EAST AFRICA

Northern Advocate, 27 October 1932, Page 8

EAST AFRICA

AUSTRALIAN MISSION. SPLENDID RECORD OE WORK, SYDNEY, September 27, The Rev. R. .1, Hewett, organising 1 3 commissary for the Bishop of Central v Tanganyika (Bishop Chambers), are-. ■ turned to Sydney by the. P. and O. > Royal mail steamer Moldavia, after 1 ; i visiting every mission station, in. the 3 diocese. He spoke in glowing terms • of the work of the missions, in which • more than 30 Australians are working* and said that great advances had been' t made, not only in evangelical educa-. tion, but also in medical work, r Air Hewett said that particularly ) splendid work was being done in the i way of maternity and child welfare! 5 work amongst the natives by, Austra- . Man nurses. One Sydney nurse, with a.' 5 few native assistants, was handling, I on an average, 1400 out-patients a . month, and in the first six months of r this year had 50 patients in her hos- ' pital."- A number of leprosy treatment , staions had been established, and in i one station more than 100 men, women, and children had been formed into a leper colony. A doctor had been allocated the task of specialising, in leprosy treatment. Much progress had been made in the establishment, of educational centres, to which the more promising students were sent from the village schools. Very, fine work was being .done in this direction at ‘ the boys' schools at Kongwa, Dodoma, and Katohe, and the girls' schools at Mrumi and Berega. Financial assistance, however, was urgentlj” needed for the maintenance of work which was undoubtedly the finest being carried out by the Australian Church. Describing his visit to the site of a new mission station adjoining the Belgian Mandated Territory of Buanda, Mr Hewett said that his party had boarded the 1200-ton steamer Clement Hill (named after the cricketer) at Mwanza, on Lake Victoria Nyanza, at (i o’clock in the evening and reached Bukoba, on the other shore, at 8 o'clock the next morning. The lake had 2000 miles of coastline and an area of .10,000 square miles. The new mission station, which would be. under the charge of a young Melbourne clergyman, assisted by a layman from .Sydney, would minister to about 20,000 people almost untouched by Christianitv.

The tsetse fly, said Mr Howott, was the most dangerous pest in Tanganyika. It. carried in its sting the the germs of the dread sleeping sick* ness, and was calculated to iufest twothirds of the territory. It had a’ ibite llhe “the kick of a horse,” and it was

not uncommon to have the car in which one travelled covered by mosquito net to keep the pest away. Often missionary parties were forced to trawl at night to avoid it. The 'Government was now busy establishing research stations to combat the disease and to discover an effective means of destroying the ffv.