THIRTY-ONE years ago (Jan. 2nd, 1851), Henry Venn uttered these words:--"If Africa is to be penetrated by European missionaries, it must be from the East Coast."

At that time, although many travellers had explored large sections of the Dark Continent from the north, south, and west coasts, only two men had attempted to reach the interior from the eastern side. These were two German missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, John Ludwig Krapf and John Rebmann. The marvellous discoveries of the last quarter of a century were then in the future. Even Livingstone's more important journeys had scarcely begun. And it is a remarkable fact that the most famous and successful travellers since that time have almost all proved the truth of Mr. Venn's dictum by starting on their journeys from the Zanzibar coast. Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Grant, Van der Decken, as well as other more recent explorers, all travelled from east to west; and from east to west both Cameron and Stanley made their great marches "across Africa." What led to this notable new departure in the direction taken by African exploration? Confessedly, the impulse was given by the travels and researches of "Krapf and Rebmann. Now Krapf and Rebmann were before all things missionaries. "We came to Africa," wrote the latter in 1855, "without a thought or a wish of making geographical discoveries. Our grand aim was but the spreading of the Kingdom of God." And yet they take high rank in the long roll of African explorers. God's words to Solomon are indeed applicable to them--"Because thou hast asked this thing, and hest not asked for thyself [fame and honour] . . . behold, I have done according to thy words . . . and I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked."

The lamented death of the survivor of these two brethren in labour and in trial invites us to a review of his deeply interesting career--a career which is at once thrilling as a story, important as a chapter in the history of African travel and African Missions, and full of significant and solemn lessons for ourselves at the present time.

I.

John Ludwig Krapf was born at the village of Derendingen, near Tübingen, on Jan. 11th, 1810. The name Ludwig, "wrestler," conferred on him at his baptism, was, he observes in his autobiographical reminiscences, "no inapt appellation for one who was destined to [3/4] become a soldier of the cross." [The account of Krapf's early years is condensed from an autobiographical sketch prefixed to his Travels and Researches in East Africa (London: Trübner & Co., 1860).] His father was a simple farmer, and young Krapf might never have moved from the common round of rural life had not a lady who accidentally made his sister's acquaintance suggested that he should be sent to the grammar-school at Tübingen, with a view to study for the Church. It was at this school that the first impulse in the direction of his future career was received. Poring over an atlas, he wondered why so few places were marked in the Adal and Somali countries of Eastern Africa, and said to himself, "Is there then so great a desert yonder, still untrodden by the foot of any European? What, too, if it is full of hyaenas?"--of which he had just been reading in an odd volume of Bruce's Travels, which a bookseller in the town had lent him. He was then in his thirteenth year, and in the discussions that soon ensued at home respecting his future calling, he raised objections both to the clerical and to the legal and medical professions, and expressed a wish to go to sea, and so perhaps gain opportunities of exploring foreign lands. Meanwhile he continued his studies assiduously, and became a good Latin and Greek scholar, besides learning French and Italian.

It was in his fifteenth year that the call came which he afterwards so nobly obeyed. The rector of the school read an essay to his pupils on Missions to the heathen, of which Krapf now heard for the first time. Instantly the question sprang up in his mind, "Why not become a missionary, and go and convert the heathen?" But he had first to give his own self to the Lord. "How can I," he reflected, "preach the Gospel to the heathen, upon whose heart its seeds have fallen as upon stony places?" As a child he had not been without religious impressions, but they had been evanescent. Now, in the act of praying for the heathen, it occurred to him to pray for himself; and, the desire to serve God as a missionary growing within him, in the Easter holidays of 1825 he made his way on foot to Basle, to consult the veteran Director Blumhardt, then at the head of the well-known Missionary Seminary. "The Director," says Krapf, "kindly recognized my zeal, but pointed out to me the first requisite for the calling of an evangelist, the renewal of the heart, as still wanting." However be remained a week at the Institution; "and here it was," he says, "that for the first time in my life I became acquainted with true Christians, who upon their knees prayed beside me." With some of these he kept up a regular correspondence after his return home, in which he found "the greatest solace and blessing." Though no marked epoch of conversion could be pointed to, the time quickly came when the keen insight of Blumhardt was satisfied that "the first requisite for the calling of an evangelist" was no longer wanting; and in 1827 an invitation to enter the Seminary reached Krapf, and "filled him with inexpressible joy."

At Basle he remained two years; at the end of which time, excited by the mysticism of the writings of Jacob Behmen and Madame Guion, he threw up the idea of becoming a missionary or even a minister, and [4/5] returned home to serve God more acceptably by labouring with his hands. Ultimately, however, he finished his college course, was ordained to the ministry of the Lutheran Church, and became curate of Wolfenhausen. This post he soon had to resign, having given offence by a sermon in which he affirmed that "the world was in the last quarter of its twelfth and final hour;" and for some years he worked quietly as a private tutor.

The revived impulse towards missionary work was due to a Swedish missionary of the C.M.S., Peter Fjellstedt, who having served a short time in India had been appointed to Smyrna. During his stay in Europe he made Krapf's acquaintance, and pleaded with him the missionary cause. To his influence Krapf yielded, and returned to Basle, with a view to being recommended to the Church Missionary Society for appointment to Smyrna to work with Fjellstedt. The Basle Seminary in those days supplied the Society with some of its ablest and most devoted missionaries; and the then Lay Secretary, Mr. Dandeson Coates, visited Basle in the following year for conference with the Director. Krapf, with others, was introduced, and Blumhardt testified that he was "not only a man of piety, but of distinguished attainments." [Mr. Dandeson Coates's Report to the C.M.S. Committee on his visit to Basle.] On Mr. Coates's Report being presented to the Committee at their meeting on Nov. 1st, 1836, Krapf was formally accepted as a missionary of the Society; but as it was not desired to reinforce the Smyrna Mission, he was appointed to Syra, to work in the school carried on for so many years by Mr. Hildner. Just then, however, news arrived of the death of a young missionary, Mr. Knoth, also from Basle, who had lately been sent out to the Abyssinia Mission; and at Blumhardt's suggestion Krapf's designation was changed from Greece to Abyssinia.

II.

The Abyssinia Mission was undertaken by the Society with the same objects as its other Missions in the Levant and Egypt, namely by friendly intercourse with the ecclesiastics of the Oriental Christian Churches, and by the introduction of the Word of God, to quicken those Churches to fresh life, promote in them purity of doctrine and simplicity of worship, and thus enable them to exercise some degree of influence upon surrounding Mohammedanism and (in Abyssinia) heathenism. The enterprise, as a whole, failed. Eastern Christianity manifested no desire to receive spiritual impulse from the West; and notwithstanding the patient labours of many devoted men through long years, one by one most of the stations were given up. The Mission in Abyssinia, begun by Samuel Gobat in 1830, and carried on by Isenberg and others, lasted eight years, besides the period of Krapf's residence in Shoa, and of other tentative but unsuccessful efforts. "The ancient Christian Church of Abyssinia," wrote Mr. Venn some years afterwards, "was regarded as the basis of our operations; and it was hoped that by raising her from the dust, by imparting to her the light of [5/6] Gospel truth, she might hold forth the same light to the surrounding heathen." [Instructions to East African Missionaries, C. M. Intelligencer, Feb. 1851.]

There was certainly some reason for these hopes, and that of a curious and interesting character. In 1817, a valuable Ethiopic MS. of the first eight Books of the Old Testament, being a part of the original Ethiopic Version of the Bible, came into the possession of the Church Missionary Society. [An account of this and other Ethiopic MSS. of the Scriptures will be found appended to the Society's Report for 1817-18.] Other portions were unexpectedly discovered. Ethiopic is the ancient ecclesiastical language of Abyssinia; and parts of these Scriptures were printed and sent into the country, where they were received by the king and the priests with the utmost astonishment, printed books being then unknown there. A few years before this, the French Consul at Cairo, M. Asselin de Cherville, having made the acquaintance of an aged Abyssinian monk named Abu Muni, who had been both interpreter to the traveller Bruce in Africa and instructor of no less a person than Sir William Jones in India, had determined to translate some important book into Amharic, the vernacular of Abyssinia, as a linguistic exercise. He selected the Bible, and with infinite pains accomplished the entire translation. The Rev. W. Jowett, the learned C.M.S. missionary in the Levant, saw the work when on a visit to Cairo, and subsequently purchased the MS. for the Bible Society, whose property it became on April 10th, 1820. It consisted of 9539 pages in small octavo, the whole written out by Abu Rumi in the Amharic character. Portions of it were printed, and many thousand copies were afterwards circulated in Abyssinia. The revision of this version, for the Bible Society, occupied some of Krapf's later years, as will appear hereafter.

