw the results of the accident, did not blame his carrier of
carelessness, but rather accused some one of bewitching him and thus
causing the destruction of the goods. And with a look of hate in his eyes
and a curse on his lips he threatened to punish the witch.
All the men and lads of our party were glad to be again among their
own families. During the whole journey to and from the coast, and while
at the trading centre, they had eaten very sparingly, as food was heavy to
carry and very dear on the road; but now that they had returned they
made amends for lost time and hungry days. Huge dishes of food quickly
disappeared, and those who had become thin during the twenty-five days
of short rations began to fill out again, and those who were feeling
exhausted by the heavy loads they carried up and down hill and along
rugged, narrow tracks began, after some refreshing, restful sleeps, to feel
strong and active again and ready for the next trading expedition.
 Chapter XIX
An Accusation and the Ordeal
Old Plaited-Beard charges Bakula with stealing--The accusation is denied--Bakula declares his
disbelief in charms and witch-doctors--Satu saves him from immediate death--The missing
cloth is found in Bakula’s house--Tumbu exposes the accuser’s trickery--He is ridiculed--
Bakula submits to the ordeal of the boiling oil--His arm is badly scalded--During the night
Bakula escapes to the mission station.

A few days after the return of the trading caravan, the whole town was
startled to hear that some one had stolen two pieces of cloth from
Old Plaited-Beard’s house. He was most emphatic and circumstantial as
to when and where he had left the cloth, and the disappearance of the
pieces. He borrowed a strong fetish from a friend, beat it soundly to
arouse it to action, held it three times above his head that its spirit might
rush through the air in pursuit of the thief, held it also three times head
downwards near the ground to enable the fetish spirit to run along the
earth after the robber, and then hung it by the neck to the roof of his
house. Then the old man waited a day or two, but the cloth was not
returned.
Old Plaited-Beard fumed in pretended rage about the loss of his cloth,
and at last accused Bakula of stealing it. The lad indignantly denied the
charge.
The old man said: “Ever since you met that white man in Tonzeka’s
town you have been a different lad. You do not enter into our fetish
palavers, you laugh at the witch-doctors, you destroyed the power of my
charms so that I did not kill a single animal through the whole of the
hunting season, you bewitched my carrier, thus causing the breaking of
all my crockery ornaments, and now you have stolen my cloth.”
“I am not guilty of any of these charges,” stoutly maintained the lad. "I
have not stolen your cloth! Search my house if you like, for since our
return from the trading journey to the coast I have not been to a market,
nor have I been out of the town except to bathe in the river, so I have had
no opportunity of disposing of the cloth. It is true that since the white
man put medicine on my wound, and talked to me about God’s palaver I
have lost my faith in charms and ‘medicine men.’"
A great crowd by now was surging round the two principal persons in
this strange scene, and a howl of derision went up from scores of throats
when the brave lad daringly avowed his disbelief in charms and witch-
doctors.
 “He is a witch! Give him the ordeal!” shouted some. “Kill him!”
screamed others, “or he will bewitch all of us.”
And women held their children tightly to their bosoms, and begged
them not to follow the example of “that wicked boy.”
Satu came hurrying up to learn the cause of all the excitement, and
when the whole case was laid before him he felt a great pity for the lad,
and determined that he should have fair play; for he liked him, and had
admired his smartness in trade, and alertness in games, dancing and
hunting. Besides, he knew that his accuser, Old Plaited-Beard, hated the
boy for some unknown reason.
When, therefore, the mob again demanded either the ordeal or death
for the undaunted boy, the chief at once said: “No, let us search his house
as he desires, and if we find the cloth in it, then we will have a palaver
and punish him according to our laws.”
A rush was instantly made for Bakula’s house, where he lived with his
mother; but no one entered until the chief actors arrived, and then Satu,
Old Plaited-Beard, Bakula, and one or two others entered the house; and
after searching about the hut for a very short time Old Plaited-Beard
pulled the two pieces of cloth from a corner of the roof, in the dark inner
room, where they were concealed by some grass.
