"Clerk to Basel"

He reports a general lack of positive response in Worawora - none of the promised help with the building of a hut or school shelter, and general confusion as to who they are teachers, merchants, or officials. He has heard some young men audibly hoping that the regime is going to pass a law to make it easier to get married. En passant he remarks that cheap gunpowder from the German coast is resulting in unbelievable quantities being expended at absequy customs. It is also making it easy for the Buems to get slaves, and is the basis for the success of the slave raider Kasare in the interior. Something should be done about it. He also describes their relief at getting away from their rented accommodation in the heathen town - the noise at night troubled them. The chief is friendly, but powerless to help them. Pasted to the back of this letter is a comment dated Basel, April 92, signed by the abbreviation 'Christ' (probably Hermann Christ): It quotes the passage in Clerk's report about gunpowder, remarks that spirits and powder seem to be the aspects of so-called civilisation most available to the Africans and goes on 'We, the Mission, are the only (people) who can raise a voice against this colossal outrage of Germany in West Africa, and the Colonialamt has forced us to do this.'

30.09.1891

30.09.1891

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