[5382]
I have just received your revered letter of 20th June, sent from Paris on 29th July, informing me that the Central Council of the Holy Childhood allocated the sum of 5,000 francs to Central Africa at its session of 21st May last. I have no words to express my gratitude to this admirable Society and the Central Council. I shall reply to all the really practical pieces of information in your letters and will see to everything.
[5383]
At present, with reference to the means by which to send me cheques from the Holy Childhood, the best and cheapest way is by a letter of credit issued by the Rothschild bank in Paris sent to me in Khartoum. There is a French merchant here, M. Marquet, who accepts all letters of credit from Rothschild in Paris and pays me cash on sight. The letters of credit made out to me can have a two-month validity.
[5384]
Another safe way is to send the money through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French Consul General, or a letter of credit issued by Rothschild in Paris to Fr Bartolomeo Rolleri, the Superior of the Institutes for Africans in Cairo, Egypt, and General Bursar for Central Africa. This means has been used for ten years by the Propagation of the Faith and is the most reliable.
[5385]
But at the moment, if you have not already sent this sum by the means I indicated in my letter of 16th August, I would ask you to have 3,000 gold francs paid to my banker in Rome, Mr Brown and Son in Via Condotti, through the Superior General of the Trinitarians in Rome, Director of the Holy Childhood in Rome and confessor of the devout Brown family. I would need this to be able to have six Missionaries leave for Egypt via Naples. I would ask you to have the rest sent to me as soon as possible by letter of credit issued by Rothschild or to Fr Rolleri, former student of my Institute in Verona and Superior of my Institutes in Cairo (Egypt), or directly to me in Khartoum as indicated above.
[5386]
The Austrian Consul and French Consular Agent in Khartoum tells me that wheat, for which we used to pay 20 to 25 francs an ardeb (88 kilos) was bought here for 360 francs an ardeb. But practically none of my Institutes in the Vicariate have eaten any bread for four months because I lack the money to buy any. They are living off durra, which is too poor a diet for Europeans. I am speaking of the European Missionaries, the Sisters of St Joseph from Marseilles and the Verona Sisters, not of the pupils, the orphans and the other locals who have never tasted wheat bread but have always eaten durra, dokhon and local grain. In addition if you consider that we have a great shortage of drinking water, you will realise the sorry state we are in. But the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Propagation of the Faith and the Holy Childhood, will remedy all this. I remain in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Your most devoted

+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa


Translated from the French.

[5387]
Since I see from Fr Paolo Rossi’s last quarterly report that the Verona houses are in excellent condition and they do not have a kreutzer of debt, and since the most urgent needs of the Work are today in the Vicariate (the Cairo establishments have no debts either), in order to avoid the customs duty in Verona, if you collect any donations, I would ask you to send them directly to Fr Bartolomeo Rolleri, Superior of the Institutes for Africans in Cairo (Egypt), since Rolleri will let me have them immediately. Please do this until further notice. This month I have written to more than 40 Austrian deans and parish priests, especially in the Diocese of Salzburg; and I have written to Mgr Gassner that he is to send you whatever he collects for Africa.
[5388]
All that you sent to Verona, even what was for me, remained in Verona, retained by Fr Paolo who had my permission to keep it for the needs of those establishments. Now, without saying or writing anything to Fr Paolo, you must send everything to Cairo. Should there be letters of credit issued on Vienna, Frankfurt or Paris, you may send them directly to me because there are merchants here who pay them to me on sight.
[5389]
Gordon Pasha is the terror of slavery. Since he arrived here (June) he has seized 36 slave caravans. He favours me greatly and always comes to see me. He has decided to entrust the government hospital in Fashoda (capital of the Shilluk territory) to the Verona Sisters who are at present in Berber; then (when new Sisters come) he will give them the hospital of Lado (near Gondokoro), and then the one on Lake Albert at the Equator. To the Sisters of St Joseph in Khartoum he is entrusting the one in Khartoum with 40 beds. He has understood that by letting the Sisters run the hospitals, three quarters of the soldiers who would otherwise die can survive. Everything, says the letter, is sous le contrôle de Mons. Comboni. With the grace of God and St Joseph (in whose beard there are guineas and florins in profusion), the mission will grow to magnificent proportions. It is therefore important that the Society of Mary in Vienna should prosper because it is the symbol of the Austrian protection of the Vicariate; I have already written to the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna.
[5390]
The Verona Sisters will go from Berber to Fashoda next October, and a government steamer will go specially to Berber to take them to Fashoda. Next week I shall send Fr Squaranti there to prepare the houses provided by the government. Fashoda is exactly opposite the point in the Dinka tribe that Fr Beltrame had chosen for the Mazza Institute. Thus, there and in Lado, we shall need the Dinka and Bari dictionaries and grammar books which you have so much merit for compiling. You see the immense good service you have done to Africa and the Church with this work. Before the end of 1879 we will be established at the Nyanza lakes on the Equator. I had already arranged everything with Gordon Pasha for this September: but certain defections (for great self-denial, virtue and perseverance are needed to last in Central Africa), the debts and the tremendous famine made me decide to wait.
A thousand respects to His Most Reverend Highness, to the Dean, to all your confreres and the dependent Professors, and remember that your letters are of great comfort. The Nuba dictionary and grammar are progressing.
Pray to the Heart of Jesus
for your most affectionate and faithful

