His Loss Is Also
Great To Those Students Of Africa Who Are Working On The Culture Or
On The Languages; His Knowledge Of Both Was Extensive, Particularly
Of The Little Known Languages Of The Ogowe District.
He was, when I
left, busily employed in compiling a dictionary of the Fan tongue,
and had many other works on language in contemplation.
His work in
this sphere would have had a high value, for he was a man with a
University education and well grounded in Latin and Greek, and
thoroughly acquainted with both English and French literature, for
although born a Frenchman, he had been brought up in America. He
was also a cultivated musician, and he and Mme. Jacot in the
evenings would sing old French songs, Swiss songs, English songs, in
their rich full voices; and then if you stole softly out on to the
verandah, you would often find it crowded with a silent, black
audience, listening intently.
The amount of work M. and Mme. Jacot used to get through was, to me,
amazing, and I think the Ogowe Protestant mission sadly short-
handed - its missionaries not being content to follow the usual
Protestant plan out in West Africa, namely, quietly sitting down and
keeping house, with just a few native children indoors to do the
housework, and close by a school and a little church where a service
is held on Sundays. The representatives of the Mission Evangelique
go to and fro throughout the district round each station on
evangelising work, among some of the most dangerous and uncivilised
tribes in Africa, frequently spending a fortnight at a time away
from their homes, on the waterways of a wild and dangerous country.
In addition to going themselves, they send trained natives as
evangelists and Bible-readers, and keep a keen eye on the trained
native, which means a considerable amount of worry and strain too.
The work on the stations is heavy in Ogowe districts, because when
you have got a clearing made and all the buildings up, you have by
no means finished with the affair, for you have to fight the Ogowe
forest back, as a Dutchman fights the sea.
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