Barotseland, South Africa
By E. C. Silsbee
WHILE I am waiting for my dinner to cook, I will write a little of my experience. For dinner we shall have corn bread, cornmeal porridge, potatoes roasted in the ashes, peanuts, and milk. Occasionally we must do without the potatoes, porridge, and milk, and have peanuts and corn bread for a change. My house is a mud hut, and my bed is made of poles across forked posts in the ground, with coarse grass on top for a mattress. My chair is a stool cut out of a log. This is the extent of my furniture. I had a pleasant trip a few days ago to one of our schools that is not in the line of these schools I am now visiting. Some people think Central Africa is all desert, or wilderness, or jungle, but I found on this trip that we have pretty places here as well as elsewhere. The path to this station leads one directly to the hills. A few hours' ride on the mule, and I was going up hill and down dale in a way that was new to me in this country. After camping and taking lunch in a pretty little vale that sloped gently down to a small stream, we crossed the narrow valley, and started up the hill on the other side. I noticed that it was getting suddenly dark, and on looking up, I saw one of those black thunder-storms coming, which are so common here this time of year. However, I pushed on, hoping to get beyond the hardest of it, but failed; for down came the rain, like a small cloudburst. Our path was soon a racing stream, six to eight inches deep and three or four feet wide. The storm continued for about half an hour. The flashing of the lightning, and the loud peals of thunder among the hills, were certainly inspiring. I knew I was in the keeping of One who controls the storms, so I sat still on the mule under a tree, this being my only shelter. After a time the storm passed, and we had an easy rain for about an hour. My raincoat had kept me dry, so I was comfortable. After this the air was cool and clear. I could look away across a pretty valley to another range of hills. I took shelter that night in a native village that was beautifully situated on the top of a high hill, giving one a splendid view of the surrounding country. At first the chief wanted to put me in his only spare bedchamber, a hut where two calves were tied, and where they had evidently been kept for some weeks. I declined, so he gave me the veranda of his hut. This was under the eaves, so I slept sheltered from the rain that came down nearly all night. Truly the Lord is good to us. I can begin to see now why the Mission Board is particular about sending out workers17who have a good degree of health. These trips to the out-stations, sleeping wherever night overtakes one, and ofttimes going on short rations or none, besides long, hard, hot walks or rides, would be not only very fatiguing but positively dangerous to one not of robust health. We are planting the banner of the cross in new places here in the heart of the enemy's territory, and establishing those places where it has already been planted. E. C. SILSBEE.