On the Missionary Trail

– The Classic Adventure of Two Englishmen, Sent on a Journey Around the World, 1821-29 –

“The story of an eight-year voyage and a mission to save souls, led by a Yorkshire man, George Bennet, and a vicar from the Isle of Wight, Daniel Tyerman. They set off on the day that Napoleon died, in 1821, on a whaler bound for Tahiti. Theirs was the ‘deputation’ chosen by the somewhat maverick London Missionary Society to report on the state of godliness and missionary zeal in farflung outposts of the pre-Victorian world.

Their mission started in the South Seas, where they reported scenes of chiefs surfing, perpetual warfare and a sudden surge of Christianity. From there they went via New Zealand, Australia and its aboriginal hinterland, through ‘the Orient’ to India and slave-ridden Mauritius. Near escapes from sharks, tigers, pirates and cannibals abound, all told with a vivid eye for adventure as well as for the greater ‘Divine’ story unfolding in unlikely places. In Madagascar, where Welsh missionaries were trying to convert the king, one of the deputation’s leaders died of exhaustion before vicious tribal war broke out, the mission house was surrounded by soldiers, and his partner had to escape from the island on board an old slave ship and make his way alone to Cape Town.

Based on contemporary journals, mission reports, letters and illustrations, and bursting with character and anecdote, On the Missionary Trail is both the enthralling narrative of the longest missionary voyage ever undertaken and a colourful, detailed, eye-opening snapshot of littleknown world, set against the wider picture of evangelism and guilt, heroism and humanity.”