On Feb. 6th, 1837, just four months before Queen Victoria ascended the throne of England, the ardent young missionary left Basle for Marseilles, whence he sailed for Malta. The rapid steam communication of later days was then unknown; and at Malta he had to take another sailing-vessel, an Austrian ship, for Alexandria. It is a noteworthy coincidence that only by two days he missed meeting at Malta Samuel Gobat, then on his way home from Abyssinia, whither Krapf was journeying. From Alexandria he travelled to Cairo, where he remained five months with the C.M.S. missionaries Kruse and Lieder, studying colloquial Arabic. Thence, on a camel, he proceeded to Suez, where he took passage in an Arab vessel for Jeddah, which [6/7] place he reached in twenty-two days. In another Arab craft he crossed over to Massowah, then, as now, the chief seaport of Abyssinia, which he reached in December, 1837. These were the first two of no less than thirty-four distinct voyages, i. e. voyages in distinct vessels, off the eastern coast of Africa, either in the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean, of which mention is made in the published narrative of his travels. If others be included which are not there mentioned, the number must be at least forty. [Not only was the Suez Canal then undreamed of, but more than twenty years after, in 1860, when Krapf's Travels were published, both be and his editor, Mr. E. G. Ravenstein, foiled to foresee what a mighty influence it was destined to wield. The latter, in his Introduction, speaks of "the canal in nubibus," and while allowing that "no doubt many supporters of the scheme were sincere in believing it feasible," points out good reasons why, even if completed, it would be of little use to commerce. Its only importance would be political, as it would be used by France to facilitate her plans for setting up in Madagascar a rival empire to British India! So impossible was it, only twenty-two years ago, for the ablest geographers to forecast the future. Krapf himself had larger ideas. He did not think the Red Sea would be much increased in importance; but he did expect it would "weaken Mohammedanism in the land of its birth, Arabia, and on the African coast, and tend to suppress the slave-trade, and subjugate East African heathenism by Christianity and its civilization" See Travels, &c., pp. xxxv., xxxvi., 15.]

After some experience of the usual difficulties of African travel, Krapf succeeded in joining the missionaries C. W. Isenberg and C. H. Blumhardt, at Adowa, the capital of Tigré. But he was only there a month or two. As he reminded us only two years ago, when the news first came of the hostile influence of the Romish Mission in Uganda, a similar influence caused the expulsion of himself and his brethren from Tigré. [See his letter in the Church Missionary Intelligencer of Dec. 1879, p. 725.] Two French Roman Catholic priests persuaded the prince, Ubie, that they were more in accord with Abyssinian Christianity than the Protestant missionaries--which was true enough--and the latter received their congé. "We might have remained," wrote Krapf, "had we chosen to offer the prince a present greater than that which he had received from the Roman Catholics; but such a course we deemed an unworthy one, and after a residence of scarcely two months, I had to quit the land in which I would so willingly have striven to spread the Gospel."

The three missionaries reached Massowah in safety, whence Isenberg and Blumhardt proceeded to Cairo, to await instructions from the Committee in London. Krapf, however, with the zeal of a young recruit, resolved to attempt an entrance into Shoa, another Christian kingdom lying south of Abyssinia proper. He accompanied his brethren as far as Jeddah, and thence sailed in a Persian ship to Mokha. "On board this vessel," he says,--

"I had ample opportunities of studying the mode in which the Mohammedans force on their new slaves the religion of their prophet. A sheikh kept showing some Galla boys the bowings and genuflexions of Mohammedan prayer, and in fact the whole mechanism of his warship. When the poor slaves, who scarcely understood a word of Arabic, did not ape to his satisfaction the forms shown them, the sheikh broke out in abusive language or boxed their ears."

Severe illness compelled him to return to Cairo, and it was not till the early spring of 1839 that, now accompanied by Isenberg, he reached Tajurra, the landing-place for Shoa, nearly opposite Aden. "I was now," he writes, "about to become personally acquainted with the country which I had found so barren and empty in the map in my boyhood." A month's journey across the desert of Adal brought them to the highlands of Shoa, and on June 3rd they arrived at Ankober, the capital. They had a friendly reception from the king, Sahela Selassie; but, like another African potentate with whom at the present day we are more familiar, he informed them that he did not want spiritual teachers, but masons, smiths, and especially gun-makers. It is curious indeed to read the details of Krapf's intercourse with him. [7/8] One is continually reminded of Uganda. Krapf, for instance, did his best to promote friendly relations between Shoa and England, which the king evinced great desire to cultivate; and a British embassy was sent from Aden to Ankober with presents and a draft treaty for the abolition of slavery. The treaty was signed, but remained, of course, a dead letter; and Krapf writes:--

"Being, to a certain extent, enlightened and eager for improvement, the king could not but feel it desirable to form a connenon with such a nation as the English. It is only a pity that the connexion established was not a closer one, and more productive of blessings to Africa. Yet it has had the effect of making this and the neighbouring regions better known to[geographers at least. This knowledge will bear fruit in the future when Shoa shall have a. wiser ruler than Sahela Selassie. He had, indeed, great good nature, delighted in improvement, and possessed a sense of justice, and many good qualities; but he was too much led away by the superstition of the priests, the narrow prejudices of his chiefs, the desire for personal enrichment, and the oriental habit of accumulating dead treasures. Had he rightly understood and employed the opportunity which was afforded him of establishing a connexion with England, he might have become sovereign not only of Abyssinia, but of the whole of Inner Africa. But such is man. In his ignorance, he casts away the greatest treasures for this world and the next--treasures, which, if. he knew how to use them, would secure him temporal no less than his eternal well-being."

The very words might be written of Mtesa. Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur. And we may well ask, To what extent is the Coptic Christianity of Abyssinia superior to the heathenism of Uganda?" They know God," it is true; "but in works they deny Him." Polygamy and slavery Krapf found rife in Christian Shoa. How many wives Mtesa boasts of we do not precisely know. Sahela Selassie had five hundred; and, true prototype of the king of Uganda, he "wished to have an English princess to consolidate his alliance with Great Britain!" Queen Victoria herself was unmarried then; whether it was her Majesty that he thought of we are not told. "Immorality," Krapf goes on, "is the order of the day, and even priests and monks break the seventh commandment." As to slavery, he says, "He has many thousands of slaves employed as hewers of wood, drawers of water, bearers of burdens, cowherds, agricultural labourers, &c. Christians are not allowed to export slaves, but they may import them for their own use." Of what sort the Christianity of this practically barbarous country is may be gathered from the statement that while the chief articles of the Creed are nominally held, the Virgin Mary is said to have died for the sins of the world and saved 144,000 souls; that the means of expiating sin are almsgiving, fasting, and "gabbling the Psalms," and that candidates for ordination "must be able to read, and to say the Nicene Creed." [A detailed account of the Abyssinian religion appeared in the Intelligencer of Feb. 1856. It is a curious mélange of corrupted Christianity, Judaism, and heathenism. In the Society's Annual Report for 1817-18 appeared a historical sketch of the Abyssinian Church, by Prof. Samuel Lee, the great Oriental scholar who went to Cambridge at the expense of the Society, and afterwards became successively Professor of Arabic and Regius Professor of Hebrew.]

Krapf remained three years in Shoa. Most of the time he was alone, Isenberg having returned to Europe to pass his Amharic works through the press. He accompanied the king on several military expeditions, [8/9] and in this way gained much knowledge of surrounding countries and tribes. His sympathies were especially drawn out towards the great Galls nation, which inhabits a vast extent of territory stretching southwards nearly to Mombasa; and finding that they were heathen who had not yet yielded to the advance of Mohammedanism (as to a large extent they have since then), he thought that if they could be won to a purer Christianity than that of Abyssinia, their numbers and energy might give them a leading place in the work of African evangelization. At one time he made up his mind to go and live among them; but this design was frustrated by a war that broke out, and in March, 1842, he left Ankober with other intentions. These were, (1) to meet two missionaries who were on their way to his support, J. C. Müller and Mühlheisen Arnold, the latter afterwards well known as an authority on Mohammedan matters; and (2), as he naively confesses, "a personal interest," namely to meet in Egypt, and there marry, Rosine Dietrich, a lady of Basle formerly betrothed to another German missionary who had died.

Instead of striking the coast again at Tajurra, he made his way through the heart of Abyssinia, and after many strange adventures and severe privations, he reached Massowah, found the reinforcement had gone back to Egypt, followed them thither, was married to Rosine Dietrich, and then sailed for Aden with Isenberg and Arnold, intending to return to Shoa. But on arriving at Tajurra they found that the enlightened Sahela Selassie had given positive orders that no Englishman should be allowed an entrance into the interior. "If they are suffered to return," had been the representation to him of priests and monks, "the people will fall away from the faith of their fathers." Apparently, hostile Roman Catholic influence had again been at work in the person of a French traveller, to whom Krapf had shown much kindness; which kindness was afterwards rewarded, not only by the exclusion of the Protestant missionaries from Shoa, but also by the publication of a book in which the Frenchman embodied many results of Krapf's researches without a word of acknowledgment. The book, indeed, contained some items of information which were certainly more original as to their source. "M. Krapf," one day said the intending author, "we must assert that we have seen the sources of the Hawash." "When I replied," writes Krapf, "that this would not be true, for we had not seen them, he rejoined with a smile, 'Oh, we must be philosophes!"' An account of the river sources in question accordingly appeared in the "philosopher's" veracious narrative.

After vainly trying a different route through the Somali country, it was resolved to make another attempt to enter Abyssinia proper, Isenberg and Arnold going first, and Krapf and his wife following, with a large supply of Amharic and Ethiopic Bibles and Testaments, after a visit to Aden to inquire about the possibilities of reaching the Galls country. Mrs. Krapf's first experience of African travel must be told in her husband's own words: "In the Shoho wilderness my beloved wife was prematurely delivered of a little daughter, whom I christened 'Eneba,' a tear. I had to bury the dear child, for she lived only a few [9/10] hours, under a tree by the wayside, and her mourning mother was obliged to prosecute her journey on the third day after her confinement, as the Shohos would not wait any longer, and there was no village in the neighbourhood where she could have enjoyed repose."

But the attempt thus so bravely made proved unsuccessful, and the whole party again retreated to Massowah, whence Isenberg and Arnold went back to Egypt, and Mr. and Mrs. Krapf to Aden. Thus ended the Church Missionary Society's Abyssinia Mission, a work begun in faith and hope, and carried on by men who were content to take their lives in their hands, and to brave perils of all kinds by land and by water, if so be they might be the instruments of reviving a fallen Christian Church and stirring it up to hold forth the Word of life amid surrounding heathenism; but a work of which there is little result that can be formulated, except the printing and circulation of many thousands of Scriptures in the Amharic vernacular.

