Love stories; Nobility -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Switzerland -- Fiction
His next business was to report himself in the proper quarter, which he
did. Those over him seemed quite bewildered as to what he had come for
or what he was to do, and could only suggest that he should travel to
Nairobi and Uganda and put himself in touch with the civil authorities.
This he did also and, as a result, formulated a certain scheme of
action, to which his military superiors assented, intimating that he
might do as he liked, so long as he did not interfere with them.
What happened to him may be very briefly described. In the end he
started to visit a great chief on the borders of German East Africa,
but in British territory, a man whose loyalty was rumoured to be
doubtful. This chief, Jaga by name, was a professed Christian, and at
his town there lived a missionary of the name of Tafelett, who had
built a church there and was said to have much influence over him. So
with the Reverend Mr. Tafelett Godfrey communicated by runners, saying
that he was coming to visit him. Accordingly he started with a guard of
native troops, a coloured interpreter and some servants, but without
any white companion, since the attack on German territory was beginning
and no one could be spared to go with him upon a diplomatic mission.
The journey was long and arduous, involving many days of marching across
the East African veld and through its forests, where game of all sorts
was extraordinarily plentiful, and at night they were surrounded by
lions. At length, however, with the exception of one man who remained
with the lions, they arrived safely at the town of Jaga and were met by
Mr. Tafelett, who took Godfrey into his house, a neat thatched building
with a wide verandah that stood by the church, which was a kind of
whitewashed shed, also thatched.
Mr. Tafelett proved to be a clergyman of good birth and standing, one of
those earnest, saint-like souls who follow literally the scriptural
injunction and abandon all to advance the cause of their Master in the
dark places of the earth. A tall, thin, nervous-looking man of not much
over thirty years of age; one, too, possessed of considerable private
means, he had some five years before given up a good living in England
in order to obey what he considered to be his “call.” Being sent to
this outlying post, he found it in a condition of the most complete
savagery, and worked as few have done. He built the church with native
labour, furnishing it beautifully inside, mostly at his own expense. He
learned the local languages, he started a school, he combated the
witch-doctors and medicine-men.
Finally he met with his reward in the conversion of the young chief
Jaga, which was followed by that of a considerable portion of his
people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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