The discovery of the cloth was hailed with screams of laughter, shouts
of derision, and whistles of contempt. And if Satu had not been there, my
poor owner, Bakula, would have been torn to pieces by the infuriated
crowd, not because stealing was such a heinous crime in their eyes--there
was not an honest man, woman or youth among the whole mob of
screamers and shouters; but the discovery of the cloth in the house was
taken as a proof of his witchcraft and utter stupidity.
In a very short time Satu was seated with his head men ready to judge
the case. Old Plaited-Beard sat there with a snigger of triumph on his evil
face, and Bakula, crestfallen, confused, but undaunted, stood, the centre
of all eyes, the object of ridicule and contempt.
“Why did he not hide the cloth in the bush? Why was he such a fool as
to leave the cloth in his own house?” were questions everybody was
asking. The crowd derided Bakula for being a fool, rather than blamed
him as a thief.
The court was held on an open space in the centre of the town, beneath
the wide-spreading branches of a wild fig-tree. In a simple case like this
there were no advocates, and no sides taken as in a big law-suit. Old
Plaited-Beard told of the loss of the cloth, of his charging Bakula with
the theft, and the discovery of the cloth by himself in the accused
person’s house.
Bakula strenuously denied the theft, and gave a very clear account of
all that he had done and the people with whom he had been since his
return a few days ago. He appealed to Satu to state how he had
accounted for every yard of cloth he had used when trading on the
markets for him, and finished by saying that for some reason the
Nenkondo (the new title of Old Plaited-Beard) hated him, and had more
than once threatened to do him some harm.
Old Plaited-Beard scornfully asked: “Do you think I should steal my
own cloth and put it in your house?”
Just then a lad, by name Tumbu, asked Satu for permission to speak,
and, trembling with excitement, said: “The other day, when the town was
nearly empty of people, I was lying down in my house, being too ill to
go with Bakula and the other lads to bathe in the river; and while I was
lying there I saw Nenkondo come along, and, after looking around on
every side, enter Bakula’s house, which is right opposite mine. I watched
him, and saw that he had something under his cloth; but when he came
out the something was gone, for his cloth was flat on his thighs. Why did
he go into Bakula’s house? and what did he leave there?”
Old Plaited-Beard was furious, and, choking with rage, he snapped out
the question: “Is Bakula a friend of yours?”
“Yes,” bravely answered the lad. “I am, as you know, a slave, and
Bakula has always been kind to me. He has given me food when I have
been hungry, and defended me from the taunts of the other boys and girls
of the town.”
Bakula, as soon as his friend had finished speaking, instantly sprang
forward, and said: “I accuse Nenkondo of stealing his own cloth and
putting it in my house. Tumbu is my witness to that; but there is no
witness to show that I have been in his house. He is the thief, not I!”
Satu consulted his head men for a considerable time; but at last said:
“There are two persons before us who accuse each other of thieving, and
it is difficult for us to decide. We will therefore call the nganga, and will
try the case to-morrow by the ordeal of the boiling oil; and whichever
one is proved guilty must pay a fine of five pieces of cloth.”
After this decision the crowd at once broke up, and that night around
the fires there was much speculation as to which of the two would prove
the guilty one.
Early the next afternoon a nganga arrived with a deep vessel filled
with palm-oil. This was placed on a fire and attended to, while the
nganga’s assistants walked about the town. One of these assistants called
to Bakula and asked him to show the way to the stream. When they were
a little out of the town the assistant turned, and said to Bakula: “If you
will give me fifty brass rods my master will put something on your hand
and arm so that the boiling oil will not burn you, and you will be proved
innocent. Will you pay me the money?”
“No; I am perfectly innocent of the charge,” replied Bakula, “and if
there is any truth in the ordeal, it will show all the people that I am
guiltless. For many moons now I have doubted witch-doctors, and
believed that they tricked us, laughed at us and robbed us.”