III.

Krapf had written home to consult the Committee on his plans for going southwards with a view to reach the Gallas that way. On arriving at Aden he found letters sanctioning his proposal; and "having sought preparation for the long sea-voyage by prayer and meditation," he and his wife set sail for Zanzibar on November 11th, 1843. Three days afterwards a furious storm was encountered; the frail Arab craft sprang a leak; as the only chance of saving their lives the captain put back towards Aden; when actually in sight of harbour the wind changed and drove the now water-logged vessel out to sea again; but providentially a passing boat took them off just before she capsized. They then embarked in another vessel, the captain of which was a Suahili from Mombasa, who was going to take his ship from port to port along the East African coast to that place. Krapf always regarded the disaster to the first ship as no less providential than his escape. Had it not occurred he would have gone straight to Zanzibar, and might never have visited Mombasa at all--which would have altered the whole history of African geographical and missionary enterprise.

Krapf gives an interesting account of the different places he stopped at on this voyage. At some of them he met Gallas from the interior, which encouraged him to hope that his future work would be among them. He little thought what his future work was to be. At Takaungn he first heard of the Wanika, among whom his lot was afterwards cast, and of certain countries in the far interior called Jagga, and Usambara, and Uniamesi--"in which latter territory," he writes, "there is a great lake." No one rejoiced more than Krapf when, thirty-three years after, the vanguard of the Victoria Nyanza Mission launched their boat upon that mighty inland sea. At Takaunga, too, he had to leave the Arab ship he had come in, and go on in an open boat which he calls a "daw" (dhow); and in this, a few hours after, on Jan 3rd, 1844, he entered the harbour of Mombasa.

Mombasa (the Portuguese form; Krapf calls it Mombaz) was, in the [10/11] 17th century, one of the chain of settlements linking Africa, Arabia, Persia, and India, which were established by the Portuguese traders. The fortress bears an inscription, put up by Xeixas de Cabreira, the governor, in 1639, giving 1635 as the date of its erection. In the middle of the 18th century many of these settlements came under the dominion of the Arabs of Oman. The chief Arab ruler was known to Europeans as the Imam of Muscat, and one of these Imams, Said-Said, who reigned fifty-two years (1804-1856), established his power over large portions of the East African coast and of the shores of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Mombasa, to prevent its falling into his hands, was in 1823 offered by its inhabitants to England. A surveying squadron under Captain Owen was then on the coast, and to him the application was made. He eagerly accepted the offer, and a convention was signed accordingly; but in 1826, on Said-Said putting in his claim, the Government at home disavowed the annexation and withdrew the agents in charge, and the place then fell into the Imam's hands. At his death, his dominions were divided between his three sons, one of whom took Zanzibar and its dependencies. This son was succeeded by another son of Said-Said, the present Sultan. When Krapf arrived on the coast, Said-Said was at the height of his power, and had lately transferred his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar.

On this occasion Krapf was only a few hours at Mombasa. On Jan. 7th he reached Zanzibar, where he was kindly received by the Sultan (or Imam), and by the English and American Consuls. The latter wished him "to remain in Zanzibar, preaching on Sundays to its few Europeans, working amongst the Banians from India, founding schools for the Suahilis and Arabs, and preparing books." Krapf, however, was still longing to reach the Gallas, and could not rest till he had made firm his footing on the mainland; and the work he declined was undertaken many years after, and is still carried on, by the Universities' Mission. He obtained a letter from the Sultan, which ran as follows:

"This comes from Said-Said, Sultan; greeting all our subjects, friends, and governors. This letter is written on behalf of Dr. Krapf, a German, a good man who wishes to convert the world to God. Behave well to him, and be everywhere serviceable to him."

With this he started to explore the coast, leaving his wife at Zanzibar. He was entirely uncertain where to establish himself. He felt "as one walking in a mist, who can just see far enough to take a step or two at a time;" but he looked out continually for some indication of God's will concerning him. On March 13th he was again at Mombasa, where he was received with much friendliness. "Then," he says, "all at once the thought came upon me that Mombaz would be best suited for a missionary station, especially as the Gallas are to be met with a few days' journey to the north of it." He returned to Zanzibar, fetched Mrs. Krapf, and ultimately took up his permanent abode at Mombasa in the first week of May.

He at once plunged with characteristic ardour into the study of the Suahili language, of which there was neither grammar nor dictionary; and on June 8th, a day he always considered one of the most important [11/12] in his life, he began a tentative translation of the Book of Genesis, with the aid of the Cadi of Mombasa. Scarcely had he begun, however, when, in the mysterious providence of God, a heavy trial was permitted to fall upon him. On July 1st he was attacked by fever, and on the 5th his wife took it still more severely. The very next day Mrs. Krapf s confinement took place; and on the 9th it became apparent that God was about to call her spirit to Himself. She called the Mohammedan attendants round her, and earnestly besought them to believe in Christ the Son of God, in whom, in that hour of anguish, and in the prospect of immediate separation from husband and babe, she could rest with perfect peace. Krapf was lying close by prostrate with fever, and when she breathed her last, it was only by a great effort that he was able to rise and satisfy himself that she was really dead, or afterwards follow the beloved remains to the grave, in which they were laid in the presence of the Governor, the Cadi, and other leading inhabitants of the place. A day or two after, the motherless infant succumbed also to the fever; and, wrote Krapf, "I was obliged by the climate to conduct this second victim of the king of terrors to the grave of my beloved Rosine as soon as possible." "My heart and body," he wrote in a private letter, "wept for many days."

As he thus twice crossed the estuary to bury his dead on the mainland, he little thought that close to that solitary grave would rise, thirty years afterwards, a prosperous missionary settlement. For the Frere Town with which we are now so familiar is built on that very mainland opposite the island of Mombasa, within a few hundred yards of the white tombstone that marks the spot where rest the bones of Mrs. Krapf and her new-born babe. [See a picture of the grave, from a sketch by Lieut. Gordon, R.N., in the C. M. Gleaner of August, 1879.] But he could see in that grave the pledge of future triumphs of the Gospel in Africa, and he wrote home to the Committee his memorable and often quoted message:--

"Tell our friends that there is on the East African coast a lonely grave of a member of the Mission cause connected with your Society. This is a sign that you have commenced the struggle with this part of the world; and as the victories of the Church are gained by stepping over the graves of many of her members, you may be the more convinced that the hour is at hand when you are summoned to the conversion of Africa from its eastern shore."

It was during his period of convalescence that in his sorrowful loneliness he turned his mind to the planning of extended missionary operations for subjecting Africa to Christ. Three ideas shaped themselves in his mind: (1) a chain of nine or ten stations, with four missionaries to each, to stretch right across the continent from Mombasa to the Gaboon; (2) a colony for freed slaves similar to Sierra Leone, for which colony, he wrote, "Mombaz and its environs would be the best site;" (3) in his own words, "A black bishop and black clergy of the Protestant Church may, ere long, become a necessity in the civilization of Africa." There was small prospect of either then; yet Krapf lived to see the Central African expeditions of our own day, and Frere Town, and the Bishopric of the Niger. Such a retrospect [12/13] may well rebuke the impatience we are so prone to in these telegraphic days. We need to be more thankful for the marvellous advance God has given us; and then in quietness and confidence shall be our strength as we work on towards a yet brighter future.

On August 19th, a few weeks after his wife's death, Krapf made an excursion into the Wanika district, and visited the village of Rabbai Ku (Old or Great Rabbai), not far from the place where the now prosperous station of Kisulatini was afterwards established. This wets the first of many similar journeys in different directions into the near surrounding country, as well as up and down the coast, in the course of which he made friends with many tribes, and seized every opportunity of making known the Gospel. Meanwhile he continued at Mombasa as his head-quarters, "prosecuting with great zeal," he says, "the study of the Suahili language, into which by degrees I translated the whole of the New Testament, and composed a short grammar and dictionary; continuing likewise my geographical and ethnographical studies, in the certain conviction that the time would come when Eastern Africa, too, would be drawn into European intercourse, and these introductory studies would be made available, even if for the present no great missionary result would be attained." That is the true missionary spirit--to be content to sow that others may reap, in the undoubting assurance that a day is coming when both he that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together.

In this patient preparatory work, two years quickly passed away.

IV.

"At last," says Krapf, "on the 10th of June 1846, my dear and long expected fellow-labourer, Rebmann, arrived at Mombaz." John Rebmann, like Krapf, was a native of Wurtemberg, and like him, a student of the Basle Seminary; but, unlike him, had finished his theological training at Islington, and received English orders at the hands of Bishop Blomfield. When Silas and Timotheus came from Macedonia and joined St. Paul at Corinth, he was "pressed in the spirit;" and so it was with Krapf. The time had now come, he felt, to establish the Mission on the mainland. The place fixed upon was Rabbai Mpia (New or Little Rabbai); and the Wanika chiefs there, upon being applied to, gave ready assent to the proposal. The sickness of both the missionaries caused some delay, but at length August 25th was fixed on as the day for their formal entry into the village. On the morning of the day, Krapf had another severe attack of fever, but he persisted in going. "Whether the result be life or death," he said to himself, "the Mission must be begun;" and, riding on an ass in great pain, he with difficulty ascended into the hill country, by a path which, he says, even without a rider the ass could scarcely have mounted. Rebmann, too, could only clamber up by the most painful exertion. "Scarcely ever," writes Krapf, "was a Mission began in such weakness; but so it was to be, that we might neither boast of our own strength, nor our successors forget that God sanctifies even our human infirmities to the fulfilment of His ends."

