The Priests Tale - Père Etienne | Page 3

of all the queer things you
have seen, father," I said.
"Queer?"
"Yes," said I. "Unusual, I mean. Not necessarily supernatural, and not
horrible. But the thing, perhaps, that more than all else draws your
mind back to Africa."
"You ask a big thing," he said, smiling friendlily.
"And I believe you can answer it," said I, impulsively.
He nodded more gravely. "I believe I can," he said.
"I shall tell you a little story that seems to me singularly arresting and
tender. True, I believe that it may arrest me because it occurred in a
village--or perhaps I should say a town--which I have visited but once
though I have often tried to get back to it again. Now I shall never go.
Very likely it is for that reason, then, that it lingers in my memory as a
place of great beauty, though in my opinion there are other causes.
However, let me begin by describing it to you.
"From the slopes of Kilimanjaro you can look westwards to Mweru, a
still active volcano little known and rarely visited, and from Mweru a
chain of heights runs west once more till they end abruptly almost in a
precipice that descends to the plain. At its foot rises a small river,
bubbling up from half a dozen springs in a slight depression, and
flowing swiftly off, very clear and cool, towards the great lake which is
visible on the horizon from the mountain behind. Just below the pool of
the source, on the right bank, shaded with trees, ringed with giant aloes
and set in fields of millet and maize, stands a somewhat remarkable
native town. There is stone in the hills, and the natives have drawn and
worked it for their huts--not a usual thing in tropical Africa. They may,
of course, have learned the lore themselves, or some wandering Arab
traders may have taught them; but I have another idea, as you shall hear.
Be that as it may, there the neat houses stand--grey walls, brown thatch,

small swept yards of trodden earth before them within the rings of neat
reed fencing. Great willows grow along the bank and trail their hanging
tendrils in the water, and the brown kiddies swing from them and go
splashing into the stream with shouts of delight. The place is remote,
and in a corner out of the path of marauding tribes. Not too easy to find,
its folk are peaceable, and I can see it again as I saw it on my first visit
when, from the height of the precipice behind, I could make out the
thin spires of smoke rising on the evening air and just perceive the
brown herds of cattle drifting slowly homewards to the protecting
kraals.
"The tribe is a branch of the Bonde, iron workers and a settled folk.
How they came to be there, so far north and west of the main stock of
their people, I do not know, but of course one comes across that kind of
thing fairly commonly and the explanation is nearly always the same.
Fear of some kind drove out a family who wandered, like Abram from
Charron, until they found a promised land. These folk knew that they
came from the south and east a long long time ago; more they neither
knew nor cared to know. They were not many in number, and although
Arab safaris had passed by, they were not enough to tempt a permanent
trader to cross the barren lands north and south, or dare the mountain
way from Mweru. The chief's oldest councillor spoke to me of a
slave-raid that had been defeated when he was a young man, but since
then they had dwelt in peace. No European had been there within living
memory.
"Such was, and may be still, the town of Mtakatifuni, as I shall call it.
Do you know Ki-Swahili?"
I shook my head.
"Then the name will do, and not spoil my tale. Let me but tell you how
I came to be there and I will make haste about it. I was exploring. Ah,
but once in all the years have I been able to explore! Usually we
missionaries hurry from place to place on an unending round till the
circle is as big as we can possibly manage. Then a new centre must be
made, and it was because my Order had determined on a new centre
that my opportunity came. The Vicar Apostolic was doubtful as to the

direction in which we should expand. He sent me, therefore, west
beyond Mweru to see what could be seen, and another farther south on
the same errand. The folk were few about Mweru, but I heard a rumour
of Mtakatifuni, much exaggerated, and set out to find