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OURS IN THE FIELD
at------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A GAIN readable quotations are pre sented from the letters o f Mrs. Ruth ing and yelling at a most frightful rate. In this way, the locusts were in some cases persuaded to leave the gardens and take to the hills.
Allen, a former student o f the Bible Insti tute o f Los Angeles and now a missionary at Kijabe, Africa. She gives particulars o f the locust scourge, besides interesting tribal and other historical data, both enlightening and entertaining: , “Locusts” is one item on the list o f things which I’ve meant to write about for several months. The native gardens (M is sion gardens too, of course) w ere'just fresh and green—the corn not quite large enough to use, when the locusts came, and oh, how they came! Great clouds o f them ^-millions upon millions. They surely were like “the dust o f the earth for multi tude.” W e could only think o f the plague o f Egypt and wonder if there could have been more at that time. The natives went out and gathered them by handfuls into baskets or pails and threw them into boil ing water, until they might have as many as a bushel basket would hold. Then they ‘pulled off the wings and lower joints o f the legs, after which they fried them in native “butter”—the most awful rank and rancid composition. After this the locusts, all crisp and* crackly, were spread in great areas near the huts and lasted for days and days as a sort o f rare confection. I was so glad the people had some compensation for the great damage done to their gardens, for the things came at about the same time each day for about ten days, and I wish you might have seen the “before and after” o f any green spot they might attack for a half-hour. I f it had not been just after the heavy rains when all the surrounding hills and valleys were fresh and green, I guess there would have been little or nothing left o f the planted gardens. As it was, how ever, the natives, for hours each day, would run up and down, back and forth through their gardens, beating tin pans and scream
Now the whole country, andT suppose all Africa, is full o f different tribes o f natives. In their natural estate every tribe hates every -other tribe, and they fight and kill each other. It is not safe for one or two people from one tribe to go through the district Inhabited by another tribe unless they are known to be Christians, or at least partly civilized. This protectorate' ( B.E.A.) is so well under British control that there is not much inter-tribal warfare, and the tribes intermingle and are in many cases very friendly. O f course, each tribe has its own language—each one with its own extremely difficult inflections and intona tions-. Unless a person is very, very apt at languages, it will take him severaLyears of close contact with the natives, and constant practice, tb get the tribal language well enough to be able to talk with the old men and women o f the villages, who have never seen white people. O f course, the people on Mission or Government stations get used to hearing the funny, foreign accents and also know what “the white man is try ing to say;” but to go out into the villages where the people .have seldom if ever seen white people, and preach the Gospel to those who have never heard it—that is something to be worked for faithfully and long. O f course, many o f the newer mis sionaries go with their own native Chris tian boys, but the boys do most o f the preaching. Mombasa, our seaport, 300 miles from Kijabe, is an old, old town—in fact it was an old town when Columbus discovered America; so you can imagine it has some very interesting history back o f it. It was in those olden days an ArabJ:own, and the Arabs did a very profitable slave business.
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