Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, by David Livingstone
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Title: Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
Journeys and Researches in South Africa
Author: David Livingstone
Release Date: February 11, 2006 [EBook #1039]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RESEARCHES IN SOUTH AFRICA ***
Produced by Alan. R. Light and David Widger
MISSIONARY TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES IN SOUTH AFRICA.
Also called, Travels and Researches in South Africa;
or, Journeys and Researches in South Africa.
By David Livingstone
[British (Scot) Missionary and Explorer--1813-1873.]
[NOTE by the Project Gutenberg Contributor of this file:
This etext was prepared by Alan. R. Light To assure a high quality text,
the original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.
Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED.
David Livingstone was born in Scotland, received his medical degree from
the University of Glasgow, and was sent to South Africa by the London
Missionary Society. Circumstances led him to try to meet the material
needs as well as the spiritual needs of the people he went to, and while
promoting trade and trying to end slavery, he became the first European
to cross the continent of Africa, which story is related in this book.
Two appendixes have been added to this etext, one of which is simply
notes on the minor changes made to make this etext more readable, (old
vs. new forms of words, names, etc.); the other is a review from the
February, 1858 edition of Harper's Magazine, which is included both for
those readers who want to see a brief synopsis, and more importantly to
give an example of how Livingstone's accomplishments were seen in
his own time. The unnamed reviewer was by no means as enlightened as
Livingstone, yet he was not entirely in the dark, either.
The casual reader, who may not be familiar with the historical period,
should note that a few things that Livingstone wrote, which might be
seen as racist by today's standards, was not considered so in his
own time. Livingstone simply uses the terms and the science of his
day--these were no doubt flawed, as is also seen elsewhere, in his
references to malaria, for example. Which all goes to show that it was
the science of the day which was flawed, and not so much Livingstone.
I will also add that the Rev. Livingstone has a fine sense of humour,
which I hope the reader will enjoy. His description of a Makololo dance
is classic.
Lastly, I will note that what I love most about Livingstone's
descriptions is not only that he was not polluted by the racism of his
day, but that he was not polluted by the anti-racism of our own. He
states things as he sees them, and notes that the Africans are, like all
other men, a curious mixture of good and evil. This, to me, demonstrates
his good faith better than any other description could. You see, David
Livingstone does not write about Africa as a missionary, nor as an
explorer, nor yet as a scientist, but as a man meeting fellow men. I
hope you will enjoy his writings as much as I did.
Alan R. Light
Monroe, N.C., 1997.]
MISSIONARY TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES IN SOUTH AFRICA;
Including a Sketch of Sixteen Years' Residence in the Interior of
Africa, and a Journey from the Cape of Good Hope to Loanda on the West
Coast; Thence Across the Continent, Down the River Zambesi, to the
Eastern Ocean.
By David Livingstone, LL.D., D.C.L., Fellow of the Faculty of Physicians
and Surgeons, Glasgow; Corresponding Member of the Geographical and
Statistical Society of New York; Gold Medalist and Corresponding Member
of the Royal Geographical Societies of London and Paris F.S.A., Etc.,
Etc.
Dedication.
To
SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON,
President Royal Geographical Society, F.R.S., V.P.G.S.,
Corr. Inst. of France, and Member of the Academies of St. Petersburg,
Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Brussels, Etc.,
This Work
is affectionately offered as a Token of Gratitude for the kind interest
he has always taken in the Author's pursuits and welfare; and to express
admiration of his eminent scientific attainments, nowhere more strongly
evidenced than by the striking hypothesis respecting the physical
conformation of the African continent, promulgated in his Presidential
Address to the Royal Geographic Society in 1852, and verified three
years afterward by the Author of these Travels.
DAVID LIVINGSTONE. London, Oct., 1857.
Preface.
When honored with a special meeting of welcome by the Royal Geographical
Society a few days after my arrival in London in December last, Sir
Roderick Murchison, the President, invited me to give the world a
narrative of my travels; and at a similar meeting of the Directors of
the London Missionary Society I publicly stated my intention of sending
a book to the press, instead of making many of those public appearances
which were urged upon me. The preparation of this narrative* has
taken much longer time than, from my inexperience in authorship, I had
anticipated.
* Several attempts having been made to impose upon the public,
as mine, spurious narratives of my travels, I beg to tender my
thanks to the editors of the 'Times' and of the 'Athenaeum'
for aiding to expose them, and to the booksellers of London
for refusing to SUBSCRIBE for any copies.
