MARRIAGE TANGLES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 17773, 8 October 1927, Page 14

MARRIAGE TANGLES.

“CENTRAL AFRICA IS A LITTLE DULL." TALKING WITH A CHARMING QUEEN. Have you ever taught a group of cannibals’ (laughters to embroider with taste and artistry? Have you ever kept house in a spot where you hail to send thousands of miles to the grocer's for . your goods, 12 mouths in advance? Have you ever attended a wedding with 60 bridesmaids ? Have you ever talked with a charming queen till you were so interested you almost forgot she was a queen? All those and many other things interesting and unusual have been done by Mrs Alan Palmer, a slim little greyeyed Australian, who possesses more than one person’s fair share of charm, sympathy and humour. Her homo is the British Mission Station at Yalemba, Belgian Congo, twenty miles north of the equator in the heart of Africa, but at present she is visiting her people in Sydney for the first-time-in nine years. “I married a missionary,’’ said ill's Palmer, “so, of course, I became one. “Socially Central'‘Africa is a little dull. But for our work it would lie unbearable. Fortunately our work among the natives is ceaseless^'' interesting.” If, as all wiseheadsiconstantly insist, the busiest lives are the happiest, Mr and Mrs Palmer's onty trouble in life must be a superfluity of. joy. A boarding school:-.of 60 girls, her own home, which’relies oil groceries sent from England ordered every 12 months, and a baby clinic treating 103 babies, are among this white woman’s daily burden. As a side line, the matrimonially dissatisfied of the district regard the mission as sanctuary, and there flee spirited wives from irritating husbands. The emancipation of women is a little orercluo in Central' Africa. Take the storv of Lindundu.

“Lindundu- was married, against licr will, to a gentleman who already had several other wives. She stood it for six months, and then fled "to the mission.

“By Belgian law: we are allowed to protect the escaped wives of polygamists, so we were within the . law in sheltering her. ' , ’ x “The girl’s father was fearfully angry. He was afraid lie would have, to forfeit all liis marriage payments to the husband. The husband was wild about losing his newest, youngest wife. “Wo kept her safely for 18 months, and then she and one of our young Christians fell in love and wanted to make a match of it. “When her father found the new suitor was a chief’s son he quite changed his mind, and even consented to give Jus daughter away at the wedding. On tliis occasion the bride was attended by 60 maids. 1

“We have protected about 10 girls who have escaped from polygamy. One Christmas day, when the whole mission was attending a sports carnival, one ot these was abducted by tier own husband. “When we discovered her absence my husband pursued them on his bicycle, and came upon the angry husband marching his, erring wife; along by the hair, with the tip pf a'huge knife resting against her back. The silent tyres allowed him to approach unheard and drive the front wheel suddenly between them, which so startled the man that he vanished; into, the forest. “When we were in Brussels, studying tropical diseases, I had the honour of an audience with the Queen of the Belgians, who is so womanly and fascinating that, in the interest of talking with lieT- I lost consciousness of the. alarming fact that she was a queen. She was genuinely curious about our work, and asked me many questions. ‘How do the girls take to clothes?’ she said, on seeing some of my snapshots and when 1 told her they loved, pretty things she was amused at tho idea of flow ue women are alike the world over! “Wo are already seeing results for our labours in both the first and second generation of our converts." Those who have attended our school and had training are keener and more self-respecting than their neighbours, while the difference in the children ot "mission patents is astonishing-and gratifying; they are always so very much bl ighter and more spirited than the duller-witted, more lethargic natives.” , .. Judged by the fine examples of delicate faneywork that these native girls have been taught to do the standard of Yalemba Station is a. high one; there are many Australian women who would he proud to have such mastery of the

needle. . Mrs Palmer has been right across Africa, having travelled to her home from both coasts: When at Dar-es-Salaam immediately'after tho arm>‘diee she was the first white woman the Englishmen in occupation, had seen for two years. “I think thev doubted whether T was real ” smiled the. little missionary. “I was’sucii a curiosity that many of them felt thev bad to apologise go sweetly for appearing to stare.” ;