I had an experience of this kind in the Benita country in 1868. I had been there several years. There was growth in the desire for the good things that money can buy, but wages and prices had remained unchanged. I was obtaining all I needed of both labor and food without difficulty. Had I had any difficulty, I should naturally have offered more inducement. I was not aware that there was any discontent. None of my employees had asked for a rise, nor had people, in selling their produce, complained of the price I gave.
[Illustration: ELEPHANTS' TUSKS AND PALM-LEAF THATCH. TWO HUNDRED MILES UP THE OGOWE RIVER.]
Suddenly, one morning, a company of about twenty men, led by an ambitious heathen whose manner had always been dictatorial to me and to whom I had shown no favor, filed into the public meeting-room of our mission-house. I knew them all; none were in my employ, nor were any of them Christians. As if they thought it was hopeless to attempt to obtain anything from me by petition or respectful request, they seemed to have decided to stake all on a demand and threat. They suddenly and harshly began, "We've come to order you to change prices." Naturally I felt nettled and replied that I saw no reason why I should take orders from them. They rose in a rage and said, "Then we'll put Ukuku on you--(1) no one shall work for you; (2) no one shall sell you food or drink; (3) you shall not go yourself to your spring;" and with a savage yell they left the house. Instantly a great terror fell on the native members of my household. Those who were heathen dropped work and went to their villages. Those who were Christians came to me distressed, saying that they desired to obey me, but they feared the interdict. I relieved the situation for them by excusing them from further work "till I should call them," and refrained from ringing the call-bell at the usual work hour.
With me were Mrs. Nassau, our child's nurse, my sister Miss I. A. Nassau, and two native girls, members of another tribe. Nurse was a foreigner, a Christian Liberian woman, who was not amenable to the interdict. Some of my Christian employees, though not working, remained on the premises. A few visitors came in the afternoon,--some, as sincere friends, to sympathize; some in curiosity, to see how we were feeling; and some as spies, to see what we were doing. The interdict, except as an expression of ill-will and a possible check to my mission work, did not trouble me. As to food, I had an ample supply of canned provisions, sufficient for a long siege. In refusing to sell me their native products, the people would miss more than I should. As to work, the cleaning of the premises was not pressing and could safely be neglected. As to drinking-water, enough could be caught from the roof in the almost daily rains. Food and labor were their own, to refuse if they chose. But the spring was on my premises and belonged to me. To refrain from going to it might be deemed cowardice; at least it would be obeying an order of what Ukuku claimed was a spirit. An order from men I might submit to under compulsion; to submit to this spirit went against my conscience. After prayer and consideration overnight, Mrs. Nassau fully agreed with me that it was right I should make a demonstration at the spring. In parting with her next morning, as I took up a bucket to go to the spring, she knew I might not return alive. A sandy path led through low bushes to the spring, several hundred yards distant. I saw no one on the way nor at the spring. I filled the bucket and was turning homeward, when a spy, armed with a spear, jumped out of his ambush and ordered me to leave the water. As I did not do so, but started to walk over the path, he stabbed at my back. I thrust the spear aside and faced him, but walking backward all the time kept my eye steadily on his. He feared my eye (most native Africans cannot stand a white man's fixed look) and did not attempt to stab me in front, but tried to spill the water in the bucket and stab me from behind. But the bucket and its contents I guarded, as he struck at it from right to left, by rapidly changing it from left to right with one hand and warding off the spear with the other. Still walking backward, and keeping my eye on him, the bucket and I reached the house in safety.