Greater smoothness of diction and a saving of time might have been
secured by the employment of a person accustomed to compilation; but my
journals having been kept for my own private purposes, no one else
could have made use of them, or have entered with intelligence into the
circumstances in which I was placed in Africa, far from any European
companion. Those who have never carried a book through the press
can form no idea of the amount of toil it involves. The process has
increased my respect for authors and authoresses a thousand-fold.
I can not refrain from referring, with sentiments of admiration
and gratitude, to my friend Thomas Maclear, Esq., the accomplished
Astronomer Royal at the Cape. I shall never cease to remember his
instructions and help with real gratitude. The intercourse I had the
privilege to enjoy at the Observatory enabled me to form an idea of the
almost infinite variety of acquirements necessary to form a true and
great astronomer, and I was led to the conviction that it will be long
before the world becomes overstocked with accomplished members of that
profession. Let them be always honored according to their deserts; and
long may Maclear, Herschel, Airy, and others live to make known the
wonders and glory of creation, and to aid in rendering the pathway of
the world safe to mariners, and the dark places of the earth open to
Christians!
I beg to offer my hearty thanks to my friend Sir Roderick Murchison,
and also to Dr. Norton Shaw, the secretary of the Royal Geographical
Society, for aiding my researches by every means in their power.
His faithful majesty Don Pedro V., having kindly sent out orders to
support my late companions until my return, relieved my mind of anxiety
on their account. But for this act of liberality, I should certainly
have been compelled to leave England in May last; and it has afforded me
the pleasure of traveling over, in imagination, every scene again,
and recalling the feelings which actuated me at the time. I have much
pleasure in acknowledging my deep obligations to the hospitality and
kindness of the Portuguese on many occasions.
I have not entered into the early labors, trials, and successes of the
missionaries who preceded me in the Bechuana country, because that has
been done by the much abler pen of my father-in-law, Rev. Robert Moffat,
of Kuruman, who has been an energetic and devoted actor in the scene for
upward of forty years. A slight sketch only is given of my own attempts,
and the chief part of the book is taken up with a detail of the efforts
made to open up a new field north of the Bechuana country to the
sympathies of Christendom. The prospects there disclosed are fairer than
I anticipated, and the capabilities of the new region lead me to hope
that by the production of the raw materials of our manufactures, African
and English interests will become more closely linked than heretofore,
that both countries will be eventually benefited, and that the cause of
freedom throughout the world will in some measure be promoted.
Dr. Hooker, of Kew, has had the kindness to name and classify for me,
as far as possible, some of the new botanical specimens which I brought
over; Dr. Andrew Smith (himself an African traveler) has aided me in
the zoology; and Captain Need has laid open for my use his portfolio
of African sketches, for all which acts of liberality my thanks are
deservedly due, as well as to my brother, who has rendered me willing
aid as an amanuensis.
Although I can not profess to be a draughtsman, I brought home with me
a few rough diagram-sketches, from one of which the view of the Falls of
the Zambesi has been prepared by a more experienced artist.
October, 1857.
Contents.
Introduction. Personal Sketch--Highland Ancestors--Family
Traditions--Grandfather removes to the Lowlands--Parents--
Early Labors and Efforts--Evening School--Love of Reading--
Religious Impressions--Medical Education--Youthful Travels--
Geology--Mental Discipline--Study in Glasgow--London
Missionary Society--Native Village--Medical Diploma--
Theological Studies--Departure for Africa--No Claim to
Literary Accomplishments.
Chapter 1. The Bakwain Country--Study of the Language--Native
Ideas regarding Comets--Mabotsa Station--A Lion Encounter--
Virus of the Teeth of Lions--Names of the Bechuana Tribes--
Sechele--His Ancestors--Obtains the Chieftainship--His
Marriage and Government--The Kotla--First public Religious
Services--Sechele's Questions--He Learns to Read--Novel mode
for Converting his Tribe--Surprise at their Indifference--
Polygamy--Baptism of Sechele--Opposition of the Natives--
Purchase Land at Chonuane--Relations with the People--Their
Intelligence--Prolonged Drought--Consequent Trials--Rain-
medicine--God's Word blamed--Native Reasoning--Rain-maker--
Dispute between Rain Doctor and Medical Doctor--The Hunting
Hopo--Salt or animal Food a necessary of Life--Duties of a
Missionary.
