TWENTY-THREE YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA.

Evening Star, Issue 15137, 19 March 1913, Page 7

TWENTY-THREE YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA.

Mr Daniel Crawford, a missionary who hn» spent 23 years in the wilds of Central Africa, recently returned to England. Mr Crawford waa the first white man who marched in tho footsteps of hia great countryman, David Livingston©. A man 3till in the prim© of life, bom in Greenock, the long, narrow town that overlooks the "Tail of theßank," as that reach of the Olyde Hi .<#Spd, Mr Crawford went out to iVfriol, search of health, but also with a fl**»#g missionary motive inspiring him. It is Mr Crawford's regret thai, he nover met his- great "countryman, Livingstone, but, "us he explained to a representative of the 'Daily Chronicle': — : The point is that I was the first to have the honor of following in-Living-fitone's tracks after tho long silence of the years when he was supposed to; have been lost. To mo it was a tremendously thrilling and inspiring thing to hear the natives speak in such, a fine manner of that hem, David Livingstone. The name they knew him by was " Ingexasa " —■-that is, " the Englishman." In other words, tiie natives 6aw in this splendid specimen of a man the typical Englishman, and, of course, they did not distinguish between an Englishman and a Scotsman. Livingstone, in fact, set the type, and he was regarded as the typical white man, that is why nowadays, when any of the "riff-raff" type, the brokendown Britisher, comes along, the natives say sarcastically : '" You are not an Englishman; we know the brand, it is the English brand 5 Ingerasa. Severe things have been said about Livingstone, but competent authorities like Sir "Harry Johnston, with his book 'Livingstone and the Exploration of Central Africa,' have exonerated the great mis eionary explorer from all charges brought against him. Mr Crawford quoted with approval the last of the five verses which 'Punch' offered up to the dead Livingstone 1 He needs no epitaph to guard a name Which men shall praise whilo worthy w'ork is done; He lived and died for good—be that his fame; Let marble crumble ; this is Living Stone. —The Man Without Toes.— "Many of the natives I came across," said Mr Crawford, "spoke to me of the ' kindly Livingstone'; that is their estimate of him. There is, also, draongst tho natives of Central Africa a curious Livingstone joke; they call him even to-day, ' A tadi na fikondu,' which means, ' the man who has no toes.' The explanation, of course, is that Livingstone wore boots. It sounds absurd, but many and many a time, crossing treacherous streams, we longed to havo the use of our 10 toes to grip something that would keep us from dropping ;into the w\ater." Speaking fenerally of Livingstone's work in Africa, Ir Crawford paid this tribute to tho great missionary: Amid all the gloom of Africa one clear ehaft of light penetrates the darkness—namely, the Livingstone tradition. There have been two schools of African explorers, the swashbuckling,- armed-t-o----the-teeth type of man, and the good old "Ingerasa," or Livingstone type, who understood the natives and lived amongst them, learnt their speech, and got to '" know the negro point of view. Of all his experiences in Central Africa., Mr Crawford regards- as the finest that ' which be described in the following words : . . It was, he" said, a thrilling day for me . .when, long ago, I marched through the 'long grass to the^ sacred spot where the great David Livingstone died. The grass was very tall, and ran away into , fee distance. There before me I 6aw the .three pot-6tools whero the weary old man, Livingstone, had/boiled his last cup ; of tea. There was the tree under which his heart waa buried, and the inscription / from.'Punch,' which I have quoted, cub on the trunk by his faithful boys.