Europeans a boy. In eighteen months he was so far ahead of his
in Africa.
compeers that he was selected to occupy Mswata, near
the confluence of the Kwa and the Congo. After fifteen
months at this place he had been so successful as a commandant,
through his gentle arts of pleasing suasion,
that old Grobila, the chief, consulted him in everything
he undertook. He had become the pet of old and
young, male and female, and his sobriquet, the “White
LIEUTENANT JANSSEN.
Chicken,” had been borne up the river for a distance of
5G0 miles, as the name of one who was the good friend
of all. The canoes fastened at the landing-place of his
station, either bound up or going down river, contained
hundreds who had simply halted to say good day to
Nsusu-Mpembe (white chicken).
He was requested to build a station a little higher up
than Mswata,1 and to show the Abbe Guyot a portion
of ground where he might have his mission-house
erected. Their canoes, returning in a hurry to Mswata
in the teeth of a gale of wind, foundered when opposite Europeans
Ganchu’s Point, and both the young lieutenant and the m* nca
Abbé, with several of the coloured men, were drowned.
One of the most excellent men was Lieut. Parfoury.
He lived long enough to show that in him were contained
all the elements that make men greatly esteemed
for intrinsic worth, moral bravery, and the indefatigable
spirit of capacity ; and yet, being a little indiscreet
one day under a burning sun, he was gone from us,
just as I was beginning to feel comforted at the
number of worthy men flocking to the standard of the
Association in Africa.
Anqther estimable, honest soul was Lieut. Grang.
For fifty days he lived in the same camp with me, and
during this period I had gathered, by the light such close
intercourse with him had given me, that I could count a
true man in him; for every spring within his character
was set moving by downright honesty—honest motives,