“You had better pay the money,” sneeringly retorted the nganga’s
assistant, “otherwise you will have to pay the five pieces of cloth.”
“Yes, I know your way,” replied the lad. “It is like this: I promise you
fifty rods, then you go to the other and he promises you sixty, and after
that you come to me and I promise seventy rods, and he offers eighty,
and it is the one who eventually gives you the largest amount that wins
the case by ordeal. No, I will not promise a single brass rod, for I know I
am innocent, and if the ordeal does not prove it I shall know for a
certainty that your ngangas are liars and cheats, and your ordeals
trickeries and swindles.”
The assistant, heaping on him much abuse, and throwing at him many
epithets of reproach, called him an utter fool, and returned to the town.
Later in the afternoon the drum sounded, and the people hurried to the
judging-place. Women had not been to the farms that day or had returned
very early; the men had not been to either market, forest or bush; and
people had come in from the surrounding villages, for everybody who
could be there was present, because no one wanted to miss so sensational
a sight as the ordeal by boiling oil.
Satu and his head men sat by themselves a few yards from the
saucepan of oil. Bakula and Old Plaited-Beard were at opposite sides of
the circle of people that watched the proceedings intently. Old Plaited-
Beard was called first, and approached the saucepan with a jaunty air,
smirking face, and anticipated triumph in every movement. He submitted
his right hand and arm to be rubbed with some decoction[63] by the
nganga; a piece of kwanga, or native bread, was dropped in the oil, and
then, with an insolent flourish, Old Plaited-Beard dipped in his hand and
arm and brought out the piece of kwanga. His skin was not scalded, he
had passed the ordeal successfully, and was thus proved innocent of the
charge.
 On the plea that the first ceremonial use of the oil had cooled it too
much to be a proper test, the nganga and his assistants heaped fire about
the pot, and it was not until the oil began to bubble that the “medicine
man” pronounced it ready for the other accused person.
My owner, Bakula, now went forward with set face and steady step to
where the saucepan of oil was sending up jets of steam. I could feel his
chest heaving, his breath coming and going in quick, short gasps, his
body trembling with the excitement of the hour, and his heart pulsating
turbulently.
The tension was great, the sea of faces seemed to crowd about and
press in upon him; and as he drew near the saucepan he could see the
glint of hatred and triumph in the nganga’s eyes, but he answered them
with a look of defiance.
The nganga rubbed something on the lad’s arm and hand, and dropped
the piece of kwanga in the bubbling oil.
Every head in that great crowd was bent forward, and, as a hush fell
on the assembly, every eye was fixed on the lonely, slim, young figure
standing before that saucepan of fiery oil.
Without hesitation, for he was absolutely sure of his guiltlessness,
Bakula boldly dipped his hand in the boiling liquid, but before he could
reach the kwanga at the bottom of the saucepan, a paroxysm of pain
seized him and, with a scream of agony, he fell fainting to the ground.
His friend Tumbu and the chief hurried to him and warded off, by their
bodies, any intended blows upon the prostrate, unconscious lad; and
between them they carried him to his hut.
When Bakula returned to consciousness he was lying on his rough
bamboo bed, and his mother, with unskilled kindness, was trying to bind
up that burning arm in poultices of leaves, and Tumbu was weeping by
his side.
Tumbu told his suffering friend that Satu had paid the five pieces of
cloth and the nganga’s fee, and the matter was therefore settled.
“And,” continued he, “although everybody in the town thinks you
stole the cloth, I know you did not.”
Bakula then told his faithful companion how the nganga’s assistant
had come to him before the ordeal, and had asked for money; that there
was no doubt the Nenkondo had given a bribe, and so had passed the
ordeal without a burn; and, emphatically asserted the lad, “After this I
will never again believe in ngangas, nor in charms, nor in ordeals. I am
innocent, but look at my arm.”
 The two friends sat talking all the evening, and at last Bakula said:
“To-night I am going to escape to the white man’s station. He will heal
my scalded arm, and teach me God’s palaver.”