[14] In much bodily weakness they set about building a house in which Europeans could safely live. This task took them two or three months, during which time they dwelt in native huts. "In every interval of rest," says Krapf, "I persevered with my translations, though often, during the renewed attacks of fever, the thought would arise that even before the commencement of my proper missionary work I might be summoned into eternity. I prayed fervently," he goes on, "for the preservation of my life in Africa, until at least one soul should be saved; for I was certain that if once a single stone. were laid in any country, the Lord would bless the work and continue the structure, by the conversion of those now sitting in darkness and the shadow of death."

For three years and a half, from August 1846 to April 1850, Rabbai Mpia was the residence of these two zealous and faithful missionaries. The labours of that period were of three distinct sorts, viz. (a) intercourse with the surrounding Wanika, (b) linguistic studies and literary work, (c) journeys to other neighbouring countries. How diligent they were in all three branches of missionary effort may be gathered from an entry in Krapf's journal in January, 1847, when "the completion of an English-Suahili and Kinika Dictionary closed a long and troublesome labour." "My task," he writes, "will now be--

"(1) to make a copy of this dictionary; (2) to continue my translation of the New Testament, and of Dr. Barth's Bible Stories; (3) to make, daily, an excursion to the plantations of the Wanika, and preach to them; (4) to instruct such Wanika children as wish for instruction; (5) to address the Wanika of the district, and to devote myself to those who visit us at our home from far and near; and (6) from time to time to make journeys into the interior, in order to become acquainted with its geographical and ethnological peculiarities and languages, preaching the Gospel as far as can be done on these journeys, and thus pave the way for the Mission in the interior, when we shall have received more fellow-labourers from Europe."

The Wanika were found to be very much like most tribes low in the scale of civilization, careless and good-natured, and generally friendly, but immoral, grossly superstitious, and emphatically "of the earth, earthy." About six months after their settlement at Rabbai, Krapf and Rebmann went to Zanzibar for a few days to recruit their health, and visited the Sultan. He told them the Wanika were "bad people," and they ought not to have gone to live among them, but have remained at Mombasa; to which Krapf replied that the South Sea Islanders had been worse, but had been completely changed by the Word of God. "If that be so," rejoined Said-Said, "it is all right: stay among the Wanika as long as you choose, and do whatever you please." The "bad people," however, had little consciousness of the evil of their doings; and one day, when Krapf had been speaking of the wickedness of human nature to two old women, "as self-righteous as any persons in Europe could be," one of them exclaimed, "Who has been slandering me to you? I have a good heart, and know of no sin." After a time it was laid upon Krapf's heart--"inwardly made manifest to him" in his own expression--that he had "attacked too fiercely the heathen customs and superstitions of the Wanika, the sight of whose abominations moved him to indignation," and that he [14/15] ought to preach more the love of the Redeemer for His sheep lost and gone astray, or taken captive by Satan, showing more compassion, and letting his words be full of commiseration and pity." Perhaps it was owing, under God, to the more tender character of his teaching from that time, that, within a few weeks after, one of his hearers gave evidence of a change of heart. This was the cripple Mingo, the one convert given to him as the immediate visible reward of his East African labours. Interesting notices of this poor creature occur in the journals. Let us quote one, for the glimpse it gives of the true missionary spirit that breathed in Krapf:--

29th November, 1848.--Mringe was with me during the night. We discoursed towards midnight about the world to come and the City of God; about the occupations of the blessed, and the incorruptible body of our future state, and many other things. My poor cripple devoured the words as they fell from my lips; and I saw that they made an impression on him, and felt happy indeed, for it is at moments like these that one feels the importance of a missionary's calling. A missionary who feels the working of the Spirit within him, and is upheld in its manifestation to others, is the happiest being upon earth. In his sight what are royal and imperial honours compared with the office of a preacher in the bush or lonely hut? And sure it is, that unless a missionary feels ennobled by his calling, he will forsake his post, or become an unprofitable labourer in the vineyard."

The linguistic works of the period included those alluded to in one of the foregoing extracts, and also a Kinika Primer. The books, however, remained in MS., except the Kinika Gospel of St. Luke, the Primer, and the Heidelberg Catechism in the same language, which were printed at Bombay at the expense of the Church Missionary Society, and 500 copies sent to Rabbai. The St. Luke, as the readers of the Intelligencer know, became in after years the instrument of the Christian movement among the Giriama people which has proved so encouraging; and it is interesting to note that as far back as January 1847, Krapf mentions a visit from some of "the tribe Kiriama."

Six important journeys were made during the period under notice, besides occasional visits to the Teita country and Mount Kadiaro, &o. These were, three expeditions by Rebmann to Jagga or Chagga, in April and May, 1848; November and December of the same year; and April, May, and June, 1849; and three by Krapf, all in different directions, viz. (1) to Usambara, in July and August, 1848; (2) to Ukambani, in November and December, 1849; (3) down the coast, as far as Cape Delgado, in February and March, 1850. In a geographical point of view, the first of the six was the most important. It was on the 11th of May, 1848, that Rebmann saw afar off the snow-clad dome of Kilimanjaro. This discovery excited the greatest interest in Europe, and the news was received in many quarters with incredulity. [It is an interesting fact to ourselves that the news was a prominent item in the very first number of the Church Missionary Intelligencer, then being just started by Mr. Ridgeway.] The scientific journals of both Germany and England discredited the idea that mountains covered with perpetual snow could be found just under the equator, and the suggestion was offered that the summit seen--if seen at all--must be "a cone of porphyry." Rebmann, on hearing of these doubts, simply replied that, having passed [15/16] some years of his youth in Switzerland, he was not likely to make mistake about a snow-peak! And Krapf, who afterwards saw it on several occasions during his journey to Ukambani, treated the sneers of the geographers very quietly. On this journey he saw another huge mountain mass, Kenia, also snow-clad. The travels of Baron Van der Decken in 1863 subsequently satisfied the world of the reality of the discovery; and Mr. New, the Methodist missionary, ascended Kilimanjaro to the snow-line in 1871. The height of this mountain has been measured, and found to be 18,700 feet, 3000 feet higher than Mont Blanc. That of Kenia has not yet been ascertained. Rebmann was informed that a previous king of Jagga had once sent a large expedition to ascertain what the white substance on the former mountain was, hoping it might prove to be silver; but that only one of the party returned, with his hands and feet bent inward and stiffened (frost-bitten), and announced that his companions had died of cold and of terror-which fate was attributed to evil spirits.

Krapf's own travels took him also into regions never before visited by the white man. Usambara, the territory between the Umba and Pangani rivers, which occupies the greater part of the coast between Mombasa and Zanzibar, proved to be a most inviting country, both physically and on account of the intelligence of the people. The king, Kmeri, received the missionary with much kindness, despite an opposition from Arab traders which reminds us here also of recent experiences in Uganda; and as the royal friendship was found sufficient to ensure protection and provision anywhere in the kingdom, Krapf came to the conclusion that despotism might in some respects be more favourable to missionary effort than the republicanism of the Wanika, among whom each petty chief was wont to do that which was right in his own eyes, and was apt to be suspicious of a white man living with his next-door neighbour. In Ukambani, some two hundred miles to the north-west of Mombasa, which Krapf next visited, he found the other extreme. There was practically no government at all. But the Wakamba were great traders in ivory and other produce, with which they made long journeys, and therefore it seemed of great importance to gain an entrance among them for the Gospel. The journey was a long and trying one, and not without considerable danger from the marauding tribes that roamed over the intervening country. Krapf's sufferings from want of water were great; but when we read that "the uncontrollableness of his people, and their ceaseless importunity for increase of wages, proved more harassing than fatigues and privations," we are again reminded of modern caravan experiences. The chief with whom Krapf sojourned, Kivoi, had been at Rabbai, when travelling to the coast with ivory, and knew the Mission and something of its objects; and his friendliness gave every promise that Ukambani as well as Usambara would, different as its social and political arrangements were, prove an inviting field of evangelistic effort.

For it was not geographical discovery that Krapf and Rebmann set before them as the object of their travels. Again and again do their journals and letters reiterate their determination to make everything [16/17] subordinate to the great end of their mission, the salvation of souls. We can now look back over the years that have passed away since those intrepid exploratory journeys were made, and see that God's design for them was that they should do little more than a preparatory work in addition to their bright example of faith and courage; but that design they themselves could not see, and their ardent longings and constant prayers were for the conversion of Africa to Christ. To give but one instance:---"My spirit often urged me," says Krapf, with reference to his first visit to Usambara, "to go behind a large tree at a little distance from the village, where I could see into the valleys, as well as the distant Wakuafi wilderness, and look upon the high mountains around me, to weep and pray that the Redeemer's kingdom might soon be established in these heights, and that His songs might he heard on these lofty hills; and in full reliance on the promises of God, I took possession of the pagan land for the militant Church of Christ."

Their appeals to the Society to strengthen the Mission to this end were responded to in 1849 by the despatch of the Rev. J. Erhardt and Mr. Johannes Wagner, who arrived at Mombasa on June 10th, and were received with the greatest thankfulness. Their arrival at Rabbai, however, turned the mission-house into a hospital, as Krapf expresses it. Both were stricken down with severe attacks of fever, and though Erhardt recovered, and has since done excellent missionary service, Wagner succumbed to the disease on July 31st. Even in this dispensation Krapf could trace a merciful purpose:--

"Incomprehensible at first appeared to us this guidance which so quickly took from us our newly arrived fellow-labourer; but his very death has brought a blessing to the Wanika, and although dead, he still speaks to them; for they have now, for the first time, seen the death and burial of a Christian, whose joyful hope is in Christ, the life, and the resurrection. After I had read the funeral service of the English liturgy, translating it into the Kinika language, I spoke to those present and those who had dug the grave, on 1 Thessalonians iv. 13, and finally we sang some verses of a hymn. From all this the Natives were enabled to recognize the marked distinction between Christianity and the horrible wailing and other dark practices of heathenism; and so in this way, our departed friend did not come in vain into this benighted land."

