Writings

[3277]
Although I am swamped by a thousand occupations, and still have thousands of letters to write to the five parts of the world, nonetheless I do not want to put off any longer writing a couple of lines to my dear Grigolin, telling you that your famous bottles that you gave me when I passed through S. Martino were gloriously and honourably drained for the greater glory of God and your and our health, in the following places:
1. Two in my Institutes of Cairo, shared by all the missionary priests.
2. One uncorked by the Superior of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Cairo, a friend and benefactor of ours.
3. One, alas! By mistake it was opened at Aswan, at the first cataracts of the Nile: I wanted to console two Franciscan religious returning from Khartoum after the Holy See had removed the mission from them to give it to us, and treat them to a bottle (something very rare in this country!) of ordinary wine; instead, Oh dear! by mistake the Pollicella di Grigolino was drunk.

[3278]
4. We drank a bottle in Khartoum with my most Reverend Vicar General, Fr Carcereri.
5. And I have kept one still hidden in my trunk, and no one knows a thing about it; but it will be drunk here in the Capital of Kordofan perhaps on 14th September, when the Vicariate will be solemnly consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

[3279]
You see that it would not be a bad, but on the contrary a good thing if you were to ensure that other sublime bottles of this kind were so gloriously honoured in Central Africa; but it would be necessary to avoid that annoying duty which shipments of the kind undergo in Via Seminario n.12, in Verona: the hamper or whatever, should be sent directly to Signor Angelo Albengo in Alexandria, Egypt, my Procurator, who will see to it that it is delivered to me in Khartoum.
[3280]
Although it will still have to pass the customs of the Cairo Institute on this long journey, I nevertheless hope that even we poor Africans will taste it as something from another world.
I have dallied too long on this subject! I now limit myself to sending a greeting to you and your brothers and your excellent families, assuring you that we pray for you and that I celebrated Mass for you in Cairo and will celebrate others from time to time. We must absolutely go to heaven.

[3281]
We reached Khartoum with the great caravan after a terrible journey of 99 days, and in another 10 and a half we arrived here in Kordofan. I will tell you in another letter of the great mission God has entrusted to me which is the most difficult and enormous in the world. I will tell you about the slaves, how they buy, sell and strangle with chains thousands and thousands of girls and boys stolen from their parents, sometimes after murdering them. Meanwhile we have two great missionaries at work in El Obeid and Khartoum; we shall soon be opening the mission in Shellal and bringing the Cross to Nuba, Bakhit Miniscalchi’s birthplace, which is five days by camel from here. On 14th September next, I will make the solemn Consecration of the whole of Central Africa to the Sacred Heart: on that day pray hard and have prayers said by the Archpriest of S. Martino, my dear Teacher, to whom I would like you to make a special visit for me, and one to Fr Dallora. If we do not die, perhaps we shall see one another again gathered at Mariona, to which I have acquired a sort of right. I send my blessing to you and to all your family, and declare myself in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Your most affectionate friend,

Daniel Comboni
Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa

[3282]
I received your esteemed letter, N.1 of 29th April with supreme pleasure. Over such immense distances the venerable words of the Superiors, always the expression of the divine will, are extremely precious. I take note of Your Eminence’s judgement and wishes with regard to reopening the establishment at Shellal. There is no doubt that it will take place at the appropriate time and when forces permit. It has a healthy climate.
[3283]
I always have new proofs that splendidly demonstrate the importance of the Mission in El Obeid. Although all my commitment at the moment is mainly directed towards reviving, establishing and properly consolidating the two fundamental Missions of Khartoum and El Obeid, which are the bases for operations which will gradually spread the activity of Catholicism among the tribes inhabiting the eastern part of the Vicariate extending to beyond the sources of the Nile, and among the immense populations of the vast areas which constitute the centre of this Vicariate. Nevertheless in the meantime we are not setting aside our activities among the tribes and peoples in the vicinity of Kordofan, where Islam has not yet penetrated, by gathering precise information, getting a grasp of the languages and continuing gradually to study the best and most appropriate way of safely and effectively establishing missions there one day.
[3284]
For this purpose we are most actively setting to work from this moment to prepare good indigenous candidates of those lands, educating them in the Christian faith and civilisation; and we are compiling with considerable effort a Dictionary, a grammar and a small catechism in the Nuba language.
[3285]
Last week I had three visits from one of the kings or chiefs of the Nuba peoples with a large entourage. He had come to El Obeid to pay the Pasha here the tribute for several areas bordering the south-west of Kordofan. He is called Nemùr, and rules quite a few villages which have never submitted to paying this tribute; he has perfect relations with almost all the heads or kings of the Nuba tribes who have never been conquered by the Turks and are sti1l independent. This king made me an explicit invitation to go to his lands, Or at least to send some of my missionaries there to erect a Church, establish schools and teach them our religion. A member of his retinue who had been a slave in Syria where he became acquainted with Christians and saw their Churches told me that ten years after we had settled there they would all be Christians.
[3286]
I asked the chief for some information about those regions; I was told that their inhabitants had several times been attacked by the Baqqarah Arabs and the Turks but had almost always driven them off; that several times the Arabs had succeeded in robbing them of thousands and thousands of their sons and daughters; that they had never had the slightest inclination to have anything to do with the Turks or with Mohammed; that they know there is a God; but have never seen him and do not know how to pray as they have seen it done in El Obeid and in Syria; that after what their elders who saw the Habbash (Abyssinians) told them, many of them practise this ceremony with their children: that is, when the new-born child is eight days old, a certain òeru (sorcerer) comes and anoints the child's whole body with a certain unguent; he then dives into the water, takes the child, immerses him in the water and returns him to his mother. They speak scornfully of Kordofan, praising the climate and fertility of their own lands. They marvelled at our elegant chapel, the school, the equipment for the skills of farming, carpentry, metal work, etc., and insisted during the three visits they made me that I should go and establish a church and a school in their lands.
[3287]
I received them very well; I let them know that I am disposed to support their desires after having checked many conditions; I informed them that when we came to visit them, we would bring some of their children to return them to their families and I ordered them to send me some of them from time to time, to tell me of their concerns and intentions. The chief Nemùr promised spontaneously that he himself would return after the Kharif, or harvest, in October. I gave them gifts of certain medicines, medals, etc. and a photograph of the excellent African Bakhit Miniscalchi (whom Monsignor Secretary had the goodness to bring to the Holy Father's feet last year) who is a native of those lands, and he left thoroughly content with all his retinue to return to the Nuba.
[3288]
I am reserving judgement for the moment on this event which could turn out to be very important. I would like to turn it over in my mind, to see if there is any promise in it, to identify what is positive to discover whether there is some foundation in it, to examine it all thoroughly and then await the time chosen by God.
[3289]
After further observations, I will send a brief description of the horrors of the dealing in blacks, of which this Vicariate is the most mournful theatre. England, under the specious claim of abolishing slavery, sends its Ambassadors to Zanzibar and Muscat to further its plans of political interest and conquest. But this scourge of humanity rages in Central Africa more than anywhere else. With God’s blessing, the Catholic mission, rather than cannons, will gradually make this great undertaking succeed.
In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary I kiss the Sacred purple, and have also the honour of declaring myself
Your Most Reverend Eminence’s
most humble, devoted and obedient son,

Daniel Comboni, Pro-Vicar Apostolic

[3290]
A new work deserving of your charity comes forward to ask for succour from Holy Childhood. They are the little children of the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa, which the Holy See has entrusted, since last year, to the new Institute for African Missions in Verona and to my humble self, with the title and the powers of Pro-Vicar Apostolic.
The Vicariate of Central Africa is the largest and most demanding Mission in the whole world and has more than a hundred million infidels. It is located between the missions of Egypt, of Tripoli, Abyssinia, the Galla, the coast of Benin and southern Guinea. To the West, it touches the direct line from Morzouk to Niger and to the south, reaches as far as the 12th degree of Latitude South.