+ Daniel, Bishop and Vicar Apostolic


[5391]
I had not yet sent the enclosed letter to Salzburg. I send it to you, please forward it. Vale.
Do also read the Latin letter to Mgr Gassner in Salzburg, and if you would like to, read it also to your Professor confreres, ut orent, and then send it. A thousand pardons.

[5392]
By the last post I received your esteemed letter of 14th August in which you command me to defer my expedition to the Nyanza Lakes for the time being. You were good enough to present just and prudent reasons, and I comply with God’s will, of which I have clear knowledge through my Superior. I have discontinued preparation for the expedition in the assurance that God will provide for these poor souls in the best way possible.
[5393]
As long ago as 1873, when I pushed the Vicariate’s activity towards Jebel Nuba in the west, Fr Antonio Squaranti, Rector of my Institute in Verona, and now my General Administrator of the Vicariate’s temporal goods, and resident here in Khartoum, wrote to me in these terms: “I am glad that you are going ahead and to Jebel Nuba, and even further into the whole of Central Africa; but please do not go to the Equator, to the Nyanza Lakes, because the Equator is for me”. And since that time I have reflected, prepared studies, and followed all the phases of the various travellers who walked in the footsteps of Speke, Grant and Baker, and also learned about the different languages and peoples spread over the Equatorial region. But Fr Squaranti and I are content in the knowledge that we are doing God’s will, which is so clear, and we continue with our work.
[5394]
At the same time, I find Your Eminence’s present decision most prudent and timely, for, apart from being very much taken up with the terrible famine (to which my general bursar and administrator St Joseph will certainly provide a remedy within the prescribed time, which I have communicated to Cardinal Bartolini), and further with the provisions, or negotiations, which I foresee I will have to undertake with the new Mother General of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition, who are now very few in my Vicariate (which means that I must stay put in my residence), I shall also have the opportunity of ascertaining and reflecting upon the outcome of the first expeditions of the missionaries of Algiers: such things as how they manage to get to their destination, how they settle down, how they fare against the inevitable trials of these expeditions, and assess what is to be hoped for, both from the missionaries of Algiers and from me and from my people.
[5395]
This will require at least two years; and any decision taken before that time would be premature and rash, because any visitor to Central Africa has different impressions and greater or lesser facility or difficulty, depending on the season in which he arrives. For instance if an Apostolic Visitor sent to Central Africa by the Holy See were to arrive in Khartoum, Kordofan or the Nyanza Lakes between November and April he would find everything in order, observance of the rule and regular practice of the ministry; it would be Spring and everybody would be ready to serve him. If he were to arrive in the season of the fevers, and were not to succumb to these or be ill for a long time, he would find that people cope by virtue alone, but he would not find the regularity and good order that prevail in the good season.
[5396]
Thus, supposing that the missionaries of Algiers were to reach Tanganyika, and some of them Lake Victoria, in the good season, they would find a beautiful country, good housing, a good welcome, good service, good assistance and would soon set up their first establishments. Hence: splendid reports to the Holy See, to the Propagation of the Faith, to France, to the Univers and to the other Catholic newspapers.
[5397]
But this is not enough to say that the missionaries are really well settled. One has to await the passage of at least two bad seasons and to see if it is possible to predict the soundness of the establishment after everyone has been ill, after some have died, and in the face of illness, difficulties, obstacles due to the inhabitants or various Protestant Societies or to other factors, or due to those who lose courage and turn back. It is only after these tests, that is, after two years, that one can have an exact idea of an establishment’s success. Since all that concerns me is the good of Africa and the salvation of her peoples, I shall be content to see the missionaries of Algiers succeed well in their difficult task. I tell you most sincerely and from the bottom of my heart that I hope they will succeed. This is because it seems almost impossible that among the 160 or so Missionaries whom Mgr Lavigerie has at his disposal (and I have a list of their names on my desk) at least two or three dozen men cannot be found who are able to overcome the many obstacles and who, for the love of God and of souls, on the battlefield (not in Europe where they are safe, and everyone is ready to be martyred) are prepared to die before their time for Africa.
[5398]
I feel certain that the Church will greatly benefit from such a generous and holy institution: but to judge and to decide on the confines of the new future missions and on the southern border of my Vicariate, it is prudent and appropriate to let at least two years or two bad seasons pass. In Central Africa, the latter vary according to the different latitudes. It would also be immensely opportune and useful to the Church for the missionaries of Algiers to succeed in their holy enterprise, due to the influence in Equatorial Africa it would give France, which (if it does not fall into the hands of Gambetta) is alone able to counterbalance the influence of England which is not far from achieving certain goals which, however, would become less attractive the closer England gets, as it is getting, to Catholicism.
[5399]
On the subject of postponing definitive decisions, I do not think it inappropriate for me humbly to recall another fact which is known to Propaganda and the whole world.
In 1874, Mgr Lavigerie issued a splendid circular in which he announced a forthcoming missionary expedition to Timbuktu. The Catholic press responded with enthusiasm to this holy enterprise, praise came from all parts and there were detailed descriptions of the itinerary through Touareg territory, of the tribes that would be encountered and of the time of year this mysterious kingdom would be reached. The scientific world and the Geographical Societies echoed this general joy and enthusiasm.