Soon afterwards, Krapf and Erhardt made the journey already indicated down the east coast to the Portuguese boundary, everywhere gathering important information; particularly with regard to Lake Nyassa, the existence of which they made known some years before Livingstone visited it; after which Krapf left for Europe, with the twofold design of recruiting his health and laying before the C.M.S. Committee his plans for the extension of the Mission. He reached his home in Germany in June 1850.

V.

The reports brought home by Dr. Krapf in 1850 excited the keenest interest in missionary circles in England, and the impression was deepened by personal intercourse with the man, whom the Committee and their friends now saw face to face for the first time, and whose ardent [17/18] enthusiasm and single-eyed devotion to the Lord's service kindled all hearts with hope that the time to favour Africa, yea the set time, had come. It was just at this period, too, that the Yoruba Mission was expanding, and presenting so hopeful a field that it stood almost if not quite first in the sympathy and interest of the Society's friends. Krapf's magnificent conception of an equatorial line of Missions stretching right across the continent did not seem as far from realization as hard experience has since shown it to be. "Our brethren tell us," wrote the editor of the Intelligencer, "that the Lord has opened Africa; and we should feel that in such a declaration we are summoned to immediate work--a work honourable, but perilous." It was determined accordingly to send out with Krapf three additional missionaries, making six altogether, and also three Christian mechanics, "that in temporal as well as spiritual things, the improvement of the Natives might be prosecuted." [C. M. Intelligencer, Sept. 1860.]

Krapf was not idle during his brief stay in Europe. He passed through the Tübingen press his well-known Vocabulary of Six African Languages, viz., Kisuahili, Kinika, Kikamba, Kipokomo, Kihiau, Kigalla; and also his translation of St. Mark's Gospel into Kikamba, and an outline grammar of Kisuahili. His linguistic labours and his great missionary scheme attracted attention in the highest quarters. Prince Albert sent for him, and entered with great interest into his plans; and with a view to supporting the influence of the Mission at Zanzibar, his Royal Highness entrusted the doctor with some royal presents for the Imam, "as an acknowledgment of the kindness shown by him to the missionaries." [Krapf's Travels and Researches, published ten years afterwards, were dedicated to the Prince Consort by special permission.] Here, too, we may introduce a graphic account of his interview with the King of Prussia and Baron Humboldt at Berlin, which we find in the journals of Henry Venn printed in the recently published Memoir. The account was given to Mr. Venn by Chevalier Bunsen:--

"Immediately upon Dr. Krapf's arrival at Berlin, Ritter met him, and took him to Baron Humboldt. After the first words of salutation, Humboldt asked him about the snow mountains, and five minutes' animated conversation took place; when Humboldt expressed himself quite satisfied that it was snow, and as pleased at the establishment of the fact as a little child with a new toy. The Baron is 84. The King was apprized of Dr. Krapf's arrival, and invited him to dinner next day. The place of honour is that opposite the King and Queen, who sit together; Dr. Krapf was placed there; Ritter being on one side and Humboldt on the other. The conversation was almost entirely between Krapf and the King, upon geographical and linguistic subjects. After dinner the King took Dr. Krapf aside, and then, Ritter said, the conversation was upon more religions subjects; he was not a party to it himself, but it was evident that both the King and subjects Krapf were delighted with each other. The King, at parting, said that he must give Dr. Krapf a souvenir, and asked him what would be useful to him. Dr. Krapf said that every want had been abundantly supplied by the Society, and the King therefore presented him with a gold medal of the highest order of merit." [Memoir of the Rev. Henry Venn. By the Rev. W. Knight. New Edit., 1882. Page 214.]

Between the resolve to strengthen the East Africa Mission and the [18/19] departure of the missionaries, an event occurred in England which had little to do with the Church Missionary Society, but which the editor of the Intelligencer turned to excellent account in further enlarging upon the Society's plans. That event was the Papal Aggression. It was a Mission--a Mission on a grand scale--a Mission for the conversion of benighted England--a Mission of a semi-political character in respect of its assumption of English territorial titles for Romish episcopal sees. We have lived to see the harmlessness of that particular feature in the Pope's scheme, insulting as it not only seemed to be at the time, but was intended to be--for it was the vaunting manifesto of Cardinal Wiseman that roused the nation to the pitch of excitement which many of us so well remember. Now it so happened that the year 1850 saw a larger number of missionaries sent forth by the C.M.S. than any previous year in the Society's history; and 1851 opened with the departure of the new East African expedition. That, wrote Mr. Ridgeway, is our answer to Rome. "We will show her that, although rotten branches may fall off, the English nation, like our own country oak, is sound at heart; that there is life in the English Church, for there is growth in the extremities." The remark was no mere word of momentary defiance: it embodied a principle which is of true and deep importance. The most effective weapon in Church defence is Church extension; and it is this principle that has made the Church Missionary Society such a tower of strength to evangelical truth in the Church of England. Its work is abroad; but no less real is its reflex influence at home.

The Valedictory Dismissal of Krapf and his brethren, held in the old Parochial Schools at Islington on Jan. 2nd, 1851, was an occasion of remarkable interest. The Instructions of the Committee were one of Henry Venn's most powerful productions. They struck the keynote of the Society's purpose in the very first sentence. "The East Africa Mission"--these were the opening words--"is invested with a special interest in the eyes of many of our supporters. But there must be no mistake as to the grounds on which that interest rests. These are not the adventitious attractions of the geographical and linguistic discoveries which have resulted from this particular Mission. The true friends of the Society exercise a holy jealousy of much that is attractive in the eyes of the world, lest it compromise the Christian simplicity and divine character of the work. Long before the fame of this Mission had gone abroad, the lively sympathy and earnest prayers of Christians had been engaged on its behalf. And this interest sprung from the principles upon which it was founded, and the spirit in which it has been conducted." Then followed a masterly review of Krapf's previous labours in Abyssinia and on the East Coast, and of the chain of providential circumstances which had led to his settlement at Mombasa; after which his large proposals were discussed. "It was not merely a lodgment upon the coast, or the evangelization of one tribe, at which the Mission aimed; but the missionaries were enabled, by the grace of God to which be all the praise!--to open in faith the Continent of Africa. Like Abram of old, they lifted up [19/20] their eyes, and looked from the place where they were, northward, and southward, and westward, and claimed it all as included in the covenant . . . . and the very command which was the token of Abram's faith--'Arise, walk through the land in the length and in the breadth of it, for I will give it thee'--they have fulfilled." Then Mr. Venn went on to explain that the Committee had regarded it as their duty "rigidly and faithfully to try the question, whether these extensive aims were the dreams of enthusiasts or the sober calculations of wise men." They would not have discharged their trust had they "been led away, by grand schemes, foolishly to risk the lives of missionaries and the expenditure of sacred funds." But the more closely they considered the matter, the more they "assuredly gathered" that the Lord had called them to go forward. The grounds of this confidence were then stated, viz., the comparative healthiness of the climate, the peculiar openings reported in both Usambara and Ukambani, the close connexion together of the various languages, the friendship of the Imam, &c. The actual Instructions followed, which entered into details to which it is needless now to refer; but one section deserves notice. The missionaries were directed distinctly not to follow the ordinary methods of conducting a Mission, not to settle down at one place, establish schools, and collect a nucleus of adherents round them, but to "branch out far and wide, witnessing to the Truth in successive tribes and countries, assured that if the Spirit of God blessed their word by an awakening at any particular point, the Providence of God would provide for the sustaining such fruits." The Gospels, they were reminded, recorded many sermons preached by Christ "from the little ship, in the temporary abode, by the wayside--only one in a synagogue."

These Instructions are far from having a merely archaic interest. [They are printed in extenso in the C. M. Intelligencer of Feb. 1851.] They have an unmistakable bearing on the great undertaking in Central Africa in which we are now engaged. For it is not enough to say that the enterprises are similar. They are actually identical. We are but now carrying out the scheme which Krapf suggested and Venn planned.

Krapf's reply to the Instructions was remarkable for the combination in it of humility and faith. He said that he had "always been disappointed when he trusted in himself," but had "never been ashamed, nor confounded, nor dismayed, when trusting in the might and help and power of God." Bishop Harding of Bombay gave the address to the missionaries, and the Rev. Lord Wriothesley Russell said a few words with reference to Prince Albert's interest in the undertaking; after which the Rev. John Hambleton, of Islington, offered the intercessory prayer. Lord Wriothesley Russell alone is still spared to ns of those who took part in that day's proceedings.

VI.

Two days after the Dismissal, Krapf left England, accompanied by the Revs. Conrad Diehlmann and Christian Pfefferle, both of them [20/21] alumni of Basle and Islington successively, and both ordained by Bishop Blomfield. The three mechanics, also Germans, joined them at. Trieste. The number, it will be seen, was one short. One of the three missionaries at first selected had been withdrawn. A further reduction of the party took place at Aden, where Mr. Diehlmann refused to go further. The Intelligencer of that day significantly quotes Acts xiii. 13: "When Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia; and John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem." "So early," continues the Editor, "did the work, in its resumption, experience the hindrances of Satan." And these proved only the first of a long series of hindrances. Months passed away before any further tidings of the Mission reached England; and then the summary of news in the Intelligencer ran as follows: "Death and danger and disappointment have marked the course of our East Africa Mission; our promising young missionary, Mr. Pfefferle, is no more; of the three mechanics, two have returned to Europe; our dear brother Krapf himself has been subjected to dangers and privations severe beyond anything he had previously experienced, so that his escape with life is a marvel; and our projected new stations are as yet uncommenced." [C. M. Intelligencer, Feb. 1852.] But we are anticipating.