[3291]
The works that I have founded until now for the great conquest of Africa are the following:
1. Two small Institutes in Cairo, one male and the second female, to acclimatise the Missionaries and Sisters destined for Central Africa, and to educate African boys and girls in the faith and in arts and crafts.
2. Two Institutes in Khartoum, the capital of the East of the Sudan, located at the 15th degree of Latitude North.
3. Two Institutions in the city of El Obeid, capital of Kordofan. This city, from which I have the honour to write to you, has more than 100,000 inhabitants and at the present time it is the most central city of all the African Missions which exist here. It is situated between the 12th and the 13th degree of Latitude North.

[3292]
Khartoum is the operations base for our activity in the eastern part of the Vicariate, which embraces all the enormous tribes of the White River and the sources of the Nile as far as the great Lakes of Nyassa, Tanganyka and the lands of Lunda and Muemba.
El Obeid is the operations base for our work in the central part of the Vicariate: it is the true gateway to the African interior and the centre of communications with the kingdom of Darfur, the empire of Bornù, the immense tribes of the Nuba, Fertit, Waday, Chad and the thousands of tribes which inhabit the south-western regions.

[3293]
All my efforts are directed at really reinforcing these two missions where we prepare good indigenous candidates from the central tribes, so that they may become apostles of faith and civilisation in their own countries. We shall then advance towards the countries of the interior little by little, as far as our personnel and the resources of the Propagation of the Faith and the Society of the Holy Childhood will allow.
[3294]
In Khartoum, the female Institute is directed by the sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition of Marseilles, who live in a house rented for 1,200 francs a year. I have bought land to build a house for the Sisters, where I must open a large orphanage for small children. I must do the same here in El Obeid.
[3295]
Here there is a large number of children to be taken in, who are frequently abandoned with their mother. There are also mothers who escape from their masters with their little ones and take refuge in the Mission. It is often necessary to take in both mothers and children, if possible. Otherwise the bodies and souls of both would perish.
We now need to found large orphanages, and for this we have absolutely no resources. This is why I turn to you with tears in my eyes, Mr President, to the sublime society of the Holy Childhood to have powerful assistance, in order to save thousands of African children.

[3296]
It is very expensive to build a house in these lands: the necessary equipment must be brought from Europe. A stonemason will only work for 20 francs a day and his assistants need to be insistently coaxed to work for 10 francs a day. This is in Khartoum where stonemasons are very few. Here in El Obeid, building costs less, but it is essential to double the personnel who do the work.
In this Vicariate it is furthermore necessary to consider that everything necessary to life and for building costs at least six times more than in Egypt, because to transport most of these things here, they have to travel on the backs of camels through the great desert of Atmur and the plains of Kordofan.

[3297]
I hope that the Holy Childhood Society will come to my aid for the building and maintenance of two large orphanages. In this Vicariate, everything has to be created. This is why such great sums are necessary. The deprivations of my Missionaries, my sisters, my catechists, the African teachers and the coadjutor Brothers are considerable; the climate is very hot, journeys enormous; it should be taken into account that for several months on end we saw only the vault of the heavens at night, and by day the scorching rays of the African sunshine beat down on our backs.
Mr President, please deign to accept my humble prayer and the sentiments of my deep respect, with which I have the honour to declare myself in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Your most humble servant

Daniel Comboni,
Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa


Translated from French.

[3298]
It is six years since I had the honour of meeting the distinguished director of the Holy Childhood: perhaps you will not have forgotten seeing in Rome and Paris a poor missionary who survived out of so many victims who died in Central Africa, and who made journeys to found the Work for theRegeneration of Africa and to establish the Catholic Faith enduringly in this most unfortunate and abandoned part of the world. This poor missionary is the one who has the honour to write to you from the heart of Africa to implore substantial aid from the admirable Society you direct.
[3299]
I am enclosing a petition for the President of the Council of the Holy Childhood and I insistently beseech you to hear me, and to support my cause which is holy and according to the special aim of this sublime Society which has peopled heaven with little Paradise snatchers.
Before speaking of the deplorable condition of infants in this Vicariate, allow me to say a couple of words on my work and how God Himself has guided it.