“Wait until the morning,” pleaded Tumbu. “Don’t travel in the dark, or
the evil spirits will throttle and squeeze the life out of you.”
“Who talks about evil spirits?” asked Bakula. "Only the ‘medicine
men,’ and perhaps what they tell us about them is as great a lie as their
charms, fetishes and ordeals. I will test that to-night as I have tested their
other teaching to-day." And a look of undaunted determination came into
the brave fellow’s face, which, being seen by Tumbu in the flickering
firelight, stopped his further arguments.
It was towards midnight that Bakula took farewell of his mother, and
creeping from his house with stealthy steps, passed through the sleeping
town and into the darkness of the silent, tangled, spirit-haunted bush.
What lay before him? Would it always be the darkness, the tangled paths
environed with fearful spirits? Or would he come into the light, that
would show him the straight, clear road, and, chasing away the evil
spirits of darkness, reveal the ministering angels of the white man’s God?
 Chapter XX
Bakula at School
After much nursing Bakula recovers--He becomes a school-boy--He struggles with the alphabet--
He learns to understand pictures--Routine life--Bakula itinerates with his white man--He
does not relish sleeping in the wet bush--He is convicted of sin--He inquires the way of
salvation--The lads play a trick on a witch-doctor--Bakula is received into the Church--He
returns to his town.

A fter a long, weary walk Bakula reached his uncle’s town, and, staying
only to tell him the news, and show him his scalded arm, continued
his journey to the mission station. By the time he arrived he was feverish
and his arm very painful. The missionary in charge of the medical work
at once dressed the inflamed arm and put the exhausted lad to bed.
For many days Bakula was delirious, repeating with monotonous
reiteration his innocence and the dipping of his arm in the boiling oil. At
times the missionaries feared he would die; that the strain, the scalding,
and the fatiguing walk would prove too much for him; but at last he
began to recover--skilled treatment, regular food, and careful attention
triumphed; and the lad was in due time walking about, little the worse,
except for the scars on his arm, for the ordeal through which he had
passed.

Photo] THE REV. JOHN H. WEEKS AND HIS BOYS. [Rev.

J. H. Weeks.
 Bakula, on his recovery, found himself in a new world. When asked if
he would like to stay on the station and be taught, he, immediately and
gladly, accepted the invitation, and was handed over to the white man in
whose district[64] his town happened to be.
Bakula had always thought that “books talked” to the white men. In
common with other natives he had said, when he saw a white man
looking at a book and laughing: “The book is saying something funny to
him.” He was therefore disappointed to find that the white teacher gave
him no “medicine” to cause him to understand “book language,” and
performed no magic over him to open his ears to the “whispers of book
talk”; but that it was a matter of learning properly those curiously twisted
and contorted marks called a, b, d, e; and he also found that so many of
them changed their appearance when written, and again altered “their
legs and arms” when they grew into big letters that he was puzzled, and
sometimes feared that he would never know them.
How elusive those letters were! Just as he had mastered them on the
printed sheet they changed themselves on the blackboard; and when he
wanted to write the “full-grown ones,” and drew them as he remembered
them on the sheet, he was told they were wrong, and had to train his
hand to all kinds of curves and scrolls. It was like learning four
alphabets; but by perseverance and attention he conquered them, so that,
no matter what their disguises might be, he recognized them, and would
say: “Oh yes, Mr. S; you can curve your back like this, S, or lean half

yourself on a stick thus, , but I know you.”

Meanwhile he had learned to put two letters together and make

syllables, and from that accomplishment he was led on to connect the
syllables and form words; and from that point the school work became
more interesting. Now that the building was showing above the ground
he could see the reason for all the foundation work. By the time he had
been in the school about two years he was nearing the top classes, and,
laughing at the mistakes of newer boys, encouraged them, by his own
example, to conquer their difficulties.