[5400]
I was in Kordofan when I read the circular and the German, French and English newspapers that reported it, including the New York Herald whose correspondent came to see me. To begin with I exulted. But when I read the route they were taking, the mode of transport, and above all the time of year chosen to arrive in Timbuktu, I told my missionaries that no one would get there alive and that they would all either die on the way, be massacred or turn back. This was because I understood clearly that if the missionaries were really to travel that route or in that way through Africa, they would not have had enough experience, which cannot be acquired instantly by making a long journey, but must be gained doing the same journey bit by bit, covering the distance not in five or six months, as the papers said, but in five or six years.
[5401]
When I reached Khartoum, having in the past had excellent relations with Mgr Lavigerie and Mgr Soubiranne, his Vicar General, I wrote him a long letter giving him the fruits of my long experience of travelling through the deserts and tribes of Africa and humbly telling him my opinion as to how he could achieve his holy objective with the greatest likelihood of success, but in a more distant future. I never received an answer to this letter, but it may never have reached the Archbishop. But the fact is that, arriving in Cairo in February 1876, I read in Missions Catholiques that the missionaries were massacred on their way to Timbuktu, and I read the splendid circular by Mgr Lavigerie, in which he announced to the faithful of his diocese the martyrdom which his excellent sons had suffered, etc., etc. and he was right a thousand times. But who still speaks of Timbuktu nowadays? … The undertaking was really difficult. And God, in his mercy, reserved this magnificent body of missionaries, who are very well-intentioned, for a vaster enterprise, richer in fruits for the Church and much more important, that is to say the equatorial missions not dominated by Islamism, as Timbuktu would have been.
[5402]
I therefore proclaim to the wisdom of the Sacred Congregation, to Your Eminence and to the Holy Father who, from the results of the holy expeditions already under way and from the most exact reports the Archbishop of Algiers and I will be able to send you in due course, and more so by the light of the Holy Spirit by whom it is guided, that the Sacred Congregation will securely take the wise and firm decisions it will deem appropriate, and that I will accept with joy and readiness as the expression of God’s will.
[5403]
My heart was profoundly saddened, still is and will be for a long time, at the news of the death of the Most Eminent and Reverend Cardinal Franchi. I ordered throughout the Vicariate the celebration of solemn requiems and funeral services for the repose of his soul, and we celebrated them here in Khartoum with the participation of the Imperial Royal Austro-Hungarian Consul and the Catholics. I implore Your Eminence, if you think it fitting, to present my heartfelt condolences to the Holy Father for this great loss to the Church. I would also ask Your Most Reverend Eminence to give Cardinal Nina my humble congratulations for being appointed successor to the late Cardinal Franchi and to Your Most Reverend Eminence, crown of the splendid and stormy pontificate of Pius IX, whose two sublime, famous and unforgettable notes to the Apostolic Nuncios on the Mancini Circular and the death of Victor Emmanuel are still a thorn in the side of the spirit of the revolution and will remain as monuments to the wisdom of the Roman Pontificate and the truth that surrounds it.
[5404]
In my last letter sent in June I included a letter of congratulations to the Holy Father Leo XIII which was also a profession of faith. I hope you received it and presented it to the Holy Father.
Prostrate, I kiss your Sacred Purple and send my deepest respects,
Your Most Reverend Eminence’s most humble, devoted and obedient son

