CHAPTER 14

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TANGANYIKA TERRITORY ; TABORA
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Tabora —The Slave Market—Forts And Tennis Courts
Do The Natives Of Africa Want The Germans Back? — The School
I Break Into A House—Government School—An Operation
More Rumours Of War—Kipalapala—Regional Seminary—A "Home-Made" Laboratory
Native Priests — Holy Ground — A "Country—House" And Seminarists
Traces Of Livingstone—Another Operation—Grit

There are about 25,000 people at Tabora, of whom some 2,000 are Catholics. I was told that there are members of seven different tribes in this place, each speaking its own language, and that there are no less than forty different secret societies all practising magic and having great influence upon the pagan population. Tabora was, in the old days, the junction of the caravan routes, and not long after 1800 was a settlement of Arab traders in ivory and slaves.

photo :
"The Beautiful Church at Tabora"

I went out through thick dust and under a sun of brass to see the old slave market. It has now nothing more exciting than a few sickly looking tomatoes, and some horrible looking black things, that might have been dried mice and rats: some kind of food, anyhow, which was dreadful even to contemplate.

There has been no rain for some months and the Provincial Commissioner told me that a famine is threatened. The people certainly look hungry and very wretched, what you can see of them — for very, very
many women are veiled Mohammedans. There are lots of Indians in the town which, as usual, they have rendered hideous with their wooden shacks.

The British have done much to render Tabora habitable for the one hundred and fifty Europeans who live there. Fine trees have been planted along the dusty roads, and there are pleasant bungalows, attempts at lawns and flower gardens. and tennis courts.

Away on a hill, looking down on these pleasant characteristics of British rule, stands the formidable and forbidding old German Boma. It is a fortress which the Germans used as the District Officer's residence. Nothing, perhaps, could symbolise better the difference between British and German methods — a fortress and tennis courts.

I asked natives, chiefs and others, both here and elsewhere, if they wanted the Germans back. Some chiefs said: "We paid taxes under the Germans and, we pay taxes to the British; it does not make any difference." Others who had good jobs under the Germans and have them no longer would like to see the Germans come back, and some now doing well do not want to see any change. The peasants, for the most part shrugged their shoulders. For them we are all white men. Others had experienced some brutality from German officials, and they said the English are "men of heart" (kind).

When I pointed out that the British have made many improvements in the countries they rule over, the peasants said. "Yes, good roads — for the European's cars; they hurt our feet and we walk along the grass." Then I tried to show that business was improved; that owing to good transport they could sell their cotton, and coffee, and so on. But most of them answered: "I have no cotton, nor coffee to sell." It was difficult for them to understand the progress of a country as a whole unless it actually touched them personally today. Those who were educated were enthusiastic about British rule, but they also, as far as I could gather, unanimously want to be left alone as soon as possible. Few appeared to think that they are not yet capable of governing themselves entirely without European help.

Old natives who wielded power in the very old days regret the new — there were so many vile but pleasant things they could then do that the British will not tolerate. Undoubtedly the British protect the poor peasant from the powerful. But I never heard an African admit that.

10th September 1938
There is a very fine Catholic "Central" School at Tabora, from which students can pass into Makerere College, in Uganda. There was no spare room in the missionaries' house, and I was given a classroom in this school.
There was no mosquito netting on the windows, but there were various live fish in bowls and other specimens of living creatures living in water. The room was a mosquito paradise, and I had not, what one should always have, a mosquito net for my bed. Fortunately, Father Crook, whom I had known as a boy, and who is now a teacher in the school, was absent. I broke into his room, worked at his table and slept in his bed. It was cheek, but mosquitoes in Africa, do not only bite, they present men with extra doses of malaria fever.

To return to the school. I was given to understand that the results are excellent, both in instruction and Christian education; for many fine old boys have succeeded in life and are now doing much good in the their villages, or giving satisfaction to their European employers.

From there I went with the Provincial Commissioner to visit the Government school. It is the best built school I have seen in Africa. Its object is, with regard to instruction, the same as that of the Catholic school. There are, I was told, five European masters employed here. Now the least paid of these teachers must surely receive at least £300 a year; the highest paid, very much more. I wonder how many schools the missions could run (and experience proves that their schools, when Government grants are fairly adequate, are not unsuccessful) with the salaries these five gentlemen receive.

The Fathers at the mission gave us a very good lunch, mostly of vegetables and fruit, which speaks well of their kitchen garden. In this climate an almost miraculous achievement.

Not far from the church is the White Sisters' convent and a good girls' school. My visit was not altogether disinterested.
"Please, Sister, I have two sore fingers." The Sister who is the nurse gave one look at them and ordered me at once to the Government hospital. There a very charming English doctor got busy with knives, syringes and scissors. A nurse said, "I never can stand looking at fingernails being taken off," and she left the operating theatre. I made a move to follow her for I did not care for it much either, but a "Stand still, please!" from the doctor kept me in the room. After that there was not very much I could do except say my prayers and talk to a father or so during the rest of the day.
After supper we went with happiness to hear the wireless from London. Our joy was turned to consternation when we heard that there will very probably be a war in Europe. And my passage is booked on a German ship.
Perhaps I shall remain in Africa after all!

It was very thrilling to sit there on the verandah in the wilds while a million insects hummed and screeched and whistled, and to hear, "This is the National Programme." After the "News" we went to bed.

