Missionary Zeai

On the morning of 21st October 1843 several hundred citizens of Gibraltar gathered alongside the sailing ship Iberia to listen to the preaching of a rotund, red-faced crusader on a mission to save two British soldiers being held captive by Muslims.

Thetwo soldiersfound themselves in a situation not unlike that of the two Fox Newsjournalists who were Latin,he fancied himsel recently forced to convert to Islam The journalists, American reporter Steve Centanni, 60, and Olaf Wiig, 36, a photographer from New Zea land, were videotaped reading pre pared statements embracing Islam but after being released Centanni said they had been threatened with execution if they did not convert.

The difference between the two journalists and the two soldiers.

Colonel Stoddart and Captain Con nolly, is that despite months of torture and imprisonment in a filthy hole the soldiers refused to convert and were summarily executed.

In 1842 Stoddart and Connolly had been sent to Afghanistan to negotiate with Emir Nasrullah on behalf of the British East India Company. Believing they were sub versives benton fomenting rebellion Nasrullah had them thrown into a vermin-infested hole in the ground. The men were told their only hope for freedom would be to convert to Islam. Despite the horrific conditions they refused and after months ofsuf fering the brave soldiers remained stubbornly loyal to their Christian faith and were beheaded.

In 1956 American judge and travel writer William O. Douglas visited Bukhara and found that the pit was still there and was being kept as a macabre museum.Douglas'descrip tion is chilling:

"As I looked into the bug pit, 1 thought about [Bible character) Jeremi^: they were chewed and mutilated by vermin. For this was the bug pit famous in Central Asian history where ticks,scorpions,and other in sects were raised specially to torture prisoners.

Vien look they}eremiah,and cast hm into the dungeon ofMalchiah the son of Hammelech,that was in the court ofthe prison:and they let dozen Jeremiah zoith cords. And in the dungeon there zvas no zoater, but mire:so Jeremiah sunk in the mire(38:6).

"In 1843 Emir Nasrullah held two British officers for two months in the bug pit of Bukhara before beheading them. They had come to interest the Emir in British assistance against Russian cunning,They were beheaded for their intrigues and be cause, after having embraced Islam at the insistence of the Emir, they returned to the Christian faith.

"The two months they spent in the pit must have been horrible ones. They were kept bound, hand and foot, and given nothing to eat or drink. As they lay there helpless.

"The Soviets [Bukhara was then in the Soviet Union and now is the fifth largest city in Uzbekistan]have dramatized this bug pit. In it today are two dummies tied hand and foot,representing the two benighted Britishers."

When Stoddart and Connolly were not heard from, their friends and associates feared the worst but the British government, claiming that the men were not acting in an official capacity, disavowed all re sponsibility for their welfare.

Among the people, however, sentiment ran high at this affront to British imperial dignity. Private funds were raised to finance a factfinding mission to Bukhara.

The person who stepped forth to undertake this mission was a crusad ing clergyman named jo.seph Wolff (1795-1862)and it was this odd man who addressed the people of Gibral tar at the dockside that day.

"I am Joseph Wolff, the Grand Dervish of England, Scotland and Ireland and the whole of Europe and America and I will demand the bod ies, either dead or alive, of Colonel

Stoddart and Captain Connolly from the butcher of Bukhara."

By all accounts Wolff was an un likely adventurer. A portly, middleaged man,he wasadept at wangling invitations to dine with the rich and famous whotolerated him because of the amusing anecdotes he recounted about his travels abroad.

Wolff was a Bavarian Jew who had converted to Roman Catholicism when a young man. He had studied for the priesthood in Rome but had been expelled for his unconventional beliefs. After being ordained an Anglican priest instead, he married a wealthy Englishwoman. Fluent in Hebrew, classical Greek and fa latter-day Apostle Paul, bringing the Gospel to the "Lost Tribes of Israel" in the Middle East.

When he set out for Bukhara in 1843, he carried in his luggage several Christian bibles printed in Hebrew.

After leaving Gibraltar the Iberia sailed to Malta, Greece and then Constantinople (Istanbul). Wolff seemed to be in no hurry to reach the hostages and he spentsome time in Greece visiting the Acropolis and dining with the Queen. He spent three weeks in Constantinople preaching and making diplomatic calls at the various embassies.

The reason Wolff was in no hurry is because he was convinced that Stoddart and Connolly were already dead. He admitted this to British Ambassador Justin Shiel at Tehran in January 1844.

In April 1844, seven months and five thousand miles after sailing from Southampton, Wolff arrived at Bukhara. He quickly came to the point with Nasrullah as to the fate of Stoddard and Connolly and was curtly informed by the Emir —whom he described as'the most disagree able fellow I ever saw' — that the men had been executed because they had not shown the proper respect and because Cormolly 'had a long nose'(an expression meaning he was too proud).

Mission accomplished, Wolff was anxious to get out of Bukhara but he wasn't allowed to leave and instead was interrogated for days on end. He prepared to meet the fate of the soldiers but was spared when the Shah of Persia intervened on his behalf. Wolff would claim later that the real reason he was allowed to go was because the Emir couldn't stop laughing at his comical appearance when he dressed in full canonical garb.

On 3rd August 1844 Wolff began a nine-month journey home. This time when he stopped at Gibraltar he was greeted as a hero by cheer ing crowds, paraded through Main Street and invited to dinner with the Governor Sir Robert Thomas Wilson.

When he finally reached home Wolff vowed never to travel again and to end his days in England. However,it is said that he was plan ning another great missionary tour when he died on 2nd May,1862.