+ Daniel,
Bishop of Claudiopolis
Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa

[5405]
I write to you from the main Mission in Khartoum, where I am now the only priest, having to be Bishop, parish priest, Superior, curate, doctor, nurse and sexton. I am here with only two lay brothers from my Verona Institute, that is, the chief gardener and the storekeeper, who have indeed had their fevers but are well. Only one of the Sisters is up and about; all the others and nearly all the girls are in bed with the fever which has been raging for a month. I have sent the Priests, lay brothers and nearly all the boys, after tremendous fevers, to the Blue Nile by boat for a change of air. More than half Khartoum’s inhabitants are sick and they are dying like flies.
[5406]
This frightful mortality is the consequence of the famine. It appears that in the villages as far as 200 miles from Khartoum (as far as I can have reliable news) hunger, thirst and mortality have more than halved the population; where there were 50,000 inhabitants, more than 25,000 have died. My priests who have gone for a change of air, to whom I suggested they stop in certain villages, tell me that they are deserted, only the sick remain and the rest of the inhabitants have died in the last few months. As for my Administrator, Fr Antonio Squaranti, who followed me here without being able to acclimatise in Cairo, as a precaution and to save his skin, in the middle of last month I sent him to Berber, to be in the care of the excellent Devout Mothers of Africa, founded by me in Verona and taught by Fr Squaranti himself in their noviciate for the apostolic life in Africa: they have strengthened and perfectly restored him.
[5407]
Although I am alone in administering and directing Khartoum, although I am on the go day and night in the houses, or rather the hospitals where every kind of misery is to be seen, I am perfectly well. I have a most regular life, eating twice a day only one thing, never drinking wine which kills you in this heat but only water, never drinking lemonade or eating meat or chicken or other things that increase the bile, no soups, etc. which bring on the fever, but only eating biftek cooked for just one minute and drinking Nile water; I am perfectly well, never a headache, more than 20 letters going with every post, ceaseless work. I have the consolation of having cured many people of typhoid and that no one has died without receiving the sacraments and being confirmed if they had not yet been.
[5408]
The drought in Kordofan is over because the rains have been most abundant and, after the famine, they are now partly the cause of mortality. In order to avoid diseases spreading from the Sudan to Egypt, the Egyptian government has cordoned off and quarantined Berber and Suakin, so we are prisoners.
[5409]
I am convinced that the hunger and famine in Central Africa has been and still is far more terrible and frightful than the hunger and famine in India and China…
The fact that I am the only Vicar Apostolic to have raised the alarm in Europe, combined with the natural apathy of people here, due to Islamic fatalism, which makes them suffer and die in silence, has meant that in Europe, where so much has been done for the hungry in India and China, no one has shown compassion for the hunger, famine and thirst (worse than hunger) in Central Africa. Many newspapers, including the Voce della Verità, to which I wrote several times about this tremendous catastrophe, have not even deigned to mention the famine in Central Africa. May the Lord be blessed forever.

[5410]
I say that the famine in Central Africa is more terrible than the famine in India and China for the following reasons:
1. Here (and this goes also for the newly conquered great empire of Darfur, with which I have constant relations, and other parts of the Vicariate) more than half the population has died, whereas I have not yet read that in any province of Asia the famine victims represent half the population.