The party reached Mombasa in April. Krapf found that Rebmann and Erhardt had purchased a considerable piece of land at Rabbai, for a larger station, and were building on it a new house for two families. This was the station whose name, Kisulutini, is now so familiar to us. He also found that the first fruit of the Mission had been already garnered. The poor cripple, Mringe, had died in peace, trusting in Christ, after being baptized by Mr. Rebmann. Another of the Wanika had since given evidence of a renewed heart, Abe Gunga, who from that time became a steadfast adherent of the Mission, and whose death only occurred last year. [See C. M. Gleaner, June, 1881.] Within a fortnight of their arrival, all the four new labourers were attacked by fever. On May 10th, it pleased God to call Pfefferle to Himself. He was buried in the newly purchased ground; "and thus," wrote Krapf, with his wonderful capacity for seeing a right purpose in every trial--which is a much harder and rarer thing than mere submission--"the first resident of the new Mission ground is a dead person of the missionary circle; our God bids us first build a cemetery before we build a church or dwelling-house; showing us by this lesson that the resurrection of East Africa must be effected by our own destruction." Of the three mechanics he wrote on June 20th, "They have lain since Good Friday [two months] upon a bench, ill of fever, where they linger on, neither dead nor wive." "That is a fine business, you will say," he goes on; "the heavy part of the army is beaten, and the light division completely unnerved, and yet you will conquer Africa, will draw a chain of Missions between the east and the west! "

Krapf's letters at this time are truly wonderful. It is clear that he was beginning to see that his great scheme was not to be worked out [21/22] fully yet--perhaps not in his own lifetime; but his faith and ardour remained exactly the same. "Though I also should have to fall," he wrote, "it does not matter; for the Lord is still King, and will carry on and complete His cause in His own good time. The idea of a chain of Missions will yet be taken up by succeeding generations, and carried out; for the idea is always conceived tens of years before the deed comes to pass. This idea I bequeath to every missionary coming to East Africa. Every one who is a real patriot, and is indifferent to life and death for his Master's honour, will open this bequest, and take his portion out of it, as a fellow-partaker of the tribulation, of the patience, and of the kingdom of our Lord." And again: "Oar sanguine expectations and hopes of immediate success may be laid in the grave, like Lazarus, yet they shall have a resurrection, and our eyes shall see the glory of God at last." [In these and the foregoing quotations we combine the letter to the Society and a private letter to Dr. Barth. Both are printed in the Intelligencer of Feb. 1852.]

The very fact of his now realizing that the work would be a work of years, and perhaps of generations, enhances the faith and courage with which, deprived of all his companions, he resolved to go forward alone and endeavour to establish a Mission among the Wakamba. Nor was this a resolution only. Without a day's unnecessary delay he put it into execution. He had arrived from England in April. He. had buried Pfefferle in June. He had nursed the mechanics two months. And on July 11th, he started for Ukambani, with only Wanika attendants. On the 26th he reached the high land of Yata, where he proposed to build a mission-house for an intermediate station, it being a district inhabited by Wakamba, though much short of Ukambani proper. Here, however, the desertion of his own people and the unfriendliness of the Natives interfered with his design; and therefore after a halt of four or five days he went forward to visit Kivoi, the chief who had received him kindly on his former journey. At Kivoi's village he arrived on Aug. 4th. There he remained for a week or two, and then accompanied the chief on an expedition northward to the Dana river, which issues from the recesses of Mount Kenia and ultimately falls into the Indian Ocean. This expedition proved most calamitous, and, as already mentioned, Krapf's "escape with life was a marvel."

When within a mile or two of the Dana, the party was suddenly attacked by robbers. The greater part of the caravan was instantly dispersed, Kivoi's people flying in all directions; Kivoi himself was killed with his immediate followers; Krapf fired his gun twice, but into the air, "for," said he, "I could not bring myself to shed the blood of man;" and then he found himself in the bash, separated from both friend and foe, and flying in what he supposed to be the best direction. For some days he was literally lost in Africa, during which time his adventures were of an extraordinary character. Being near the Dana, he filled his gun-barrels with water, but afterwards lost the greater part of it, and suffered sorely from thirst until the chattering of monkeys guided him to a pit dug by them in the sand for water--as he [22/23] knew to be their habit. Then, in the extremity of his hunger, he ate his gunpowder mixed with the young shoots of a tree--which, however, proved bitter and unwholesome; and at another time he "broke his fast on ants." At length he came across some of Kivoi's people, and with them reached a Wakamba village; but there he was accused of having caused the chief's death, and condemned to die also. At midnight he managed to escape, and fled in the direction of Yata. His perils were now greater than before, as he was in an inhabited country, and feared to travel by day lest he should be detected and murdered, while at night he frequently missed his way, and in the dense darkness of the forests his compass was of little use. At last, in despair, he surrendered himself to some Wakamba, who, though they treated him badly, conducted bim to Yata, which place he reached in safety after seventeen days' wanderings, weary, wounded, and in rags. Another fortnight's painful march, with many privations, brought him home to Rabbai.

"You will now ask," wrote Krapf, after describing these adventures and trials, "what I intend to do in the future. My answer is, that we mast put off the Mission to Ukambani for three or four years more, and first possess a nearer station. This station must first be established, and bear some fruit, before we can plant a missionary tree in Ukambani. The chain of Missions will yet be completed when the Lord's own hour is come. His mills grind slowly, indeed, but beautifully fine." But what led him to this conviction? Was it any desire to avoid hardship for himself? Not at all; it was of others he was thinking: "I clearly see," he said, "that not every missionary could undergo such fatigue." For himself, he could not be content without making another attempt to find the way to the mysterious land that was supposed to lie beyond the territories already penetrated, Uniamezi. Having already found by painful experience that a route through Ukambani was impossible, and having still to make arrangements for the new Mission proposed to be started (when reinforcements should arrive) in the other country before visited, Usambara, he proceeded to Fuga, its capital, for a second visit in the early part of 1853. King Kmeri was again courteous and friendly, though Krapf laments in every page of his journal that his royal host, while duly grateful for the presents brought to him, could not be persuaded to listen to an account of the great gift of God which it was the object of the Mission to offer him. He promised, however, to allow a station to be established; and Krapf returned well satisfied, although he was still no nearer to a practicable route into the far interior.

After his return from Usambara, Krapf remained for nearly eighteen months further at Rabbai, quietly working among the Wanika, and awaiting the reinforcements that never came. At length, another fruitless attempt to found an interior station completely shattered his health, and he left for Europe in the autumn of 1853. He reached home by Christmas, and early in the next year came over to England to discuss his future plans with the Committee. It was natural that some discouragement should be felt at the result so far of the large [23/24] designs formed for the evangelization of Africa; but after the most anxious and careful review of all the circumstances of the Mission, the Committee felt that the disappointments hitherto met with must be regarded rather as a trial of their faith thin as an indication of God's will that the enterprise should be abandoned. They accordingly appointed a Basle student just ordained by the Bishop of London, the Rev. J. G. Deimler, to accompany Krapf on his return to East Africa, and resolved that another vigorous attempt should be made to plant stations in the Teita country and Usambara.

Here it should be mentioned that, in the meanwhile, Mr. Erhardt had proceeded to Usambara in 1853, and remained there some months; and it was hoped that one of the new Missions was at last established. But his health failed, and other difficulties arose; and he returned in 1855 to England--not however before he had constructed, with Mr. Rebmann, the famous map of Equatorial Africa, with its gigantic inland sea, which so startled European geographers, and led to the expeditions of Burton, and Speke, and Grant. He was afterwards transferred to India, where be has laboured ever since. In after years Usambara was occupied by the Universities' Mission, and an important work is now carried on there under the direction of Bishop Steere, of Zanzibar.

VII.

Not East Africa, however, but Abyssinia, was destined to be the goal of Krapf's next journey. Samuel Gobat was now Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem; but his sympathies were still strong for the land of his early labours, and he formed a plan for sending to Abyssinia a party of lay brethren, mechanics, to establish an Industrial Mission. They were to follow their secular callings, but by their Christian walk and conversation to let the light shine around them, and also to circulate the Scriptures. It was thought that they would thus avoid the hostility with which the Abyssinian priests would regard a regular Mission avowedly sent to spread Protestant truth. For this purpose six young men were selected from the St. Chrischona Institute, and sent to Jerusalem in 1854, for further preparation under Bishop Gobat. [The St. Chrischona Institute, which is near Basle, must not be confounded with the liable Missionary Seminary. It was founded in 1840 by the philanthropist Spittler, for the purpose of training industrial missionaries of a humbler type.] Krapf, whose heart still yearned over Abyssinia, and who longed to know whether any of the seed sown years before had sprung up and borne fruit, offered to go thither' on his way back to East Africa, taking with him one of these six students on a preliminary mission of inquiry. The plan was approved by the C.M.S. Committee, and in November 1854 (just at the darkest period of the Crimean War), Krapf proceeded to Jerusalem to receive his instructions from the Bishop. Mr. Deimler accompanied him so far, and then went on to Bombay, whence he was to sail for Zanzibar. Krapf, with one of the students, J. M. Flad, and two young Abyssinians, made his way to Cairo, and thence started for Gondar, via Suez, Jeddah, and Maassowah.