Bakula also found there was another language to learn--that of
pictures. He had seen pictures at a distance in the houses of the traders,
and they had simply been a blurred whole, like the pages of a book
written in unknown characters. In the house of the white man, where he
spent many a pleasant evening, he saw some copies of the Graphic.
At first he was unable to take in a picture as a whole. He held the
illustrations upside down, or sideways, and more often the wrong way
than the right one. In time, order seemed to emerge out of the chaos of
marks and lines, then he would pick out a feature and say: “That is a
nose, or a mouth, or an eye,” as the case might be, and thus he traced out
a man or a woman and said: “Why, it is a person!” He did the same with
a house, picking out the details, as a door or window, etc., and the same
with scenery.
Later he could take in all the details at once. He had to learn to
understand pictures by the same method that he learned to read--first the
a, b, d, then the t a t a = tata (or father), and lastly the whole word or
sentence at a glance. Sometimes he had to appeal to the white man to
explain a difficult detail, as a railway, a ship, or a horse; but gradually the
pictures opened up a mine of information, and introduced him to new
worlds of wonder.
A white man laughingly joked him one day about the pain and
inconvenience Congo women suffered in wearing heavy brass collars
round their necks, and on their legs anklets of great weight in order to be
in the fashion; but Bakula quickly turned over the pictures, and finding a
fashion plate that depicted a woman with a very tiny waist, he seriously
asked: “Which is the more ridiculous--to wear a brass collar round the
neck, or to have a waist like a wasp’s?”
During all these months Bakula had worked each day for four hours
either on the farm or in the brick-field--puddling clay, fetching water,
carrying the clay, or, as he became more expert, making bricks.
The life on the station was very regular. At 6 a.m. the boys rose to the
clanging of a bell, and went to work either on the farm, the brick-field, or
in the houses of the missionaries; from 8 to 9.30 was taken for breakfast
and a short service, and then each gang of boys arranged themselves
outside the house of the white man who was working the district from
which they came. They stood in lines according to ages. At these parades
the white man listened to all complaints, settled all palavers, instructed
his group of boys in station matters, taught them, when necessary, on
points of behaviour, and gave them the tickets for the day’s rations. The
hours from 10 to 12 were spent in school, and from then until 2 p.m. at
dinner and play.
Then came two more hours of schooling, and from four o’clock until
sunset at six[65] the boys engaged in farming, brick-making, or working in
their masters’ houses. Thus each day there were four hours for work,
four hours for school, three hours for eating and playing, and one hour
for religious instruction.
On Saturdays there was no school, but the boys worked at their
various employments or tidied up the station, except from 8 to 10 a.m.,
when the lads had their breakfasts, religious service, and the usual daily
parade outside the houses of their respective white men. At one o’clock
the stop bell rang, and every boy received a piece of soap and went off
after dinner to do his washing and have a swim in a neighbouring river.
Besides the employments already mentioned there were others, as
printing, bookbinding, composing, carpentry, bricklaying, washing and
ironing, cutting out and sewing jackets for the boys on the station,
cooking, and house-cleaning. For these occupations special lads who
showed aptitude were selected and taught, and they received small
rewards according to their skill and industry.
On Sundays there were services, and a Sunday-school on the station,
and all scholars, unless ill, attended them. The missionaries, according to
opportunity, health and weather, visited the neighbouring towns, both on
week-days and Sundays, to hold services in them.
Bakula sometimes accompanied his white man on these preaching
journeys to help in the singing at the services, and to carry a small load.
At one place the people were so hostile that they would not allow the
little party to remain in their village. They were not sufficiently
courageous to demonstrate against the visitors with guns and knives, but
were superstitious enough to drive them out with abuse, the shaking of
their fetishes, and threats of what they would do if the white man and his
boys tried to enter their village. It was a cold, wet evening, and the party
was anything but cheerful sitting there in the bush with the rain falling in
a continuous, monotonous patter about them.