[5411]
2. In Asia the famine is accompanied by a good climate, cool air and houses for shelter. Here, as well as the famine, there is the nightmare and the oppression of suffocating heat which takes one’s strength away and increases the horror of hunger (not to mention thirst, which affects all the towns that are far from the Nile or the White Nile and which is the worst scourge of all). From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. it is over 50 degrees, and about a third of the inhabitants have no houses to shelter in.
[5412]
3. The conditions experienced by the Missionaries of Central Africa in the African famine are more frightening and terrible than those experienced by the Gospel workers in India and China; for it seems to me (though I cannot prove it and can only base myself on what I saw of India many years ago) that the European missionaries, Bishops and Sisters in Asia never lacked for necessities, and as well as having adequate food supplies (for which one must praise and thank God’s loving Providence), must have found fresh air, a good climate, rest at night and many other resources we do not have in Central Africa. I am very glad of this for my missionary confreres in Asia. But the missionaries of Kordofan and of Jebel Nuba, apart from the inconvenience of the heat, the brackish and limited water supply, etc., have not tasted wheat bread for six months and both the missionaries and the Sisters have had to live on dokhon (a kind of wild millet that even the hens in Europe would refuse). It was by God’s grace and the self-denial of these missionaries of mine and the Sisters of St Joseph that wheat was preserved to make the hosts, say Mass and receive communion.
[5413]
And this dokhon had to be bought at a much higher price than wheat in ordinary times. Here in Khartoum, the bread we eat goes by the name of wheat bread and as such we have to pay ten times more for it than in ordinary times. But I would certainly not say Mass with a host made with the flour of Khartoum bread.
[5414]
Despite all this, we adore God’s dispositions and we suffer willingly for the love of God in the certainty that from these tribulations, God will draw his advantage for the apostolate of Central Africa. Indeed, I depend solely on the Heart of Jesus to which, with the consent of the late and never sufficiently lamented Pius IX, I consecrated the whole Vicariate in 1873.
[5415]
I said that I raised my voice, and that in Europe, impressed by the deplorable conditions of the Chinese and Indian famines, no one showed compassion for Central Africa. It is true that the Propagation of the Faith sent me 12,000 francs in extraordinary offerings, but these alms were collected in England and elsewhere in response to my letters. The greatest compassion came from my little but praiseworthy Society of Cologne for the ransom of Africans, which got to work with the Catholic press, and through collections for the purpose, has so far sent me 20,000 francs. But what are these aids in the face of the Vicariate’s needs? Here, the prices for basic foodstuffs are ten, twelve times what they are normally. There is no butter, so we do without; because the people of Vicenza, we say in Verona of people who have nothing, do without. In Kordofan, there is no bread. One small egg (a third of the size of one in Rome) costs half a lira. And so on and on, without counting the dead.
[5416]
I would have liked to implore the Sacred Congregation to send me supplementary funds, as it has done to some missions in India and China; but I thought it would be doing wrong to my dear bursar St Joseph to disturb the Holy See and Propaganda who have to think of the whole world. Therefore I want nothing from the Sacred Congregation except its wise direction, its commands regarding my conduct, its warnings, its instructions and its scoldings when it deems these to be appropriate and useful. But money, no: I would refuse it with humble submission. It is enough for me to receive a special and most ample blessing from the Vicar of Christ, Leo XIII and from Your Most Reverend Eminence.
[5417]
I would have liked to implore Your Eminence to commend me to the Propagation of the Faith; but to tell the truth I do not feel like doing so because that holy Association is already giving me a quite substantial annual contribution and I am afraid of causing irritation with new requests. I am quite content for the annual allocation to continue, since it ensures the existence and preservation of the mission. If, however, Your Eminence were to write and to speak even more favourably of Mgr Comboni’s Vicariate in general, especially in view of the tremendous famine, drought and mortality, and the consequences of these scourges which are very long-lasting, it would do no harm. Whatever Your Eminence does, I shall venerate as the will of God.
[5418]
I would have liked to implore Your Eminence to write a letter of recommendation on my behalf to the Cologne Society, made up of members who are eminently Catholic, of the level of Lowenstein and Baron Löe, whom Your Eminence knows personally. The members of the Committee of Cologne are sons and militants of these two heroes, presided over by the Most Reverend G.U. Nöcker, the parish priest of St Jacob in Cologne, who is a real saint. But apart from the fact that these great souls carry on with their work in any case for the pure glory of God, I have suspended my petition for the following reasons.
[5419]
1. This worthy and pious Society which has worked with true zeal and persevering self-denial for more than 25 years to help Africa and myself, wrote to the Holy Father, the late Pius IX, and to the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda in 1876 to offer for the Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa, Daniel Comboni, a lifelong yearly grant of 10,000 francs and the whole of their resources. This was a generous and useful act for the African mission which I accepted only on the condition which I made, and which was approved by the Society, that the 10,000 franc grant should not be limited to my person, but should be extended to all my successors after my death. This was done. Well, for such a generous offer the members of the pious Society did not receive any response from the Holy Father or from Propaganda, so that they even doubted that their letters to the Holy See and the Sacred Congregation had ever reached their destination.
[5420]
It is true that the late Cardinal Franchi, and I think Monsignor Secretary, told me that they had acknowledged and replied to the letter. But the Society received nothing: and yet, a couple of words of thanks from the Sacred Congregation would have been cherished by these generous Catholics who have offered several hundreds of thousands to Africa and have constituted the most handsome offering to the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa. Now I do not consider it very appropriate for Propaganda to make further demands from this Society for the above reasons, and therefore I have not requested it.
[5421]
2. When I was appointed Pro-Vicar in 1872, I told Your Eminence, then Secretary, that I was thinking of asking Cardinal Barnabò, of blessed memory, to grant two knighthoods to the two most active and steadfast members who have worked 22 years for the Society. Your Eminence told me that it was better to wait a little to see their perseverance. I waited until December of last year when, the merit of the two candidates (Herr Schnitzler, and Dr Sticker II) having grown, and due to their solid steadfastness and the generous offer of 10,000 francs in perpetuo to the Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa, ad fulciendam dignitatem episcopalem, as I believe was published in the Ponenza of 27th November 1876, Cardinal Canossa made petitions to Propaganda for the two above-mentioned knighthoods of Cologne, one for the most worthy Vice President of the Marian Society of Vienna and for the title of Consultor to Propaganda to be given to the most enlightened Mitterrutzner of Bressanone, Canon Regular of the Lateran of the Order of St Augustine (St Peter in Chains), a most learned and worthy benefactor of Africa, etc., etc., who compiled and published two dictionaries and two catechisms in two important Central African languages. Not having had the time to specify the details of the Petition from Cardinal Canossa then, I did so from Cairo in my letter to the Cardinal Prefect of 14th January this year, N.1
[5422]
But due to the unfortunate events and the death of the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX and its consequences etc., I believe that for these reasons, this matter (which is useful for Africa, and is most right and just in itself) was buried, and I did not have any answer or news of it either.
[5423]
Therefore, should Your Eminence deem it appropriate to give me your support (and this would be a charity), before you commend me to the illustrious Society of Cologne, founded by the late Cardinal Geissel and much protected by the most pious and glorious Archbishop Melchers of Cologne, my special benefactor who always sends his generous offering to this Society, it would be a most generous and magnanimous act on your part if you were to:
[5424]
1. Write a couple of lines to the President thanking him for the offer of 10,000 francs to the Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa and telling him that the Sacred Congregation and His Holiness are pleased to accept.
2. Send the two medals of the knights of the Order ‘del Piano’ or that of St. Gregory to the two above-mentioned members, Dr Sticker II who is about 55, and Mr Schnitzler who is about 65. They are both most active members not only of the Society for the redemption of Africans, but also of many other Societies, and Dr Sticker is even a most eloquent and distinguished Catholic orator, and both of them are tireless in their zeal for other Catholic Works, pure Catholics, apostolic, Roman and papal in the strictest sense of the terms.