[25] King Theodore, the same who afterwards provoked an English invasion, and fell at Magdala, had lately come to the throne of Abyssinia, and was engaged in bringing the kingdoms of Tigré and Shoa under his sway. Ubie, the Prince of Tigré, who had expelled Krapf and his brethren when he first went out in 1838, had just been completely defeated and taken prisoner; some of the Galls tribes were being subjugated; and at a somewhat later period Shoa was annexed to the new Abyssinian Empire. The Roman Catholic missionaries had now in their turn been expelled, Theodore being instigated to this course by the Abuna or Archbishop of Abyssinia (Abuna = "our father "), who spoke of them to Krapf in terms of strong condemnation. "So long as I live," he said, "I will not allow them to return: they have intrigued against me; they have interfered with my government of the Church." "Protestant missionaries," he added, do not injure the Abyssinian Church; for they circulate the Bible, and that only. I shall be delighted to receive men like Krus6 and Lieder [the C.M.S. missionaries at Cairo, whom the Abuna had visited there], but the Romanists shall never return to Abyssinia."

The Abuna took Krapf to see King Theodore, who received him with marked kindness, asked after Bishop Gobat, whose residence in the country twenty years before he remembered, and at once consented to the settlement there of the proposed Industrial Mission. Krapf was also encouraged by meeting several persons who asked him when the Protestant missionaries were coming back, and by the evidence that the Amharic Scriptures which he and others had formerly distributed were well-scattered over the country.

The plan Krapf had formed was to send Flad back to Jerusalem, and make his own way southwards through the unknown Galls and Somali countries to Mombasa. But Theodore's war with Shoa prevented, this, and he had to return to Egypt. He took the long land route through Nubia and by Khartoum, visiting the Austrian Roman Catholic Mission, of which he gives an interesting account; also Consul Petherick, afterwards so well known for his explorations on the Upper Nile. This journey, however, which involved many days' desert travel on camels, brought Krapf, who was suffering severely from illness, to the point of death. "Fever, sunstroke, and fatigue," he says, "nearly killed me; and I quite expected to have found a grave in the Nubian desert." His intention was to resume his journey to East Africa via Suez and Aden; but on arriving at Cairo, "it became clear to me," he wrote, "that I could not go on to Rabbai in this suffering condition, nor indeed any longer endure the climate of Africa or present way of life, and that therefore my work in Africa was at an end. So with deep sorrow, in August 1855, I bade farewell to the land where I had suffered so much, journeyed so much, and experienced so many proofs of the protecting and sustaining hand of God; where, too, I had been permitted to name the Name of Jesus Christ in places where it had never before been uttered or known." He reached Stuttgardt in September 1855.

Fled returned to Jerusalem, and reported the result of the journey [25/26] to Bishop Gobat. Four of the St. Chrischona students were sent into Abyssinia, and were well received by the king; but the subsequent history of this effort, of the establishment of a Mission to the Jews in Abyssinia, of the imprisonment of Stern and others by Theodore, of the British invasion of the country, &c., belongs not to our present purpose.

The C.M.S. Committee expressed their hope that Krapf would resume his work when his health was restored, and proposed that he should first go to Mauritius and to the Cape, seek out liberated African slaves, and train them for the future service of the Mission. But eighteen years of almost continual journeying of the roughest kind by land and sea had so exhausted his strength that he determined to remain at rest in Germany for awhile. And he closes the autobiographical sketch to which we have before referred, and which was published in 1860, by a reference to his second marriage, couched in the same language of simplicity that characterizes all his writings:--

"Our merciful Father, who hath hitherto so wonderfully upheld me, and rendered my path in life pleasant to me, even amidst care and toil, bath been pleased to bestow upon His servant an helpmeet for him in the daughter of senator Pelargus, of Stuttgardt, my beloved wife Charlotte, whose Christian experiences, joined to a perfect disregard of self and an affectionate nature, have been my greatest support, both in the calling in which I labour, and in the shattered state of my health; for, indeed, she has proved herself to me the best and truest human support, alike for body and soul!'

The volume of which the autobiographical sketch forms a part concludes with a chapter of practical counsels addressed by Krapf to young missionaries, which are of the most admirable character. We subjoin the briefest abstract of them:--

1. Resist with all the power of faith, of prayer and of truth, that mood of despondency and faint-heartedness, which is disposed to say with the men sent to spy out the land of Canaan, "We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we." . . . . Let your first care be to convert the heathen within your own heart, your self-confidence, your self-love. Be modest, but not fainthearted, and the Lord will show you His mercy!

2. Seek in East Africa to root out all longing for a life of ease and comfort, and accommodate yourself to the lowliest. The wish to settle down as comfortably as possible, and to marry, entangles a missionary in many external engagements which may lead him away from his Master and his duty. This wish naturally prompts him to trouble himself about irrelevant or subordinate matters, such for instance, as house-building, all sorts of colonizing schemes, and scientific labours; till by degrees he puts the chief matter of all, the promulgation of the Gospel, on the shelf... .

3. Be not either wearied by or angry at the annoying mendicancy of the Natives. . . Do not expect to receive as a matter of course from the bounty of the people and its chiefs such things as water, wood, shelter, &c.; but be grateful for everything, and show that gratitude by plentiful acts of love . . . . . .

4. Respect an old and experienced missionary, even although he should take little heed of your thoughts and suggestions as those of a novice . . . . . If, at the commencement of his coarse, a young missionary can humble himself among others, good will come of him; but if, at starting, he insists on criticizing everything, and on having everything done according to his own fancy, he will bring ruin upon himself and the Mission together. No wonder that God arrests many a one in his course by an early death. Better death than a fall, or backsliding, and a slackening of his pace in his spiritual career . . . . . Many a one need not have [26/27] died, and many a one could have died more blessed, if he could have separated him self from himself and have committed himself to the mercy and power of God; in one word, if he could have made his Ego to disappear so that Christ might have dwelt within him . . . . .

VIII.

Although Dr. Krapf never re-entered the service of the Church Missionary Society, he took to the last the deepest interest in all its work, and particularly in East and Central Africa. [The degree of Ph.D. had been conferred on him by the University of Tübingen in 1844.] Other Missions, however, claimed his more active help. He threw himself heart and soul into the St. Chrischona schemes, and was for some time Secretary of the Institute. He planned and directed the remarkable "Pilgrim Mission," which was to begin the "chain of Missions" from the north instead of from the east. Twelve stations were to be established in the first instance, up the Nile, from Alexandria to Gondar; and these were to form what Krapf called the "Apostles' Street," from Jerusalem to Abyssinia, each station being called by the name of an apostle or evangelist. Several of these were in due time established, that of St. Mark at Alexandria, of St. Matthew at Cairo, of St. Peter at Assuan, of St. Thomas at Khartoum, of St. Paul at Matamma on the Abyssinian frontier. "But," wrote Krapf only a few months ago, "the Pilgrim Mission with its small income sank under the load of its great expenses, and was compelled to limit and finally to abandon one station after the other. Even the main station at Khartoum was given up, but not before the road to the Galla in the vicinity of the Gummus tribes at Famaka had been examined for future missionary undertakings." It was a noble effort; and who shall say what results may not even yet be destined to flow from it? "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

Twice in after years did Krapf revisit the scenes of his former labours and trials. In 1860, the perusal of his Travels, then just published, made a deep impression upon Mr. Charles Cheetham, of Heywood, Manchester, Treasurer of the United Methodist Free Churches, who stirred up his society to undertake a Mission in East Africa, and with a view to it opened a correspondence with Krapf. Ultimately Krapf offered to go out with the party, and introduce them to their field of labour; and in the autumn of the following year he conducted to Zanzibar two English missionaries and two of the St. Chrischona men. There was some doubt whether they would be allowed to settle in the Sultan's dominions. Said-Said had taken offence at the attempts already noticed to found a Mission in Usambara, the king of which rendered him no allegiance; and prior to his death in 1856, a band of Hanoverian missionaries were refused leave to remain on the coast. But the new Sultan, Sayid Majid, just before the arrival of Krapf's party, had allowed a Jesuit Mission (the one now established at Bagamoyo) to come in, at the instance of the French Consul; upon which the English Consul, Colonel Pelly, had immediately demanded [27/28] equal rights for British subjects,--which were just granted in time for the Methodist Mission to claim them. Many untoward circumstances, however, arose: difficulties with local governors; an affray between a British ship of war and some Arabs of Mombasa; the defection of the two Swiss agents, who lost heart and returned to Europe; the illness of one of the Englishmen, who had to be sent home. But Krapf succeeded in settling the one man left among the Wanika, at Ribe, sixteen miles N.W. of Mombasa. That one man was Mr. Wakefield, who has since done excellent work among both the Wanika and the Gallas, and has a high reputation in geographical and philological circles. Another of the agents of this Mission, Mr. New, ascended Kilimanjaro in 1871, as before mentioned, and died in 1875 while trying in grevious sickness to reach the C.M.S. station at Rabbai. [See New's Wanderings is East Africa, which relates the history of the establishment of this Mission, as well as his own travels.]

Krapf found the C.M.S. Mission going on quietly. Mr. and Mrs. Rebmann were surrounded by a little band of Wanika converts-one of them a man whom Krapf had years before spoken of as a "hardened and unapproachable sinner." [Rebmann had married Mrs. Tyler, of the Cairo Female School, in 1851, in Egypt. She died at Kisulutini in 1866.] Rebmann was diligently engaged in his important linguistic work.

At the end of 1862 Krapf returned to Europe, after an absence of nearly a year and a half. In 1867, he was for a short time in Abyssinia once more, as an interpreter attached to the British army which Sir R. Napier led to Magdala. But the great work of his later years was linguistic; and the summary, appended to this article, of his works in various African languages, is the best evidence of his learning, assiduity, and zeal in this respect.

