The rolling tattoo of goat-skin drums filled the royal reception-hall
of King M'tesa, as the great tyrant entered with his chiefs. M'tesa,
his dark, cruel heavy face in vivid contrast with his spotless white
robe, sat heavily down on his stool of State, while brazen trumpets
sent to him from England blared as Mackay entered. The chiefs squatted
on low stools and on the rush-strewn mud-floor before the King. At his
side stood his Prime Minister, the Katikiro, a smaller man than the
King, but swifter and more far-sighted. The Katikiro was dressed in a
snowy-white Arab gown covered by a black mantle trimmed with gold. In
his hard, guilty face treacherous cunning and masterful cruelty were
blended.
M'tesa was gracious to Mackay, and gave him land on which to build
his home. More important to Mackay than even his hut was his workshop,
where he quickly fixed his forge and anvil, vise and lathe, and
grindstone, for he was now in the place where he could practise his
skill. It was for this that he had left home and friends, and pressed
on in spite of fever and shipwreck to serve Africa and lead her to the
worship of Jesus Christ by working and teaching as our Lord did when
on earth.
One day the wide thatched roof of that workshop shaded from the
flaming rays of the sun a crowded circle of the chiefs of Uganda with
their slaves, who loved to come to "hear the bellows roar." They were
gazing at Mackay, whose strong, bare right arm was swinging his hammer
"Clang-a-clang-clang."
Then a ruddy glow lit up the dark faces of the watchers and the
bronzed face of the white man who in the centre of his workshop was
blowing up his forge fire. Gripping in his pincers the iron hoe that
was now red-hot, Mackay hammered it into shape and then plunged it all
hissing into the bath of water that stood by him.
Hardly had the cloud of steam risen from the bath, when Mackay once
more gripped the hoe, and moving to his grindstone placed his foot on
the pedal and set the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone.
The sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda chiefs who stood
around.
"It is witchcraft," they said to one another. "It is witchcraft by
which Mazunga-wa-Kazi makes the hard iron tenfold harder in the water.
It is witchcraft by which he sends the wheels round and makes our hoes
sharp. Surely he is the great wizard."
Mackay caught the sound of the new name that they had given
him--Mazunga-wa-Kazi--the White-Man-at-Work. They called him by this
name because to them it was very strange that any man should work with
his own hands.
"Women are for work," said the chiefs. "Men go to talk with the King,
and to fight and eat."
Mackay paused in his work and turned on them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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