[5425]
If Your Eminence were to do this, my bursar St Joseph would certainly cut a fine figure and would send me in due time, as he certainly, most certainly will, what I requested and suggested on his feast day, as I clearly told that pillar of the Church, Cardinal Bartolini:
[5426]
1. 100,000 gold francs by the 31st December of this year to cover the most urgent necessities of the Vicariate and the entire work I have founded.
2. Within one year from the last feast of St Joseph, that is, by 12th May 1879 = the perfect balance of the Vicariate’s finances and of all the Work, from Verona to Jebel Nuba (little by little we became aware that with one thing and another there were almost 70,000 francs of debts, nearly half of which I have paid); in other words, by 12th May next, St Joseph must see to it that there is not even a penny of debt and provide what is necessary for the preservation, stability, development and progress of the Work and the Apostolate of Central Africa.

[5427]
I shall certainly have the honour in due course of informing Your Eminence that St Joseph has done his duty and carried out what I quietly suggested. St Joseph is one of the most precious treasures of the Church and of Africa and he is my real administrator and bursar. With the present death rate I told him that not only do I not want to die, but neither do I want a single fever (here, everybody has had it, even Gordon Pasha), because I do not want this yet; and ever since all the others fell ill, not only have I not had a fever, but I have not even had a headache. St Joseph will therefore do everything; despite the high cost of food, Europe’s coldness, financial worries, or rather the fear of not having what is needed, are the last things I have to think about, although every day, as is my duty and the will of God, I work hard for these because it is a matter of preserving and developing God’s work.
[5428]
Forgive me, Eminent Prince, for going on too long. But remember that to converse at length with my Superior and open my heart to him, is a great relief to me in my isolation and to my spirit in the absence of all material resources.
I kiss your Sacred Purple and remain,
Your most obedient, devoted and humble son

+ Daniel,
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

[5429]
I have received your letters and have always answered them, although I am extraordinarily busy. I am alone in ensuring the spiritual welfare of Khartoum: I have to be Bishop, parish priest, curate, Superior, administrator, doctor and nurse.
I am here with two lay coadjutors, one from Verona and the other from Lodi; of the 4 Sisters, one alone is healthy and on her feet: all the others, the African teachers and the girls are in bed with fever, and it will take them a while to recover. Fr Carmine Loreto from Naples, Fr Salvatore Piazza from Sicily and all the other 13 fever patients, including the excellent carpenter Francesco Papagni from Bisceglie, the mechanic Antonio Iseppi from Verona and Francesco Serrarcangeli, the smith from Rome, have been sent up the Nile on a large boat for a change of air. As for Fr Antonio Squaranti, my General Administrator and my right hand in all the great work for the Redemption of Africa, in view of the extraordinary epidemic and the extraordinary fevers in the Sudan due to the extraordinary rains, I have sent him to Berber where he had some matters to deal with.