[3300]
In 1846 Gregory XVI, of blessed memory, erected the Vicariate of Central Africa and entrusted it to Mgr Casolani, Bishop of Mauricastro and Vicar Apostolic. He obtained two Jesuit Fathers, Fr Ryllo and Fr Pedemonte, and two students from the College of Propaganda which was best informed of the surest way to begin this Work, which was via Egypt and Nubia. He put the Mission in the hands of Fr Ryllo who led the expedition to Khartoum in 1848. Under the governance of his successor, Mgr Knoblecher, the Mission made headway, for in addition to the Station of Khartoum, it was able to open the Missions among the Kich at the 6th degree of Latitude North and of Gondokoro at the 4th degree, in the vicinity of the Sources of the Nile.
[3301]
But since the difference in climate between Europe and Central Africa is enormous, 35 of the 40 Missionaries who went directly from Europe to the Sudan died, and 4 came back to Europe never to return. One, myself, returned to Europe for the purpose of coming back here and sacrificing my life. Then Propaganda tried to send out the Franciscans who in 1861 occupied the Vicariate, but after losing 22 friars, they all returned to Europe except for three, who left all the Stations with the exception of Khartoum which they kept going until last year. Because of the suppression of Religious Orders in Italy, the poor Franciscans who obtained most of their Missionaries from the friaries in Italy were forced to leave Central Africa and also the other Missions. It was then that the Holy See entrusted this vast Vicariate to a new Institute which I founded with the help and patronage of Monsignor the Marchese di Canossa, Bishop of Verona.
[3302]
From 1857, finding myself on the Mission of the Kich on the White Nile here in Central Africa, I experienced all the trials of this difficult apostolate and since I had been on the point of dying eleven times because of the climate and the enormous efforts, I was forced to return to Europe where, after a few years, having recovered, I thought of the way to return to this battlefield to sacrifice my life for the salvation of Africans. It was 18th September 1864 when, leaving the Vatican where I had been to the Beatification of M. Margherite Alacoque, I had the idea of presenting the idea of the Plan to the Holy See, in order to return to the apostolate of Central Africa. It was the Sacred Heart of Jesus which enabled me to overcome the mountain of difficulties in implementing my Plan for the Regeneration of Africa through Africa herself.
[3303]
In 1867 I opened the Institute for the Missions of Africa in Verona, and at the end of that same year, I opened two houses for Africans in Cairo. I do not need to explain to you who have a vast experience in works of this kind the whole story, goal, and importance of these institutes for training, in order soundly to establish the apostolate in the Central Regions of Africa. I had to provide the Work with a body of clerics in order to have a constant supply of staff for the Mission: I had to ensure that the health of European Missionaries could be preserved for as long as possible in these scorching lands of Central Africa.
[3304]
For this purpose, with the powerful protection of Mgr Canossa (his father was a brother of the Venerable Foundress of the Daughters of Charity of Verona who also settled in Hong Kong and in Hu’pè in China. The cause for Beatification of this foundress is going on right now. The Bishop is also the brother-in-law of Signora Teresa, Marchesa Durazzo of the Sacred Heart in Paris), I founded the Institute for the Missions for Africa in Verona, which was canonically approved by the Bishop, and I founded two training Institutes in Cairo for the Central African Missions, which trained 54 good candidates for me in five years, who are at present most useful to my Vicariate.
[3305]
Since the Franciscan Fathers occupied only the city of Khartoum with two Missionaries, to launch my work in Central Africa in the countries which have never heard the Word of God, in 1871, seeing myself well provided with good indigenous candidates, I sent four explorers to Kordofan to see whether it was appropriate to found a Mission in its capital, El Obeid, and worthwhile to use my candidates in accordance with the goal of their education. The explorers, led by Fr Carcereri, my current Vicar General, arrived in Kordofan after a journey of 82 days, and having thoroughly explored that land, they deemed it suitable to establish a Mission in El Obeid, according to the instruction they had received in Cairo.
[3306]
It was then that I travelled to Rome to ask for Kordofan for my Institute in Verona. But the Holy See, after the renunciation of the venerable Franciscan Fathers in Khartoum and Central Africa, decided to give us the whole of the Vicariate of Central Africa, which is larger than all Europe, and extends as far as the 12th degree of Latitude South.
[3307]
On my return to Cairo, I made preparations for the great expedition to Central Africa, and on 26th January this year, I left Cairo with a caravan of 33 people including Missionaries, Sisters, African women teachers and lay Brothers, and arrived in Khartoum after an exhausting journey of 99 days. I stayed there for a month and then left for Kordofan, where I have now been for 50 days. The journey of the caravan from Cairo to Khartoum and to El Obeid alone cost me 22,000 francs, even with privations, none of us ever drinking wine and suffering great poverty. But since this Mission is arduous and difficult and painful, the Missionaries need to be ready for a slow and continuous martyrdom.
[3308]
Now in Khartoum and El Obeid we own the houses of the Missionaries, but I rent the Sisters’ houses and pay 1,200 francs a year in Khartoum, and a little less in El Obeid. We never drink wine here for it is too expensive. A simple bottle of ordinary Mass wine which costs 60 centimes in Cairo cannot be found here for 5 francs. Potatoes cost 130 centimes a kilo; everything that is most necessary for living here is extremely dear. In Khartoum we have bread at a fairly high price, but here there is not any, and we never eat bread but fahit, that is, a sort of bread made from wild dhurra grain, which in Europe would be barely fit for hens. We are most content, because we are doing God’s will and procuring the salvation of the most abandoned souls on earth.
[3309]
One of my first concerns is to found two orphanages for children, to be directed by the Sisters. I must give you an idea of the deplorable conditions of these countries, so that you can understand it all. The abolition of the slave trade, decided by the European powers in Paris in 1856 is a dead letter for Central Africa. The treaties exist on paper, but here the trade is flourishing. Slave traders set out from Khartoum and El Obeid in all the months of the year, except during the season of the equatorial rains, for the neighbouring tribes of Africans. They invade them armed with guns and pistols and violently tear from peaceful African families their little children, boys and girls; and to overcome the parents who resist, they frequently kill the parents, and all the children and the mothers who are young enough, are taken to Kordofan and Nubia to be sold.
[3310]
There are two-day old babies, up to girls and women of about 24; there are very young mothers aged between 14 and 20 with two or three little ones; there are many mothers who have not yet given birth to their babies, and they are taken completely naked to Nubia, Kordofan and Egypt. Every year hundreds of thousands are seized, perhaps even half a million. On our way from Cairo to Khartoum we met more than 30 caravans and boats; from Khartoum to Kordofan more than a thousand, all naked, chained by the neck and dragged along by the jallaba (slave traders). Once these poor children have been abducted, the master disposes of them as he pleases, and destines them especially for the harems and for prostitution.
[3311]
Acountless number of new-born children are flung out of El Obeid or buried or dumped on the ground outside the city to be devoured by vultures and birds, with the dead camels, asses and other animals. A fortnight ago, as I was passing outside the town, I saw hundreds of these little corpses or bits of corpses. I protested to the Pasha who gave me the order to bury all dead Africans. Then quantities of children are sold with their mothers for 90 or 100 francs. We have many mothers with their babies whom we purchased or were given to us, and we have settled them in small huts which we have built or bought next to the Mission.
[3312]
Hence the great need to found a large orphanage to be entrusted to the Sisters; I have already bought land very close to where I live. But I need money both to build, and to maintain and educate these children. There is an abundance of mothers to wet-nurse them, even aged 11, whom we can buy or rent. A large orphanage is also necessary in Khartoum.
[3313]
In addition to all this, you must think further, Monsignor, that the Gospel has never been preached here, and as a result you can imagine the disorder, the corruption and its effects. It is necessary to realise further that out of the 100,000,000 infidels of which my Vicariate consists, there are 88,000,000 who go around completely naked, men and women. Now to establish the Catholic faith, at least the women must be dressed, and some of the men. To clothe them is an enormous expense, because a piece of ordinary material we buy in Cairo for 10 francs, costs at least 40 francs when it arrives in Kordofan. The transportation alone of a trunk of women’s clothes and blouses sent to me free from France cost me 67 francs. Just think now of the expenditure required to establish an orphanage for our little black children.
[3314]
At the moment that I am writing to you, Monsignor, we do not even have personal linen for ourselves, because we had to make a shirt for each of the girls and women in our female Institute, and one for the boys too. We sleep in our clothes on our angarebs which are made of shapeless pieces of wood tied with cord made from date palms, or with cords made from animal hide. There are Arab merchants in El Obeid (not a single European) who have fabric, but to purchase it requires money we do not have. Note one more thing: The Africans’ shirts do not last as they do in Europe where there are beautiful houses, beds and chairs. Here the children sleep on the bare ground, or on mats if we have them. There are no chairs; they always sleep and sit on the ground; they have no shoes and are always barefoot.
[3315]
Despite all this, the food and clothing of each child, even little, costs 7 francs and 74 centimes a month, not to mention the house and the mothers who are breastfeeding the babies. But this cannot continue, because they will die. Between 8 and 10 francs are required for each. In Khartoum life costs more. Add the medicines we brought for Cairo. By the time they reach Kordofan they are expensive. Then add the price of their purchase.
Every day slaves present themselves to us, to be freed from the cruelty of their masters. Pregnant mothers, with other children, have presented themselves to me. If I do not accept them they will be punished by death, by their masters’ hired assassins. I have noticed that some have been killed, even though pregnant.

[3316]
Now faced by such a sight, what can we do? I raise my eyes to heaven, I trust in Providence, I take them in. Since at the moment I have no more time to write of other miseries, I turn to the Work of the Holy Childhood and insistently implore it to come to my aid with a substantial annual cheque. If you were to see, Monsignor, the state of the peoples of Central Africa, you would be convinced that none of the missions of China and of the other countries in the world deserves to be helped like mine.
In China the Missions have existed for centuries; here in Kordofan the Catholic faith entered for the first time only 486 days ago. Therefore everything has to be created. China is a civilised country. Central Africa is not; peoples just a 10-day or even a three-day journey away are completely naked. Here in the street, the women wear a little towel; girls lack completely even a scrap of clothing, or wear a thin leather cord lower down. I have no words to express to you the wretchedness of this country and many things cannot even be mentioned for modesty’s sake. Therefore, I commend this holy cause to your admirable heart; Monsignor, take up the cause of Central Africa.

[3317]
As for us, men and women Missionaries, we are ready to die a thousand deaths for the salvation of these souls. Our war cry will always be, throughout our lives: “Africa or Death!”.
With God’s grace, we shall be faithful to our resolution.