Bakula now knew what it was to be misunderstood, and did not relish
the experience. His intentions were friendly. Why were the people so
foolish! He resented the treatment meted out to him and his white man,
and, turning to the missionary, he said: “God is very strong, ask Him to
punish these people severely for their conduct to us.”
 CLOTH WEAVING.

BLACKSMITHS.

To him the teacher replied: “Supposing the white man had asked God
to punish you and your people for driving him out of your town. Where
would you be now? Not sitting there, but dead, without an opportunity of
hearing of His great love. We will not ask God to punish them; but we
will pray that He may do for these people what He has done for you,
Satu, and your towns-folk: so change their hearts and superstitious
thoughts about us that another day they will gladly invite us to stay in
their town.”
Before very long the rain had ceased, some grass and wood were
collected, and the white man, soaking a paper with kerosene, and putting
the grass and wood over it, soon had a blazing fire that thawed the hearts
and tongues of the lads. In a few minutes they were laughing and joking
as though they were in their cosy houses on the station, instead of being
in the wet bush outside a hostile, inhospitable village with a very
superstitious people shaking their charms at them not fifty yards away.
Bakula never forgot this incident, and his constant prayer was: “O God,
open the hearts of the people to understand Thy messengers and to
receive Thy message.”
Bakula was a great acquisition to the other boys on the station. He
entered heartily into all their games, was a leader in many of their sports,
and told them many a story around their evening fires. His humorous,
merry ways, his amusing manner in telling a story, his cheerful, obliging
disposition, his common-sense way of looking at things, his marked
ability in school, and his genuine earnestness made him the favourite of
all on the station, both white and black. He had discarded all his charms
and had learned that a lad’s position was not due to them, but to his own
disposition and willingness to oblige others.
One morning, when Bakula had been on the station about three years,
he heard one of the white men give an address on the Parable of the Ten
Virgins, and the narrative and teaching so stirred his heart with the fear
that he would be left in the outer darkness, that all through the day he
was unusually quiet, and at meal-times scarcely ate anything.
At night he started up more than once from horrid dreams with the
awful words ringing in his ears: “I know you not.” For several days he
bore this soul agony, and at last resolved to lay the whole matter before
his white friend.
It was easy to converse with the white man about pictures, Mputu, and
many other palavers when other boys were about, or even alone; but
Bakula shrank from talking about the inmost feelings of his heart,
although he knew he would be listened to kindly and sympathetically.
With much shyness, therefore, he went one evening to his teacher and
asked for a talk with him. He was received with a smile of welcome and
taken into the white man’s room, and the door was shut upon them. The
white man had noticed Bakula’s quietness, had partly surmised the
reason, and was not surprised at the request for a talk on God’s palaver.
Now that Bakula was sitting there he found it difficult to begin. When
he opened his mouth no sound issued, for a lump seemed to rise in his
throat and block the passage. His friend chatted to him until he felt more
at ease, and then he poured out all the pent-up feelings of his heart, and
gave expression to the thoughts of his long broodings. He told the white
man of the address he had heard, of his dreams, of his fears that Christ
would not know him, and of the many sins of adultery, robbery, cheating,
lying and false accusation of which he had been guilty. He laid bare his
whole previous life in all its ghastly wickedness until the white man felt
it crowding on and pressing down his own soul.
Tears rolled down the lad’s cheeks as he asked if God’s Son would
know such a guilty one as he, and could He forgive so many sins? The
teacher spoke to him quietly and earnestly, read to him various passages
from God’s own Word, and, after praying with him, dismissed him to his
bed comforted and happy.
It was very late when Bakula left the white man’s house, but it was
quite early when he arose next morning from a refreshing sleep. The sun
was shining not only on the hills and valleys around him, but also into
his heart, and he could not repress one hymn he had learned in school,
though he had never fully realized its beauty and meaning until now:
“Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.”
The boys who occupied the dormitory with him turned and asked:
“What is the matter with you?”