[5430]
So I am now the only one who can administer the sacraments in Khartoum, and I am on the go day and night. Khartoum is a complete hospital, the villages all around for a hundred miles are a cemetery and a hospital. In the 21 years that I have been coming to Central Africa I have never seen such misery, so many dead and so many diseases. There is a certain nervous-malignant epidemic that sends even robust men to the other world in 15 minutes: there is just enough time for Catholics to be given extreme unction and absolution. I am certain, and in conscience I inform your readers that in very many towns a hundred or more miles from Khartoum and on the Blue Nile, etc. hunger, thirst and the resulting nervous-malignant epidemic has drastically reduced the population, that is, more than half the population, or thereabout, has died.
[5431]
The tremendous drought and the shortage of water which caused so many victims in the kingdom of Kordofan and so afflicted our mission is now over, due to the extraordinary amount of rain that fell in the last season: but starvation continues to be tremendous and more serious than before. For many years I shall bear the consequences of the past and present famine, because items of prime necessity were, and still are, selling at eight or ten times their normal price; and because to support the mission and to help some of the poor with basic resources, the mission fell heavily into debt, where it still is because resources have barely increased.
[5432]
Europe, which was so providentially moved by the hunger and famine in India and China, was barely moved at all by the tremendous and frightful famine in Central Africa, although good support was sent to me especially by France, Germany and England. Perhaps this is my fault, because I did not report the terrible tribulation in time. But I wanted to examine, see and inform myself thoroughly from reliable sources before I said something in conscience, also out of respectful consideration for my confreres, the Vicars Apostolic in India and China, so as not to deprive them of the subsidies that are so necessary to their important and beloved missions.
[5433]
I now declare in full awareness and knowledge of the situation, for which I consciously assume every responsibility, that I am of the opinion that the famine and mortality in Central Africa are more frightening and worse than the famine and mortality in India and China for the following reasons:
[5434]
1. In India and China, despite the famine, the climate is bearable, and in many provinces the climate is healthier than in Europe, with fresh air and fresh water to drink. To the hungry, fresh water and good air are very restorative. In Central Africa, the climate is most intolerable for Europeans. The heat is excessive; 36 to 40 degrees in the shade and 55 to 58 degrees in the sun. Furthermore, in the kingdoms and tribes that are far from the Nile, the only source of water in these parts, there is thirst, a scourge worse than hunger. There are only inadequate supplies of warm brackish and dirty water drawn from wells 30 or 40 metres deep in the bowels of the earth. Consider these facts, and anyone with a heart will see that they are very serious.
[5435]
2. From the reports in newspapers and those of missionaries in Asia, it does not seem to me that in any of the provinces of India and China half the population has died because of the famine and resulting diseases. Here in Central Africa, after a serious examination and repeated reports, I assert that in many towns near and far from Khartoum half the population has died. In addition, in Africa, a large number of the inhabitants have no houses and many do not even have huts; when the heavy rains came many houses collapsed because, apart from the mission and about a hundred houses in Khartoum, all the others are made of mud, along the whole of the white Nile and elsewhere. Therefore these starving people, deprived even of the shelter of their houses and exposed to the elements, perished of extreme poverty and died, and villages are still being abandoned every day.
[5436]
3. Muslim fatalism and the usual wretched condition of the Africans and slaves, born to suffer, are the reasons that no fuss is made over a great misfortune and famine. A Muslim who is starving and cannot eat his fill (as African slaves learn from their Muslim masters) believes that it is God’s destiny that he has to die: so he goes out of his house or hut, sits under a tree and says: Allah Kerim! – God is honourable and great – and dispassionately and in cold blood awaits death, without complaint and without doing his utmost to avoid the scourge or the misfortune. But in India and China the people are more civilised, they give each other a hand and the governments, which are not like those in Africa, take care of them. Above all, the Catholic missions, the missionaries, the Bishops, etc. raise their voices, invoking Christian charity and letting the reality of the misfortune be known to generous souls.
[5437]
Here in Central Africa, I am the only Bishop and Vicar Apostolic, and only after having thoroughly examined and observed the situation was I able to raise my voice. But my voice is solitary, and gets lost in the midst of the venerable voices coming from Asia. However, I hope firmly in the divine Heart of Jesus, which beat for Africa too, in Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and in my dear bursar and general administrator for Central Africa, St Joseph, the patron of the Catholic Church, in whose beard there are millions and who can support this difficult, trying and important mission because his Jesus also died for Africa.
Far from being discomforted, therefore, I have more strength, courage and confidence than ever in the extraordinary charity of Christians, especially of the fervent Catholics of Europe, the friends and lovers of the Sacred Heart and of my dear St Joseph. Jesus, Mary and Joseph will knock on the hearts of good Catholics.