11th September 1938
This morning the young and gentle Father Bursar of the Senior Seminary arrived in his old and brutal car to take us to Kipalapala, where the young men of this and two other Vicariates are prepared for the priesthood.

One needs a brutal car to deal with the incredible roads. I felt sure that there were more holes in the road than there were level spots. At one place the wheels on my side of the car were so low in a hole that sitting, as I was, sideways in the box-body, my feet were nearer the sky than my head was. The route was through the same old Tanganyika that I have come to expect. Flat, black, desolate, and dust and rocks and incredible heat.

We, found the Seminary, unfortunately, almost deserted, for the students we were told were on holidays at the "country" house. Nothing, however, on this earth could be more "country" than Kipalapala itself.

This being a Regional Seminary, Rome provided the funds for the buildings, and it is Rome, through the Superiors of the White Fathers, who appoint the staff. The result is good. A Vicar-Apostolic has, as a rule, a meagre personnel of missionaries from which to staff a Seminary with good professors, and no missionaries on the spot that I know of, have any desire to teach, once they have tasted a missionary's life in the ordinary sense of the word.

As for funds, a Vicar-Apostolic simply could not build a place one hundredth part as good as Kipalapala. The buildings are superb and admirably adapted to their purpose. There is nothing makeshift about them, which in Africa is remarkable. The foundations of the chapel have been laid, and are waiting for the walls. They are, I was told, likely to wait for a very long time, as no more funds are available.

The Rector gave me so much of his time that I am still full of remorse; he gave me so much of his budget in food that I am ashamed, but still full of gratitude. I do think, however, that he enjoyed showing me the laboratory. One can see much better laboratories in London, and I saw at least two better in Uganda, but I doubt whether in the whole world you could see a better "home-made" one. The Rector made it all himself. He is a scientific genius, and has created out of scrap iron, bits of broken glass, cardboard; wood and wire, discarded bicycle wheels and I don't know what other junk, almost everything required for the teaching of elementary chemistry and physics. That room is a marvel of ingenious skill symbolising the Missionary spirit which refuses to be daunted.

There were five native priests in retreat when we arrived, but as happened in Ruanda, we assisted at the final Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and were then able to talk with these priests. Their English was fairly good, and as they spoke of their people and their ministry I was once again lost in admiration of the wonder of God's grace in Africa. What marvels missionary enterprise has accomplished in so short a time.

It was here, at Kipalapala, that the first caravan of White Fathers to Tanganyika Territory had their first pied-&-terre, and a very striking memorial chapel has been built on the spot where the first little bush chapel held the Blessed Sacrament. We are, indeed, on sacred ground here, ground which, however, was first polluted with the feet of the slave-traders, whom the White Fathers, under Cardinal Lavigerie, did so much to remove from the soil of Africa.

Another drive in the monster of a car took us to the Seminarists at their "country" house. We went through the desolation of desolation to reach the place, The house is situated amongst a group of very picturesque blue rocks on the top of which stands a statue of Our Blessed Lady. The students crowded around us and talked and talked in English, or Kiswahili, or French. Some even spoke Dutch, learned from a Dutch priest. Do not ask me why. They appeared to be very gay and very well trained young men, quite at their ease with us, and very keen to reach the day of their ordination so that they might get to grips with the many problems which confront the Church in Tanganyika.

I got back to Tabora in time to have tea with the Provincial Commissioner and his wife, whom I had last seen outside Lyons Corner House in Piccadilly. These kind friends then drove me to Livingstone's house, and their little daughter of the golden-locks, screamed delight in the dickey seat.

From the mud-house we entered, the great Livingstone, after meeting Stanley at Ugiji ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume"), set out on what was to be his last journey. The Government are to have the house re-built and preserved as a public monument. One is surprised that nothing has been done about it already.

We stood on the hill from which Stanley had seen the suburbs of Tabora burning, after the battle with the Arabs. Things have changed very little in Tanganyika since then, while Uganda has changed both its appearance and its soul.

I was to have dined with the Provincial Commissioner and his charming wife, but on visiting the surgeon to have my fingers dressed he decided to operate again. After which the doctor with great kindness drove me to the mission where I was put to bed. Ignominious end to a perfect day.

At Tabora today I met a White Father who would not like me to write his name. He had just come from hospital, where he had been suffering from the usual malaria and the unusual sleeping-sickness. The doctor told me that the priest had been brought "hundreds of miles" (really only one hundred) from the bush in a side car. (In fact, he had come on the pillion of a motor-cycle.) "He must," said the doctor,' "have a will of iron." However, the sleeping-sickness not having developed much, he was cured. The priest told me that he was "now quite well," except that his legs would not hold him properly, and he excused himself for leaning against the wall. A young priest, all "pinkfresh" from Europe, rode up on a motor-bicycle and asked if anyone had things to send to certain places in the bush to which he was going. The "sleeping sickness" priest said: “Yes; take me.”

The Vicar-Apostolic tried to persuade him not to go but to stay and rest for a month, but the priest answered that he could very well rest in his mission. He could hear confessions and give instructions sitting down and so help his very much overworked brethren. The Bishop turned from him, too deeply moved to answer, and taking his Bishop's silence for consent the priest called for his haversack and was driven off one hundred-miles back to his mission in the bush.

"That," I said to the Vicar-Apostolic "was very fine.

"Father," he answered, "they are all like that."

And what a fuss we are all making about my fingers!