Mackay of Uganda’s Story – as Told by His Sister

I am very pleased to be able to add another biography of Alexander Mackay to the Missiology website – this one written by his sister. My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing me with a copy of the book to scan. This title is in the Public Domain.

Alexina Harrison (Nee Mackay), The Story of the Life of Mackay of Uganda. Pioneer Missionary by His Sister, 7th edn. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1898. Hbk. pp.323. [Download complete book in PDF]

Contents

1. A Discovery
2. Early Days
3. Transmitted Impulses
4. Rapid Changes
5. Life in Berlin
6. Uganda
7. On the March
8. The Coast Again
9. A Rapid Journey
10. The Silvery Sea
11. At the Court of Mtesa
12. Hostile Arabs
13. The Plague
14. Going to Market
15. Mackay as Undertaker
16. “The Eleanor”
17. The King is Dead
18. The Reign of Terror
19. Deeds of Blood
20. The Night is Gone
21. The Iron Horse

Chapter 1

It was the year 1849, in Aberdeenshire. Summer and autumn had gone, the birch and the rowan were stripped of their leaves; the gowan was no longer under the foot; and the yellow broom and the purple heather were looked for in vain. True. Tap o’ Noth still towered his majestic head above Rhynie village, but this morning he seemed to have wrapped himself in his ermine mantle, for with the exception or here and there a rough-walled, low-thatched cottage, or a crag or two projecting from his side, from summit to base he was white, snowy white.

In the village too all was bleak and desolate and still, save for the eerie sough of the wind blowing across the moor, sighing and moaning among the stiffened branches of the trees, and improvising aeolian harps in the draughty windows of the cottages. Already lines of white marked the thresholds, and thistles of frost garnished the window-panes. [Continue reading]