“Oh, I had a long talk with the white man last night about God’s
palaver,” he answered cheerfully, “and I feel very happy now.” And at
once he told them of the address, and pleaded with them to prepare for
the coming of Christ, so that He might know them on His arrival.
Several months passed, during which time Bakula took part in the
prayer meetings, and at the services of the Christian Band he often gave
a short address. He was eager to accompany the teacher to the various
towns in the neighbourhood, and frequently used the scars on his arm as
a text. He then, with soul-earnestness and much eloquence, declaimed
against the trickery and lies of the witch-doctors, the uselessness of their
charms, and the deception of their ordeals.
On one occasion the white man, Bakula, and some other lads were
spending the evening in a town. The service was over, the teacher had
retired to his hut, and Bakula and his companions had stretched
themselves upon their mats in another hut that had been lent to them.
During the night they were disturbed by the entrance of a witch-doctor,
who hid something in a saucepan. Thinking he was up to one of his
tricks, Bakula removed the thing and put it in another place.
In the morning the nganga, who was employed to destroy the power
of an evil spirit that was troubling a family in the town, was up early
shouting at the spirit to desist. He threatened it, fired his gun repeatedly
at it, and after much rushing about and wild gesticulations, he declared at
last that he had caught the evil spirit. He led the suffering family to the
hut he had visited during the previous night, and entering it triumphantly,
prepared his clients, by his boastful talk, for a great dénouement; but,
behold, the entrapped spirit was gone.
When the lads, later in the day, brought out the “something,” they
found it was tied up in imitation of a corpse, and on opening it,
discovered inside a piece of kwanga, or native bread, and inside that a
fowl’s bladder full of blood. The lads had a hearty laugh over the
incident, and their disbelief in ngangas was greatly strengthened by this
exposure of their trickery.
If the witch-doctor had found the bundle where he had placed it, he
would, after much incantation and dancing, have pierced it with his
knife, and as the blood flowed from it he would have claimed to have
trapped and killed the evil spirit. The deluded family would have paid
him a large fee, and after a time, feeling no better, would have sent for
another nganga and been deceived in another way. They were saved at
least the payment of one large fee by the lads to whom they had lent the
house.
The white men on the station watched Bakula very carefully, and often
spoke about him to each other as one whose life and conduct showed that
he was fully fit to be a member of the Church that had recently been
formed there. But no pressure was put on him, as it was felt desirable, on
account of the persecution all native Christians then suffered, that the
request for baptism and Church membership should be entirely
spontaneous.
After many months Bakula applied for baptism and entrance to the
Church. He was told of all it might mean to him--persecution, ridicule,
and perhaps death. But his answers were such that he was duly received
into the little Church, and with quivering heart and tears of joyous
amazement in his eyes he partook for the first time of the Lord’s Supper.
During these years he had paid more than one visit to his home. His
mother had received him with hearty welcomes, Satu had had long and
frequent talks with him about the white men and their teaching, and the
lads and lasses in the town had regarded his accomplishments in reading
and writing with awe, envy, and superstitious fear.
Old Plaited-Beard always looked at him askant, with eyes full of
hatred and malignity; but Tumbu, his slave friend, never left his side
during those visits except to sleep. He followed him like a faithful dog,
with eyes full of admiration and humble love.
The time came at last for Bakula to return to his town and live there.
He asked his white friend for a few slates, pencils, reading-sheets and
spelling-books, as he had decided to start, if possible, a school among his
own people. These were gladly given to him, and, taking farewell of his
many friends, both black and white, he commenced his return journey.
How different was this last going from his first coming! The darkness
had given place to the light, the tangled, crooked path had become
straight, though narrow and rough, and the evil spirits of fetishism no
longer haunted his life with terror and horror, for they had been displaced
by the ministering angels of God.
 Chapter XXI
Bakula’s Work checked
The conservatism of the Congo people--Bakula and his scholars build a school-house--A
missionary visits his town--He encourages Bakula in his work--A “luck fowl” dies--Its
death is put to the credit of the missionary’s visit and teaching--The school-house is pulled
down--Satu is afraid to interfere--Native way of punishing an unpopular chief.