[3318]
I do not want to hide from you here that when the Holy See entrusted this vast and difficult Mission to me, my conscience was somewhat uneasy, for I was aware of my limitations with regard to this enormous mandate that God has entrusted to me through His august Vicar Pius IX. Then I realised that with our forces we will never succeed in founding Catholicism in these immense regions where the Church, despite the efforts of so many centuries, has never been successful. So I placed all my trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and have decided to consecrate the whole Vicariate to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on 14th September next. I have sent a circular letter for this purpose, to make it a great solemnity, and I have asked that admirable apostle of the Sacred Heart, Fr Ramière, to compose the act of solemn Consecration, which he has completed. I will send you a copy.
[3319]
I conclude for the present, and I ask you to assign a large cheque to the Childhood of my Vicariate, and to send it to my representative in Cairo, Fr Bartolomeo Rolleri, Superior of the Institutes for Africans in Cairo. He will have everything sent to my principle residence through the diwan of Cairo.
[3320]
Up to now, the Turkish authorities have been very good to the Mission. I arrived in the Vicariate with a firman from the Emperor of Constantinople in which he grants the Vicariate all the privileges Christians are allowed in the Turkish empire. Thus it contributed greatly to our being well received in all the main cities of Sudan. This means that we are completely free. But two days from here, where there is no government, we only have the firman of divine Providence. However the fame of our Mission in El Obeid has penetrated everywhere in the kingdom of Darfur, in the Empire of Bornù, among the Bogus and the Nuba. A king of the latter came to invite us to build a church and found schools in his tribe, where there is a vague concept of God, a complete absence of worship; they do not pray, they hate the Koran and have killed all those who have spoken of it to them.
[3321]
My current goal is to strengthen Khartoum and El Obeid, as an operations base: then we shall extend ourselves beyond the sources of the Nile, where there is an idolatrous people, though untouched by wickedness and a very good climate.
I entrust this petition to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, that she may inspire the Holy Childhood to come to the aid of this Mission, on which perhaps depends the salvation of all the peoples of this immense Vicariate.

Daniel Comboni


Translated from French.

[3322]
Charged by the heavenly disposition of God and the will of the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX with the arduous and difficult apostolate of Central Africa, the world’s largest and most densely populated Mission, having understood the gravity of this divine Undertaking in the depths of our soul, we are aware of the disproportionate gap between our weakness and the grandeur and importance of the mandate entrusted to us. We therefore raise our eyes trustingly to heaven, to ask from above for that strength and help that will be sufficient to sustain and direct our weakness for our great intention. It pleased the Lord in this circumstance to inspire us to see that the surest way of achieving our desired end would be to gather ourselves, our faithful and the entire Vicariate under the protection of the most Sacred and loveable Heart of Jesus.
[3323]
Never for an instant from its formation did this adorable Heart, made divine by the hypostatic union of the Word with the human nature in Jesus Christ our Saviour, always free from sin and rich in every grace, not beat with the purest and most merciful love for men. From the sacred manger in Bethlehem he hastens to proclaim peace to the world for the first time: as a little boy in Egypt, alone in Nazareth, a preacher of the good news in Palestine, he shares his lot with the poor, invites little ones to come to him, comforts the mournful, heals the sick and raises the dead to life; he calls the burdened and forgives the repentant; dying on the Cross he prays with great docility for his own torturers; risen in glory he sends out the Apostles to preach salvation to the whole world.
[3324]
This divine heart bore the piercing of the enemy’s lance in order to pour forth from that sacred wound the sacraments through which the Church was founded. This Heart has never ceased to love men, but to this very day continues to live on our altars, a prisoner of love and a victim of propitiation for the whole world. Not content with this, in a famous Apparition to B. M. Marguerite Alacoque, he offered himself, palpitating with love, to remedy the evils that would be poured forth on the sinful world about to perish, with promises of special protection for those who consecrate themselves to his worship and love.
[3325]
This is why, O beloved children, we are filled with the firm hope that in the sacred grotto of this most adorable Heart may also be reserved the treasures of grace which must determine the eternal salvation of the immense populations bowed beneath Satan’s rule, and who are committed to our care. There where after enormous efforts and disastrous wanderings, we at last find ourselves among you, we have resolved to come formally to the solemn Consecration of the whole of our beloved Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. We therefore invite you all to enter with full trust into this ark of salvation, to avoid the flood of the many evils constantly vomited upon us by hell, which every day increasingly threaten the extreme massacre of the world.
[3326]
We trust that while this happy event will produce an increase of faith and love in all of you, it will also open up new ways of salvation for the great people, so dear to us, of the African interior, still lying in the darkness and shadow of death. We therefore desire that it be celebrated with the greatest possible solemnity and ceremony. For this end we have chosen for this Celebration the 14th of the coming September, the day when throughout the Church the solemn Exaltation of the Holy Cross is celebrated, the symbol of Jesus Christ’s triumph over hell and sin.
[3327]
The very Reverend Superiors and Parish Priests of the Missions of Our Vicariate will see that this day is preceded by a triduum of public prayer, and that on this occasion the people are given the necessary instruction on the subject, including an explanation of the nature, the loftiness and the efficacy of the sublime devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and inviting all the faithful to approach the Blessed Sacraments, to gain the Plenary Indulgence which, following the granting to us of the faculty by the Holy Apostolic See on 12th June 1872, We have decided to apply to all who are repentant, have been to Confession and Communion, and who take part in the moving ceremony of this solemn Consecration.
[3328]
The festive peal of bells for half an hour after the Maghreb will announce the great solemnity on each of the above-mentioned three days; and on the vigil, a general fast with strict abstinence will help to invoke a more copious abundance of divine blessings upon us. Then on the morning of 14th September, at Holy Mass, our Priests will add the Collect of the Sacred Heart from the proper Mass, “Miserebitur”, and the solemn Mass will be “Ritu Votivo solemni de SS. Corde J. ut in die cum com. Dom. occor. sub unica conclusione”. When solemn Mass is over, the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed, and the Superior or Parish Priest will recite aloud in Arabic the Formula of Consecration established by Us, which We ourselves will pronounce in the Church of our current residence in Kordofan. Finally, the “Te D e u m ” will be sung, and the sacred function will be concluded with the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
[3329]
So that this solemn Consecration of the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa to the Sacred Heart of Jesus be eternally remembered, we order that in all the churches of our Vicariate every first Friday of the month, after the usual devotions of the Guard of Honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, this Formula of Consecration be repeated, before the Blessed Sacrament in the same way, and in perpetuity. And the people will be blessed in like manner. It will then be our most special concern to address the warmest entreaties to the Holy Apostolic See to deign to grant that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Domini be consecrated to the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and formally declared a Holy Day of Obligation for the whole of the Vicariate apostolic of Central Africa, and that it be celebrated by our secular and regular clergy with a Rite of Double of the First Class with Octave, in accordance with the General Rule for Patrons.
[3330]
We are profoundly convinced that the most auspicious day of this solemn Consecration will mark a new era of mercy and peace for our beloved Vicariate, and that from the mysterious centre of this divine pierced Heart, torrents of graces and rivers of heavenly blessings will flow upon this great people of Central Africa so beloved by us, still tremendously burdened for so many centuries by the anathema of Ham.

Issued in El Obeid at our Kordofan residence, on the first day of August 1873.

(LS.)..............................................Daniel Comboni Pro-Vicar Apostolic


Fr Giuseppe Franceschini Pro-Secretary

[3331]
I really do not know what to make of your eternal silence. I have written twice from Egypt to Vicenza. Now, although I am swamped with a thousand serious occupations, I cannot for an instant forget my dear Fr Bricolo, and am trying to ensure via Fr Guella that my letters reach your hands. Oh! How sorry I am not to have stolen two days to spend with you in Vicenza or Venice. But I had such problems that I did not know, as I should have, how to free myself from them. Now that I am so immensely distant, I realise my mistake, for I can no longer hope soon to make a trip to Vicenza; but I am separated from it by enormous journeys and endeavours. My God!
[3332]
Now the first thing I want to tell you is that I want news of you and a letter of at least 6 pages. I am in fact starved of your news: I do not know if you are dead or alive. I ordered Fr Squaranti (Oh! If only Fr Francesco Bricolo could become a member of my Apostolic Work which embraces so many areas) to continue to send you our small Annals, to give you my news. In Lyons too, the Missions Catholiques is printed every week by the Propagation of the Faith, and in Milan, the translation is printed every year at the Seminary of S. Calocero. They also give my news. But I know nothing of Fr Francesco. So I want news.
[3333]
In the second place I want clerical candidates or priests or holy cultivators, or holy carpenters, or holy masons, for Africa: therefore I would like you to supply Central Africa with Missionaries, first class priests and laymen, sending them first to the tiny Institute of the Seminary. Also good women teachers with a religious vocation, to send to Verona, to the Institute that was formerly the Astori in S. Maria in Organo, but which is now mine.
[3334]
Now in a flash, two pieces of news about me, because I do not have time. I have my work as Pro-Vicar, and I have more than 900 letters to write. I have so many contacts with worthy benefactors that I need to cultivate; I have spent in less than six years since I made the small foundations in Egypt, I have spent, I said, 500,000 (I say five hundred thousand) gold francs for my Works, or rather for the Works of God (whose dishwasher I am and whose Bursar is St Joseph), which have emerged for Africa. So I have enough to keep me occupied. Here is my news in a flash.
[3335]
I came with sixteen or more individuals what with priests, laymen, and sisters, etc., from Verona to Cairo. I took with me Perinelli from the Mazza Institute, as my Secretary. But, perhaps seduced by the enemies of good Works, he abused the secrets of a secretary and published what he should have kept secret because it involved a third person. In brief, he cultivated sides, sought to remove candidates and instead of serving his Head, who had filled him with kindness and paid his expenses, giving him plenty of money and presenting him to important figures in Rome, Naples, Trani, Bari, etc. to support Fr Giuseppe Ravignani, he wanted me to dismiss the two best candidates I have, including a distinguished Canon who was a parish priest of 32,000 souls. For the love of Justice I did not.
[3336]
The fact is that (perhaps he had already learned to take sides in community) I was forced to send him away from the mission. I also did this with the nephew of Lodovico da Casoria from Naples; two candidates whom I accepted without testing them. Fiat!
[3337]
After overcoming immense problems, on 26th January with two great boats, 30 people in all between priests, nuns and African boys and girls, I left Cairo; and after enormous efforts, a thousand vicissitudes from which we were saved by miracle, and a journey of 99 (ninety-nine) days, I reached Khartoum where I was welcomed by the colony, the Pashas, the consuls and everyone with an enthusiasm which amazes me. The great Pasha Ismail in Khartoum, who rules as far as the sources of the Nile, offered me complete freedom of movement and his support to do whatever I want, to dispose of slaves as I wish, and offered me his steamers to make my pastoral visits on the White Nile, the Blue Nile and to Berber, etc.
[3338]
In fact, coming to Kordofan I had to cover 127 miles on the White Nile and penetrate the forests. He put his steamer entirely at my disposal, free of charge. In Khartoum we resurrected the Station which was almost dead, and now the parish is fully active. I gave Confirmation to all those who remained from 1858; I opened the female Institute in another rented building, where I put the Sisters and the African women teachers. Now this Institute is flourishing and working miracles of charity. I have oriental Sisters from Jerusalem, Aleppo, Mount Lebanon and French ones, and they are working miracles, for which I am pleased; but I shall expound more on this rich subject in subsequent letters. My Superior, Sr Giuseppina Trabaui from Jerusalem, near the threshold of death in Shellal, after bringing up blood, etc. through an amazing miracle of the Venerable Canossa (to whom we offered a novena) was cured in three days; she was able to cross the desert in the most critical season, riding 17 hours a day with temperatures rising over 60 degrees Réaumur between 12 and 4 p.m., forcing the pace so much across this desert between Korosko and Abuhammed, which is the most risky for water, and which we had taken 15 days to cross in 1857, that now with the Sisters we crossed it in 6 and a half days, with 19 women.
[3339]
I arrived in Berber more dead than alive. Since I was armed with a Firman from the Grand Sultan of Constantinople obtained by the Emperor of Austria, all the Pashas and Mudirs of the Sudan gave me a festive reception, and offered me their services. In Berber I had the Pasha’s boat. You will know about my entry into Khartoum and Kordofan and what has been done so far, from our Verona Annals. Upon my arrival in Kordofan, the Pasha published the decree of abolition of slavery, never published here before, so that the market, which had every day been full of thousands of slaves in chains, is now empty; woe to them if I find slaves in chains in the streets, I immediately take them to the mission and never give them back.
[3340]
On the journey from the White Nile to El Obeid, I encountered thousands of slaves of both sexes and of all ages. Some were tied around the neck, by the tens or the dozens, to a rope, the end of which was attached to a Jallaba. Others, eight or ten of them, both boys and girls, were tied by the neck to a beam they had to carry on their backs, others had metal chains clasped to their feet, others had their hands tied behind their backs, yet others had a yoke or board tied to their necks, all were naked and being driven by the spears of the guards, and the majority were 10 to 20 year-old girls completely naked. You may well understand the sublime nature of my Mission. But enough.
[3341]
Here at El Obeid is the real gate to Africa. You will know the history of this magnificent mission which has now appeared almost by magic, where the climate is excellent. Now it is barely 18 degrees, raining steadily and there are no fevers or anything. In October 1871 I sent the two Fathers, Carcereri and Franceschini, to explore Kordofan: it was a success and I now have a magnificent house and garden here, and the house for the women is in order, all bought and paid for. It is a very promising mission. And it is the gate to Africa. In five days one can reach Gebel-Nuba, the homeland of Bakhit Miniscalchi. One of those chiefs came to invite me to build a church and a school; it is a magnificent land and climate.
[3342]
In another two days, travelling to the north-west, one can reach Darfur, and in 12 one reaches the Sultan’s residence. In a month’s journey from here one reaches the vast empire of Bornù, whereas from Tripoli it takes 114 days. Bornù is under my jurisdiction. My Vicariate is between Egypt and the 12th degree of Latitude South: between the Red Sea and Suakim, Abyssinia, the Gallas and the Niger. It is the largest and the most populated in the universe. Therefore, for the love of God, find me candidates and send them to Verona.
[3343]
Give my regards to the Bishop, Fr Sartori, and everyone at the house, and to Fr Quinto and the boys. On 14th September I am celebrating the solemn consecration of the whole Vicariate to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, from whom I hope to obtain the conversion of everyone. In October I shall continue my pastoral visit and I will go with the steamer freely put at my disposal to Gondokoro. In January I will go on the Blue Nile to the borders of Abyssinia and Suakim. Baker, who is back from the sources of the Nile, says I should set up a mission there. Most affectionately yours in Jesus Christ usque ad mortem (greetings to Fr Bortolo in Venice)

Dan. Comboni,
Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa

[3344]
Since we have assumed the spiritual care of the immense Vicariate entrusted to us by the Holy Apostolic See, our first and special concern has been to inspect the moral state of the faithful in our care in order to lend them whatever support is within our power and that they might need. In this way it was easy to observe also among these people the alternation of good and evil, which is to be found in all human society. Thus, while it was quite consoling to find in them that life-spring of faith, which generally leads them to respecting church authority, almost to the point of enthusiasm, and that courage with which some felt driven back to the path of eternal salvation, it was all the more disappointing to note the sort of moral indifference that pushes many others all too often to violate some of the most serious precepts of divine, natural and church law.
[3345]
This is why we feel obliged to raise our voice through you against the wolf who scatters the flock and, with the words of the Apostle (2 Tim. 4) we say to each one of you, our most beloved and zealous co-operators and brothers in this serious pastoral concern: “praedica verbum, insta opportune, importune: argue, obsecra, increpa in omni patientia et doctrina” “ne quis eorum ignoranter pereat”. Make them understand from the beginning that the faith without works is a dead faith, as St James says (Jm. 2) and that the true faith without which it is impossible to please God (Heb 11) is that which, as Pope St Gregory says (Homily 29 in Ev.), does not contradict with deeds what is said in words. Afterwards show them the nature and the gravity of the sin of concubinage.
[3346]
Since the time Jesus brought Matrimony back to its original unity and raised it to the dignity of a sacrament, any union outside this unique state is a serious crime; but much more needs to be said about concubinage, which is a state and a union generally opposed to holy matrimony. Point out to them, in the first place, the serious scandal that those who live in concubinage cause among the rest of the faithful and among the infidels themselves, many of whom know full well that this is a crime for Christians. Neither does the pretext that here in these lands of the Sudan it is the custom, in any way lessen the blame. Jesus Christ did not make special exceptions for the Sudan, but he made a general law for all times, places and persons; and those who do not observe the law will not be saved.
[3347]
He directly condemned the concubinage of the Samaritan woman (Jn 4), and henceforth all the Fathers and Ecumenical Councils have always considered it a grave sin. The Sacred Council of Trent (Session 24, c. 8) specifically decreed that those who live in concubinage be excommunicated ferendae sententiae post trinam monitionem and banished from the cities and dioceses, with the help of the secular authorities. You will not be unaware, furthermore, that in almost all Synods this sin is considered one of the most enormous and harmful ones and is severely punished even under the civil laws of Europe (Scavini T. I. tr. 4, Disp. 2, c. 2, art. 1): and you will also remember that under Roman Rite (de Patrinis et de quibus non licet dare eccl. sepolt.) public concubinaries are banned from being Godparents and from receiving a religious burial as manifest sinners, nisi dederint signa poenitentiae.
[3348]
You must therefore declare openly that we have resolved to apply all the aforesaid ecclesiastical punishments and sanctions against those who, for their misfortune, obstinately persist in their concubinage. Indeed, as from now, we call upon you to observe the prescriptions of Roman Rite against them, both as regards the administration of sacraments, and religious burials, so that, as from this order, no known concubinary may be accepted as godparent in the administering of the Sacraments or be given a religious burial if they die unrepentant. We further reserve the right to proceed with further sanctions against those who obstinately persist in refusing to listen to our paternal admonitions.
[3349]
Another deplorable crime we have regrettably observed in some of our faithful is their direct or indirect co-operation in the inhuman slave trade and the horrible trade in Africans. Some have been here so long that they consider Africans as a species different from humans, something between mere animals and human beings. Hence they claim that Africans, by their very nature, should be slaves, and that they should serve as an instrument of industrial speculation. Therefore, to our greatest sorrow, we have learnt that there are some among the Christians who with money and arms provide assistance to those who violently snatch from their families and abduct from their native lands these most unfortunate victims of merciless barbarity, who are our most beloved children and precious heirs; and that there are also plenty who buy them to sell them to others, who mistreat them with inhuman beatings until they draw blood and illegitimately marry them off to sell their offspring, or sell a wife separately from her husband or her children.
[3350]
Almost none of the Christians of our Vicariate ever thinks of educating their African servants in the true religion, as God tells them in his fourth Commandment, and they therefore deserve the Apostle’s reproof, “qui suorum et maxime domesticorum curam non habet, fidem negavit, et est infideli deterior” (1Tim 5). Being highly offended by the perpetrators of these crimes, we ask you, our most beloved collaborators in this arduous and laborious vineyard of Christ, to let it be known to all our faithful that we, in the name of Religion and of humanity, detest and forbid this inhuman trade. Jesus Christ told us expressly (Mt 23:8) that we are all brothers, with no distinction between black and white, and that (Mt 7) we should not do to others what we would not like others to do to us.
[3351]
And the Apostle writes to Philemon about Onesimus (Phm.) “non ut servum, sed pro servo charissimum fratrem, maxime mihi, quanto autem magis tibi, ut in carne et in Domino! Si ergo habes me socium, suscipe illum sicut me”. Just as in Christendom slavery is a crime, how much more so are the despicable slave trade and the horrible commerce in Africans? Thus the Supreme Pontiffs Paul III, Urban VIII, Benedict XIV, Pius VII and Gregory XVI, among others, condemned these crimes as harmful to Christianity. Wishing therefore to care, to the best of our ability, for the spiritual welfare of our most beloved Vicariate, we order you to proclaim to them that without falling into grave sin they may not sell Africans themselves or give them to anyone who cannot procure eternal salvation for them. They may not provide money or weapons to those who go and snatch them violently away from their lands and much less steal them, or have them stolen on their behalf, or co-operate in any other way with this vile trade. They are bound to treat the ones they have, or will have, humanely and educate them or have them educated in the true religion. To this effect, we charge you with the task of showing every solicitude and reporting to me on the matter so that such a revolting commerce may be eradicated, reserving to ourselves where necessary, along with the local authorities, to take against anyone who relapses, the measures of the civil law approved by the Sublime Gate and the treaties with the great European powers.
[3352]
Some of our faithful, whose consciences were fettered by one or other of these crimes or burdened with other inordinate habits, let pass the Easter season that we actually proclaimed with extraordinary measures, without receiving the Most Holy Sacraments. This fact afflicted us immensely, and all the more since you had exhorted them several times with tireless zeal, both publicly and personally in private. We have therefore come to the decision to apply against these recalcitrants the special dispositions of the Roman Rite (De Comm. Pasq.) as well as one of the ecclesiastical sanctions established by the 4th Lateran Council held in 1215 under the Pope Innocent III. We therefore order you to report to me each year all those who after being warned several times, refuse through guilty negligence to make their Easter Duties; to forbid them from being chosen as godparents or sponsors in any of the Sacraments and to deny them a religious burial, should they, to their great misfortune, die obstinately unrepentant.
[3353]
Finally we implore you most fervently to inculcate immediately in all our most beloved faithful the obligation to keep holy the feast days and to observe the Friday abstinence, and to have recourse to the most holy Sacraments as frequently as possible.
[3354]
We entertain the sweetest hope that through your laudable zeal our faithful will be convinced that we are aiming for nothing other than their real spiritual welfare in the greater interest of their eternal salvation and so we have the greatest trust that they will listen to our voice and heed our paternal advice, with which we feel duty-bound to call them back to the straight path of the divine and ecclesiastical commandments. With this in mind, we address our daily prayers to heaven and we are certain that you will do the same for the souls of the faithful entrusted to your special care.
[3355]
We again commend them with all the fervour of our spirit to your apostolic zeal, in the conviction that you will be able to communicate with each one of them in order to save them all through the redemptive grace of Jesus Christ Our Lord, in whose name I wholeheartedly invoke upon you and upon each one of the faithful in our Vicariate Apostolic all heavenly blessings, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Issued from our present residence in Kordofan.

El Obeid, 10 August 1873

(LS)..............................................Daniel Comboni,
Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa


Fr Giuseppe Franceschini, Pro-Secretary

[3356]
The extreme bounty and kindness Your Lordship has always shown me and the deepest and liveliest sentiments of my gratitude to Your Lordship, which I will preserve indelibly until I die, do not allow me to delay any further in giving you the briefest of accounts of the activities, development and progress of the Work for the Regeneration of Africa which had the honour of interesting the intelligent and most wise judgement of Your Lordship’s magnanimous heart and sublime devotion.
[3357]
Since the Institutes in Cairo had educated and trained over fifty indigenous candidates, making them capable of greatly helping the apostolate of Central Africa, I sent four missionary explorers to Central Africa with the aim of finding a suitable place to start a successful mission in the interior. The four explorers, led by the Most Reverend Fr Stanislao Carcereri, my present Vicar General, after 82 days’ travelling, reached this capital which has over one hundred thousand inhabitants. Having well appreciated the opportunity of founding a mission in El Obeid, where the Gospel had never been brought, and finding there a most healthy climate, much cooler than Cairo, I hastened to Rome to ask the Holy See to give Kordofan mission, a province as large as the whole of Hungary, to my Institute. The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, after mature reflection and long studies, entrusted not only Kordofan to me, but the whole of Central Africa, which is the largest and most laborious mission in the universe, larger than the whole of Europe and with a population of over one hundred million infidels.
[3358]
The Holy Father Pius IX then appointed me Pro-Vicar Apostolic of this immense land and conferred upon me all the necessary papal faculties for me to accomplish my duties.
Here are the boundaries of the Vicariate: to the north, Egypt, Tripoli and Algeria; to the west the Niger; to the south, southern Guinea and the 12th degree of Latitude South; to the east, the Red Sea, Abyssinia and the Galla tribes. With the support of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to whom, on the coming 14th September I shall consecrate the whole Vicariate, I hope to be able to plant the faith firmly in the African Interior and strengthen the Catholic mission.

[3359]
On 26th January last, with two large dhows, dahhabias, I left Cairo with 33 individuals, including missionaries, sisters, African women teachers and lay brother craftsmen, and after 99 (ninety-nine) days of the most difficult and slow journey, riding 65 camels across the great desert of Atmur, I reached Khartoum where after one month I set up two important Institutes and one parish. From there, on board the steamer made freely available to me by the Pasha of Khartoum, I sailed up the White Nile and, travelling 127 miles, landed at Tura-el-Khadra. Then with 17 camels, I crossed the huge forests of the Hassanieh Arabs and travelling fast, after 9 days I reached this capital which is the real gate to the African interior. Here the Christian community has already begun to form. I opened a female Institute, and the mission is fully active. In just the four months that I have been in the Sudan, I feel reassured that the Vicariate will be well on the way to making great conquests here.
[3360]
All my present efforts are aimed mainly at strengthening the two main missions of Khartoum and Kordofan.
Khartoum is the operations base from which to bring the faith to the innumerable tribes of the eastern part of the Vicariate, extending to beyond the sources of the Nile. El Obeid is the operations base for the gradual planting of the cross among the tribes, kingdoms and empires which form the central part of the Vicariate. Four days’ journey from El Obeid, one penetrates the territory of the Kingdom of Darfur, and in 15 days one reaches the residence of the Sultan. In 30 days one can reach the capital of the Empire of Bornù and in 5 days one can penetrate the lands of the idolatrous tribes of the great family of the Nuba.

[3361]
Now in both Khartoum and El Obeid, there is a parish and public schools for boys and girls. There is a large orphanage here spread out in several huts, which I will resettle in one large house when God gives me the means to build it out of sand, as is the custom in Kordofan. Every week I baptise and confirm a considerable number of adults for I have found the most able teachers to catechise and educate the local people, especially among the African women teachers formed in Cairo.
[3362]
All the Egyptian authorities are supporting me and giving me real help in my apostolate. The Pashas of Khartoum and Kordofan have become friends of mine and thank me above all for having brought the Sisters to educate the young women. It is the first time that Central Africa sees these heroines of Christian civilisation.
[3363]
Leaving further details about this immense Vicariate for another letter, I will now give Your Lordship a brief outline of the horrible slave trade which is in full force in the Vicariate. Your lordship will have read, not long ago, of the telegraphic dispatches in which the word was spread to the whole world that the slave trade was completely suppressed and that the roads are open from Gondokoro to the Equator and from the Equator to Zanzibar. All this is false: the mission in Central Africa is forced to witness the horrible agonies the vile merchants of human flesh inflict on the most unfortunate Africans from the tribes in the vicinity of the two basic Stations of my residence.
[3364]
Several times a month bands of Jallabas leave Khartoum and El Obeid armed with rifles and go to the neighbouring and even remote tribes and violently snatch from their peaceful families boys, girls and young mothers, almost always killing the fathers and anyone who defends themselves.
[3365]
After collecting a booty of one thousand, two thousand, five thousand, they return to this city and then go off to sell the slaves in Nubia, in the ports of the Red Sea and in Egypt. These wretched creatures make the whole of this long journey on foot, prodded by the spears of their captors. Since a mountain population of about 1,400 Africans near the territory of Darfur resisted three months ago against the Jallabas who had gone to abduct the girls and boys, two thousand men armed with rifles left El Obeid last week to avenge themselves for the defeat on this mountain and massacre all the chiefs of this people.
[3366]
On my nine-day journey from Tura-el-Khadara to El Obeid I encountered more than a thousand of these poor souls travelling with different caravans. They were all naked, male and female, promiscuously bound together by the neck, eight or ten at a time, with ropes attached to a wooden beam to stop them escaping; others had their hands tied behind their backs and were pulled along with ropes; others had chains and fetters; others were tied to the sheva, a beam ending in a fork fastened tightly around the slave’s neck; young mothers, fourteen or fifteen years old, were tied in pairs and only the four to seven year-old boys and girls were not tied up. They were all naked, on foot, and barbarously herded with spears. I also found many corpses of slaves overcome by exhaustion who had died by the wayside.
[3367]
The abolition of the slave trade in Central Africa is a dead letter and I think it is almost impossible to achieve, since slaves constitute one of the main sources of income for the government and the merchants of the Sudan… What will really abolish the slave trade will be the preaching of the Gospel and the establishment of the Catholic Church in these unfortunate lands. I am now studying how to put the mission in a position to force the Pashas and the government to effectively slow down and diminish the massacre of these unhappy souls, and many are already panicking with fear of the mission.
[3368]
Whenever I find slaves chained up, or whenever they come to the mission, I take them or have them taken to the Diwan and have papers issued for their release.
I have purchased a large piece of rather poor land outside El Obeid on which to settle the freed slaves, for them to live off the fruits of the land, and I already have many there.

[3369]
Your lordship also knows how very important my mission is, if only from this point of view. At the sight of so many horrors and so much misery, my missionaries are determined to sacrifice their lives for the salvation of these
unfortunate peoples. We do not feel the equatorial heat, nor the difficulties of the apostolate in this mission, nor the fatigue of travelling, nor the discomfort of the places where we stay; nor do we feel the fact of being deprived of everything, having used our sheets, shirts and other clothes to make simple garments for the freed slaves. We are all determined to put up with everything to better the conditions of these people and to call them to the faith. Till our last breath our war-cry will be: Africa or death! The Sacred Heart of Jesus will help us.

[3370]
Since the majority of Christians here in Central Africa collaborate in the vile slave trade, I have fulminated an excommunication against those delinquents and I have threatened all the heretics of any creed that, on the basis of the laws in force since the 1856 Treaty of Paris in which slavery is abolished (on paper), I would have them all imprisoned by the Turkish authorities, whom I shall constrain under the threat of reporting them to their government and to the general disapproval of the whole world. It is now about a month since I issued this circular and there is such fear among the Turks, the Christians and the Catholics that I have good hopes that the action of the head of Catholicism and of the mission in the Sudan will be rich in good results.
[3371]
I beg your pardon, Sir, for having been a bit too lengthy. I would gradually like to give Your Lordship some idea of my mission which, in importance, size and difficulty is the first, the holiest, the most beneficial and the most humanitarian in the world.
Please accept the expression of my deepest veneration and gratitude, as I have the honour of remaining in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary
Your Lordship’s
most humble, devoted and obedient servant

Daniel Comboni
Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa

[3372]
Having been so busy until now, what with making preparations in Cairo for the largest Catholic caravan ever seen by Central Africa, and the long and arduous journey of the said caravan which I led to Khartoum in 99 (ninety-nine) days from Cairo, and all the things I found needing attention in the Vicariate, I have not yet been able to see to what we agreed should be done about our correspondence. However, after the solemn consecration of the Vicariate to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on 14th September next, when I get back to my main residence in Khartoum I hope to be able to resume a much needed and interesting correspondence. This Vicariate, the largest and the most difficult in the universe, contains more than 100 million poor wretches whose sufferings and troubles would move even the hardest of hearts if they were known; these include the slave trade and the horrors of the cruellest form of slavery which are absolutely thriving and in full force, the misery of which cannot be expressed in words.
[3373]
I have the greatest pleasure of possessing in my Vicariate two good and able missionaries from the illustrious Diocese of Trani. One is Fr Salvatore Mauro, who with excellent spirit and self-denial is already speaking, catechising and preaching in Arabic and shows the greatest devotion to St Jude Thaddeus and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The other is Canon Pasquale Fiore, at present in Khartoum, who is showing heroic courage and a tireless zeal for the Africans and is well able to direct a mission. These two distinguished missionaries are convinced that our mission is the holiest, the most humanitarian and the most important of all, since we must first make men of our Africans and then make them Christian. But all will be done with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I embrace you with all my heart
Your most affectionate friend

Daniel Comboni
Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa

[3374]
I take the liberty of enclosing the Circular issued for the solemn consecration of the Vicariate of Central Africa to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which will take place on the 14th of September. It is with the warmest entreaties that also on behalf of my most zealous missionaries, I turn humbly to Your Most Reverend Eminence so that you may bring to the august throne of our Supreme Pontiff, our beloved Holy Father Pius IX, our prayer that he deign bountifully to concede “that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Domini, consecrated to the feast of the Most
Holy Heart of Jesus, be formally declared by the Holy Apostolic See a feast of obligation in the entire Vicariate of Central Africa, which the secular and regular clergy of this Vicariate should celebrate as a Double of the First Class with Octave, in accordance with the General Rules for Patrons”.

[3375]
We are all profoundly convinced that the grace of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus will enable us to triumph over all the obstacles the world and the devil have so far erected against the regeneration of these most unfortunate people; and that the Holy Church will be soon be able to count them definitively among her beloved children gathered in the shadow of the mystical Ark of the eternal Covenant, with Christ’s peaceful flock, where alone salvation is to be found.
[3376]
A commotion was caused in scientific Europe by a telegraphic dispatch from Alexandria, Egypt, dated 30th June and conceived as follows: “Samuel Baker announces that the country as far as the Equator has been annexed by Egypt. All rebellions, intrigues and the slave trade have been completely suppressed. The government is perfectly organised and the roads are open as far as Zanzibar”. This dispatch is completely false in each and every one of its parts.
[3377]
The bold English traveller, who on 30th June was in Khartoum where he visited the mission and the Sister’s House, did not get very far, in this latest expedition, from our Catholic Station in Gondokoro (he reported that our House and Church, which cost 200,000 francs, are completely destroyed). He spent more than 20 million, had many thousand Africans killed, as we heard from the most reliable source, and it was a complete fiasco. However his courage is to be praised. The Pasha of Khartoum (always friendly to me and who thanked the Pasha of Kordofan, among other things, for giving me a worthy welcome), who was charged by his lord the Khedive of Egypt to report precisely on the real outcome of Baker’s expedition which cost him eight hundred thousand pounds Sterling, wrote to me a week ago asking me to give him my sincere opinion on this expedition and to say whether the real results merited the amount spent. On the basis of my reply, His Excellency will draft the report he will send to the Khedive. Your Eminence can well understand how prudent, moderate and precise I must be in responding to the Pasha of Khartoum’s kind request.
[3378]
As for the abolition of slavery, which at present is true only on paper and in the pages of newspapers, but which is completely false in fact, from my experience in just the last few months, I can assure Your Eminence that our Mission, taking advantage of the abolition of slavery recently promoted by England and the great prestige it (the mission) now enjoys with both the Diwan and the slave traders, will certainly succeed through its power, authority and energy in frightening the Turks and, more than the great European powers, in achieving real abolition, at least in large measure. Since those who steal, abduct, sell and buy these poor Africans are to a great extent our Catholics, at the beginning of this month I issued a Circular against the slave trade, recalling the severe sanctions of the Roman Pontiff, etc. It was published and read in Arabic from the pulpit in Khartoum. It frightened everybody, Catholics, heretics and Turks alike, for Your Eminence must know that the trade in Africans here is one of the main resources for the merchants and the government.
[3379]
The things we see being done and committed against these poor Africans are horrible. But we are working, in the scraps of time stolen from our other occupations, on a report to Your Eminence on the horrors of slavery and the slave trade which is in full force. The Heart of Jesus will help us to accomplish successfully this part of our mission for the Vicariate. I have bought and paid for a very poor piece of land one hour away from El Obeid, where I will send the freed slaves to work and live off its produce. The plot is as big as from Propaganda to the Basilica of St Peter in the Vatican. It is productive in the rainy season from May to November. I have even bought and paid for a new house not far from the Mission which I have reserved for the Sisters who must have left Cairo by now. I hope that in two years the Kordofan mission will hardly need Europe to survive. We are now pleased to suffer to economise for the Mission: we never drink wine and our diet is frugal; but it is more adapted to this climate and to keeping us healthy in body and soul. Everything will be done with the protection of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
[3380]
Since the two Camillians who work at my side are two active and valiant missionaries for Central Africa, perfectly acclimatised and zealous for Africa, and since this affair of the Camillians is most important for this Vicariate as well as for the Order of the Ministers to the Sick itself, in the desire to see God’s pure will alone being done (without which one only builds on sand), I have decided to send my present incomparable Vicar General, Fr Stanislao Carcereri, a Camillian, to Rome next October. He will come to a full agreement with his General and with Your Most Reverend Eminence; and God’s will shall be done. I shall be sending with him a Report on the present state of the Vicariate and its considerable rebirth. On the feast of the Assumption, I conferred Baptism on 11 adults and we now have another 23 catechumens who are almost fully instructed.
Please bless all the missionaries, while I kiss your Sacred Purple and remain with all respect
Your Eminence’s most humble and unworthy son

Daniel Comboni
Pro-Vicar Apostolic