The Chasm
Seems To Be Of Great Depth, Probably 500 Or 600 Feet.
Unfortunately,
I had no time to explore this valley, as I was anxious to devote
every fine day to increasing my hitherto scanty collections.
Just opposite my abode in Rurukan was the schoolhouse. The
schoolmaster was a native, educated by the Missionary at Tomohón.
School was held every morning for about three hours, and twice a
week in the evening there was catechising and preaching. There
was also a service on Sunday morning. The children were all
taught in Malay, and I often heard them repeating the
multiplication-table, up to twenty times twenty, very glibly. They
always wound up with singing, and it was very pleasing to hear
many of our old psalm-tunes in these remote mountains, sung with
Malay words. Singing is one of the real blessings which
Missionaries introduce among savage nations, whose native chants
are almost always monotonous and melancholy.
On catechising evenings the schoolmaster was a great man,
preaching and teaching for three hours at a stretch much in the
style of an English ranter. This was pretty cold work for his
auditors, however warming to himself; and I am inclined to think
that these native teachers, having acquired facility of speaking
and an endless supply of religious platitudes to talk about, ride
their hobby rather hard, without much consideration for their
flock. The Missionaries, however, have much to be proud of in
this country. They have assisted the Government in changing a
savage into a civilized community in a wonderfully short space of
time.
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