His deep interest in the later African enterprises of the C.M.S. has been mentioned. Ever since the revival of the Mombasa Mission in 1874, and the Nyanza expedition of 1876, his letters to the Society have been frequent; and his counsels have again and again been of much value. One quotation may be given, from the letter he wrote on heating of the arrival of Lieut. Smith and Mr. Wilson in Uganda, and before he heard of the death of Smith and O'Neill:--

"Kornthal, Jan. 22nd, 1878.

"With hearty thanks to God I have read that your missionaries have reached Uganda, and have been well received. No man has more cause for thankfulness than myself. By the establishment of a Mission in the centre of Africa, my urgent wish for the location of a Mission-chain between East and West Africa has at least been fulfilled by half way. The western half will be brought about on the Lualaba, which Mr. Stanley, in the providence of God, has discovered. Since 1844 this chain of stations has been an object of thought and prayer, and now I have been permitted to live and see the object of this plan. True, many reverses may trouble your faith, love, and patience, but you have the promises of the Lord on your side, and especially the promise of Isaiah ii. 18. Though many missionaries may fall in the fight, yet the survivors will pass over the slain in the trenches, and take this great African fortress for the Lord."

Not the least valuable of his letters was one of the last he ever wrote, which now lies before us. It is dated August 30th, 1881, and [28/29] is addressed to Mr. Robert Cast, in reply to inquiries made by that gentleman respecting African languages. It is a letter of great length, giving a masterly summary of the languages and dialects spoken on the East Coast from 17° N. to 12° S., that is from Tigré and Shoho to Cape Delgado, with every one of which he had made some personal acquaintance; together with a memorandum of the literary and translational work done in them all. It is affecting to read the concluding sentences. One may almost say of him that the ruling passion was strong in death:--

"There is still much to do in Eastern Africa, but I trust that in ten or twenty years, in God's providence, an extensive literature will be found for the promotion of Christianity and Christian civilization. The work which I, conjointly with my colleagues, have commenced, and which our successors have continued under much struggle, will meet with a rich divine blessing in God's time. May the Society and its missionary agents not faint and not rest, until a chain of stations has connected East and West Africa, whatever the world and our own incredulity may say against this great missionary scheme. The present apparent failure in Uganda is no reason why we should slacken our hand in this work, or altogether abandon it.

"Real missionaries and their friends must never be discouraged at whatever appearance thins may assume from without. They must act like a wise general does. When he is beaten back on one point, he attacks the enemy on another point, according to the plan he has previously laid out. And in all cases true missionaries and their friends must be mindful of the memorable words which were spoken by the French Guard at the Battle of Waterloo: 'Le garde ne se rend pas, elle meurt'--'The Guard does not surrender, it dies."

Certainly it can no longer be said that the "chain" has not been begun. Mamboia, Mpwapwa, and Uyui, are no unimportant links in it; and if from the latter place the C.M.S. line diverges northward to Usukuma and Uganda, the L.M.S. continues the direct line westward, to Urambo, Ujiji, and even the far side of Tanganika; while two other societies are advancing from the west side up the Congo.

It was on Nov. 26th, 1881, the eve of Advent Sunday, that John Ludwig Krapf was called home to the presence of his Lord. "In the afternoon," wrote his friend Mr. Flad, "I spent an hoar with him in his study, talking of the approaching Second Advent of Christ. He went to his bedroom quite well, as usual, and was found in the morning kneeling at his bed, undressed." In the act of prayer he was translated into the Land of Praise. On Nov. 30th his body was solemnly committed to the earth in the presence of three thousand people who had assembled from all parts of the country, and laid by the side of his old companion, Rebmann, who had followed him to Africa, but had preceded him to heaven.

There is a strangely touching likeness between the death of Krapf and the death of Livingstone. Nothing, indeed, could be more different than the outward circumstances of their respective ends. The one, worn out with suffering, in a miserable temporary hut in the heart of the Dark Continent, far from all who loved him except his faithful "Nasik boys"; the other, free from bodily sickness or pain, in a comfortable home, with wife and daughter and friends to care for [29/30] the loved remains: Yet in both cases it was a kneeling body on which Death laid its hand--a praying soul which the Lord of Life and Death called to His immediate presence. Found dead, kneeling at his bedside--that is the record both of Krapf and of Livingstone.

And not in death only may these two great men be compared. What Livingstone did for South Africa, that Krapf did for Equatorial Africa. Indeed, though Krapf's travels were far less extensive, his is the higher claim to the name of leader in the Recovery of the Lost Continent. He went to Africa four years before Livingstone; and the marvellous discoveries of Burton, Speke, Grant, Cameron, Stanley--even the later discoveries of Livingstone himself--were the direct and admitted result of his researches and those of his companions Rebmann and Erhardt. As missionaries, too, Krapf and Livingstone were men of the same type. Both were men of unflinching courage, of single aim, of boundless faith. Neither could point to large results in the conversion of souls, while both prepared the way for the more fruitful labours of those who should come after them. Livingstone's heroic determination not to leave Africa till his work was done, and his solitary death ere it was finished, invest his story with the more romantic interest, and place his public reputation on a higher pinnacle. Krapf was content in his later years with the humbler rôle of being useful. As a pioneer in the field of African linguistic research he has scarcely a rival; and the literary results of those twenty years of retirement at Kornthal remain a precious legacy to future students and explorers and missionaries. He laboured: others will enter into his labours; and all shall be ad majorem gloriam Dei. E. S.

Memorandum of Dr. Krapf's Linguistic Labours.

In Amharic (the language of Abyssinia), he completely revised for the British and Foreign Bible Society, the version of the whole Bible made in 1810-15, by Abu Rumi, a learned Abyssinian monk. This important task, which occupied several years, was finished in 1879, when the second half of the New Testament was printed at St. Chrischona, and published along with the ancient Ethiopic Version. Dr. Krapf wrote to the Bible Society:" The Lord be praised for having permitted me to live to see this great work carried out by your Society!" He also published in Amharic Dr. Chalmers's Scripture References, a Scripture school-book, and a little book entitled "Man's Heart either God's Temple or Satan's abode."

In the language of the great Galla nation, who stretch from Abyssinia southward to near Mombasa, he prepared a Vocabulary and an Outline Grammar, which were published in London in 1840. Also a translation of the whole New Testament, and of the Book of Genesis, Psalms, and other parts of the Old (part printed).

In the language of the fierce Somali tribes inhabiting the northern corner of East Africa, he began a Vocabulary in conjunction with Mr. Isenberg, but was not able to complete it.

[31] In the "Enguduk Iloiçob," the language of the Masai nation, who occupy a wide territory between the Wanika country around Mombasa and the Victoria Nyanza, he edited a Vocabulary compiled by Mr. Erhardt, which was published in 1857.

In the "Engutuk Eloikob," the language of the Wakwafi, a tribe connected with the Masai, but more to the south (see Mr. Last's account, Intelligencer, Nov. 1879), he compiled a Vocabulary, with specimen translations of portions of Genesis and St. John, dialogues, materials for grammar, &c., which was published at Tübingen in 1854.

In the languages or dialects of the Teita and Usambara countries west and south of Mombasa, he compiled a Vocabulary, which has not been printed, but copies have been sent to the C.M.S. missionaries in East Africa.

In Kinika, the language of the Wanika, the people among whom he and Rebmann so long laboured, he prepared a "Beginning of a Spelling-book," with a translation of the Heidelberg Catechism, which was published at Bombay in 1848. He also translated parts of the New Testament (including that famous Gospel of St. Luke, also printed at Bombay in 1848, to which is due the Christian movement in the Giriama country). Also a translation of Barth's Bible Stories. He also made the beginning of a Dictionary, which formed the basis of Rebmann's Dictionary, an important work still in MS.

In Kikamba, the language of Ukambani, a country north-west of Mombasa visited by Krapf, he translated the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, (the latter published at Tübingen in 1850), and also a Vocabulary, appended to his "Six East African Languages."

In Kiniassa, a language spoken far to the south on the shores of Lake Nyassa, he edited a Vocabulary and Dictionary compiled by Rebmann.

In the Suahili language he translated a part of Genesis (printed in 1847), the Order of Morning and Evening Prayer (published at Tübingen in 1854), and the whole New Testament, only parts of which have been printed, but the parts in MS. have been sent to the C.M.B. East Africa Mission. He also prepared an Outline Grammar, which was published at Tübingen in 1850. Also a complete Dictionary, which occupied much of his later years, and the last sheets of which were passing through the press (London: Trübner and Co.) when he died.

In addition to all these works, he compiled his celebrated Vocabulary of Six East African Languages, viz., Kisuahili, Kinika, Kikamba, Kipokomo, Kihiau, Kigalla, which was published at Tübingen, 1850. [It may be useful to supplement the above statement by a brief note of the works in the same or neighbouring languages by other C.M.S. missionaries, Isenberg, Rebmann, and Erhardt. Isenberg compiled in Amharic a Dictionary, Grammar, Spelling and Reading Book, History of the Church, History of the World, and Geography Book, and translated the English Prayer book and the Heidelberg Catechism; also prepared a Dankali Vocabulary, and translated the Four Gospels into Tigré. Rebmann assisted in the materials for some of the East African books mentioned above, compiled Dictionaries of the Kinika and Kiniassa languages, and made a Suahili version of St. Luke, which has just been published by the Bible Society. Erhardt prepared the Masai Vocabulary mentioned above.]

From the Church Missionary Intelligencer, February and March, 1882.

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