B akula had not been back many days before he asked Satu for
permission to open a school for the boys in the town. The chief gave
his consent, but was very doubtful how the townsfolk would regard the
innovation.
For untold generations they, their fathers, and their forefathers had
gone on in the same way. They had built their huts with either grass,
mud, or rough plank walls; they had scratched the ground on their farms
with little hoes; and when ill in health, unlucky in fighting, trading,
hunting or in domestic affairs, they had nearly sixty wizards, or
“medicine men,” to reverse their luck by their ceremonies, charms,
fetishes and magical decoctions. They had kept their accounts with knots
tied in strings, or notches cut on tallies; they had always hunted in the
same way, fished in the same way, traded, travelled, lived and died in the
same way. What, therefore, was the use of changing now?
They were a very conservative people that had always killed off the
progressives--those troublesome fellows who wanted to introduce new
methods of building, new articles of trade, new ideas, and new ways of
using old materials. Men who in other countries were called inventive
geniuses were accounted horrible witches in Satu’s town. The man who
discovered the method of tapping palm-trees for palm-wine was killed as
a witch; the men who first traded in rubber and ivory were regarded with
suspicion, and treated as folk full of witchcraft; and the man who took
the first load of gum copal to the traders was told never to take another,
or he “would see plenty trouble.”
It was in the midst of such a people that Bakula started his school.
Tumbu, of course, attended it. Many other boys came out of curiosity,
and finding no magic in it, no short-cut to book learning, their ardour
cooled, and they dropped away; and there were no school inspectors to
inflict fines and penalties for non-attendance. A few had sufficient
courage and perseverance to attend regularly, and these made some
progress in the mastery of their letters and syllables.
 Bakula so enthused his few scholars that at the end of the dry season
they decided to band together and build a grass hut in which to hold their
school during the coming rains. It was no small bit of work for a few
lads, with poor tools, to undertake. Rafters, king posts, stanchions, and
wall plates had to be cut in the forests and conveyed into the town on
their heads or shoulders; grass must be cut, dried, combed and carried
from the bush to the site; and string had to be prepared from forest vines
and swamp reeds.
Then there was a floor to be raised and beaten, holes to be dug, and all
the materials fitted and tied together to form the hut. It was a simple
structure with no windows, but a large door that answered all purposes,
and the boys were proud of it. If you had seen it you might have laughed
at it; but could you have built a better one with the same tools and
materials?
Every morning the school was opened with prayer, singing, and the
reading of a portion from the Gospel of Matthew--the only Gospel then
translated into the language of the people. Occasionally men and women
came, and, standing about the door, listened to the simple service. Many
ridiculed the whole palaver; a few, however, were impressed, and came
repeatedly; and, encouraged by them, Bakula started a Sunday service;
but out of more than 1,500 people in the town, only from ten to twenty
attended it.
One day Bakula’s heart was gladdened by the arrival of one of the
missionaries on his way from the Ngombe district to the King’s town. He
was trying to open up the country, visiting the towns and preaching in
them as opportunity offered. Satu welcomed him heartily, and Bakula
and his small class of scholars were delighted to see him. The missionary
examined the school, and by his presence and words of praise
encouraged the teacher and his pupils to continue their efforts.
The white man had long talks with Satu, and suggested that the next
day a crier should be sent through the town to invite the people to come
and hear God’s palaver. The time, however, was not ripe for such a
service, for only a few responded, and they came more to ingratiate
themselves with their chief than to listen to the white man.
This white man was a zealous teacher, thoroughly in earnest and well
acquainted with the people’s language. No opportunity was missed by
him of speaking to the twos and threes. Here he was to be found in
conversation with some swaggering young men, there talking to a few
old men, and again in another place arguing with some of the head men.
He was a man of great attainments and wide knowledge, yet he exhibited