[5438]
But you must not give up. Do the same thing with the excellent Libertà Cattolica, and you will see with your own eyes, that while there is great poverty in Italy and in the Neapolitan provinces through God’s will and while disponit omnia suaviter and in penance for our sins propter peccata veniunt adversa and for the sadness of our times, and especially for the sorry government of wretched Italy, as all the ministers who have misgoverned poor Italy should know well, because they are all sons of the revolution and they are excluding, indeed persecuting the Church; it remains the only ark of salvation, the teacher of civilisation and the unique source from which the world can have peace, salvation and prosperity.
[5439]
Until the papacy and the Catholic Church are recognised and monarchs and governments bow down to them, and until they implement their teachings, all kingdoms and populations will be miserable and ruined, and will collapse. I might add, in parentheses, that if instead of all the ministers they cull from modern liberalism, each sovereign chose for ministers six Jesuits among the editors of Civiltà Cattolica, and one assumed Foreign Affairs, another the Interior, another Finances, another Agriculture and Trade, another Education and the sixth became Prime Minister, I can assure you, Mister Director, that within ten years, such a kingdom or empire would have no more debts, would have perfect peace and would develop in the greatest prosperity, because it would be founded on faith and religion. But I would not say that they should choose religious as ministers; but I would want distinguished seculars, for they exist, and men of faith.
[5440]
Let us return to our subject; I was saying that I trust in God, in Mary, in St Joseph and in good Catholics and the Christian faith, because however great the miseries of Europe, Italy and the good Neapolitans may be, Christian and Catholic charity is greater still. So insist and insist again with Libertà Cattolica, because, as we say in Verona, Christ is a gentleman, and keeps his word; and to the petite, quaerite, pulsate pronounced in the right conditions, he always makes the welcome accepietis, invenietis, et aperietur correspond, like a piano key.
[5441]
I am extremely busy; I have therefore asked my able Administrator to draft a report on our apostolate; as soon as he has done it and sent it to me from Berber, I will forward it to you immediately.
Meanwhile, not only do I approve, but I would be extremely grateful if a permanent collection for the Central Africa mission were established. It would provide this colossal Vicariate not just with material means but also with a few good vocations of priests, brother coadjutors and sisters to help the Africans. In Berber I have an excellent candidate from the Institute of the Devout Mothers of Africa that I founded in Verona, whom I shall soon be transferring to a mission in the centre. She is the good Concetta Corsi from Barletta, who will do great good in these missions where women are not persons but objects of trade or caprice, no different from sheep and goats, dear to their masters only insofar as they are useful or pleasurable, and when they fade and are no longer good for anything, they are discarded like perished goods.

[5442]
The Sister of charity is as useful to Central Africa as the missionary; indeed the missionary would do little without the Sister. In Muslim countries only the Sisters can penetrate the secrets of the harem, and communicate with the women who play such an important part in the lives and direction of the men. In the lands where men and women go around as naked as our first parents Adam and Eve in their state of innocence, Sisters are more necessary than missionaries and are the guarantee of the mission itself: as in the mission I have opened in Jebel Nuba. In those lands I sent the best tried and most experienced Sisters; they alone approach the female population to catechise them, moralise them and have them partly cover themselves as befits their admission to the Catholic Religion. The Sisters have sole responsibility for and direct the female class; the Sisters prepare this class for civilisation, while the missionaries take care of the poor.
[5443]
Jesus Christ also died for the sixty million or more souls of my Vicariate who, as regards clothing, are still more backward than Adam and Eve; and deputed by the Vicar of Christ to save these souls, I have to rely on the most secure and appropriate means. I have been with many devout German and Italian missionaries among whom there were no Sisters, and we achieved nothing, and it was by the grace of God that we did not fall into peril ourselves, although God is always generous with his special help to those who are called to tend this derelict and most difficult vineyard. When the Holy See entrusted me with this great task, my first concern was to establish here the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition from Marseilles and to found a new female Congregation with appropriate rules for the apostolate in Central Africa.
Your most affectionate friend

+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa