Doctor Albert Cook and the early days of the church missionary society's medical mission to Uganda.

ON 1 October 1896, there disembarked at Mombasa a party of twelve Church Missionary Society missionaries bound for Uganda. One of the nine men was Dr. A. R. Cook and one of the three women a Miss K. Timpson, a qualified nurse who had trained at Guy's Hospital. They planned to march to Uganda via the northern route, through British territory, and their caravan leader was the veteran Dr. Baxter of Mpawpa. Cook noted that Baxter was 'as skilful with his rifle as he was patient with the men, quite unmoved by misfortune and resourceful in difficulties, he was admirable at his job'. Two months were spent in getting the caravan together, for a party of a dozen Europeans with their baggage required no less than 500 porters. This number they were quite unable to recruit and had eventually to make do with but 200 supplemented by fifty-four donkeys which Baxter had clothed in suits of 'amerikani', hoping to protect them against tsetse flies. Even so, much of the missionaries' baggage had to be sent round via the southern route and took two years to reach Uganda. The caravan started its journey on 28 November but by the time they had reached Rabai, just at the end of Mombasa creek, desertion and sickness had reduced their porters to 174 and further loads had to be left behind to come up the southern route. On 1 December they moved on towards Kibwezi, which was reached by a cart track through the thick bush of the Taru desert. They reached Kibwezi by 19 December and were hospitably entertained at the missionary station. Pushing on, the caravan was much hampered by sickness among the porters which Cook attributed to their unsuitable food. This consisted of hard Indian corn which required six hours' boiling to soften it, time which, at the end of a tiring day, could never be spared for the purpose. Moreover, the three women missionaries all became ill and had to be carried. Nonetheless, Christmas was duly celebrated with a dinner of curried antelope'shot two days ago' and a four-month-old plum-pudding. Appropriately enough, they even 'saw plenty of snow, for Kilimanjaro, with its mighty peaks, Kibo and Mwenzi, was in full view (over 80 miles to the south) for most of the march'. On 27 December, Cook, Baxter and Miss Timpson formed a surgical team and performed an unspecified operation on an American missionary at Kilunga, for a 'curable disease which was wearing him out and making his life a burden'. Indeed a considerable amount of medical work was done on the journey for Cook attended to a total of 2,230 patients en route, as well as members of the caravan. They were compelled to abandon, at various stations, 'some twelve porters who were unfit to travel through dysentery, pneumonia, ulcers, fever and other causes', but, so far as