Chapter 2. The Boers--Their Treatment of the Natives--Seizure
of native Children for Slaves--English Traders--Alarm of the
Boers--Native Espionage--The Tale of the Cannon--The Boers
threaten Sechele--In violation of Treaty, they stop English
Traders and expel Missionaries--They attack the Bakwains--
Their Mode of Fighting--The Natives killed and the School-
children carried into Slavery--Destruction of English
Property--African Housebuilding and Housekeeping--Mode of
Spending the Day--Scarcity of Food--Locusts--Edible Frogs--
Scavenger Beetle--Continued Hostility of the Boers--The
Journey north--Preparations--Fellow-travelers--The Kalahari
Desert--Vegetation--Watermelons--The Inhabitants--The Bushmen-
-Their nomad Mode of Life--Appearance--The Bakalahari--Their
Love for Agriculture and for domestic Animals--Timid
Character--Mode of obtaining Water--Female Water-suckers--The
Desert--Water hidden.
Chapter 3. Departure from Kolobeng, 1st June, 1849--
Companions--Our Route--Abundance of Grass--Serotli, a Fountain
in the Desert--Mode of digging Wells--The Eland--Animals of
the Desert--The Hyaena--The Chief Sekomi--Dangers--The
wandering Guide--Cross Purposes--Slow Progress--Want of Water--
Capture of a Bushwoman--The Salt-pan at Nchokotsa--The
Mirage--Reach the River Zouga--The Quakers of Africa--
Discovery of Lake Ngami, 1st August, 1849--Its Extent--Small
Depth of Water--Position as the Reservoir of a great River
System--The Bamangwato and their Chief--Desire to visit
Sebituane, the Chief of the Makololo--Refusal of Lechulatebe
to furnish us with Guides--Resolve to return to the Cape--The
Banks of the Zouga--Pitfalls--Trees of the District--
Elephants--New Species of Antelope--Fish in the Zouga.
Chapter 4. Leave Kolobeng again for the Country of Sebituane--
Reach the Zouga--The Tsetse--A Party of Englishmen--Death of
Mr. Rider--Obtain Guides--Children fall sick with Fever--
Relinquish the Attempt to reach Sebituane--Mr. Oswell's
Elephant-hunting--Return to Kolobeng--Make a third Start
thence--Reach Nchokotsa--Salt-pans--"Links", or Springs--
Bushmen--Our Guide Shobo--The Banajoa--An ugly Chief--The
Tsetse--Bite fatal to domestic Animals, but harmless to wild
Animals and Man--Operation of the Poison--Losses caused by it--
The Makololo--Our Meeting with Sebituane--Sketch of his
Career--His Courage and Conquests--Manoeuvres of the Batoka--
He outwits them--His Wars with the Matebele--Predictions of a
native Prophet--Successes of the Makololo--Renewed Attacks of
the Matebele--The Island of Loyelo--Defeat of the Matebele--
Sebituane's Policy--His Kindness to Strangers and to the Poor--
His sudden Illness and Death--Succeeded by his Daughter--Her
Friendliness to us--Discovery, in June, 1851, of the Zambesi
flowing in the Centre of the Continent--Its Size--The Mambari--
The Slave-trade--Determine to send Family to England--Return
to the Cape in April, 1852--Safe Transit through the Caffre
Country during Hostilities--Need of a "Special Correspondent"
--Kindness of the London Missionary Society--Assistance
afforded by the Astronomer Royal at the Cape.
Chapter 5. Start in June, 1852, on the last and longest
Journey from Cape Town--Companions--Wagon-traveling--Physical
Divisions of Africa--The Eastern, Central, and Western Zones--
The Kalahari Desert--Its Vegetation--Increasing Value of the
Interior for Colonization--Our Route--Dutch Boers--Their
Habits--Sterile Appearance of the District--Failure of Grass--
Succeeded by other Plants--Vines--Animals--The Boers as
Farmers--Migration of Springbucks--Wariness of Animals--The
Orange River--Territory of the Griquas and Bechuanas--The
Griquas--The Chief Waterboer--His wise and energetic
Government--His Fidelity--Ill-considered Measures of the
Colonial Government in regard to Supplies of Gunpowder--
Success of the Missionaries among the Griquas and Bechuanas--
Manifest Improvement of the native Character--Dress of the
Natives--A full-dress Costume--A Native's Description of the
Natives--Articles of Commerce in the Country of the Bechuanas--
Their Unwillingness to learn, and Readiness to criticise.
Chapter 6. Kuruman--Its fine Fountain--Vegetation of the
District--Remains of ancient Forests--Vegetable Poison--The
Bible translated by Mr. Moffat--Capabilities of the Language--
Christianity among the Natives--The Missionaries should extend
their Labors more beyond the Cape Colony--Model Christians--
Disgraceful Attack of the Boers on the Bakwains--Letter from
Sechele--Details of the Attack--Numbers of School-children
carried away into Slavery--Destruction of House and Property
at Kolobeng--The Boers vow Vengeance against me--Consequent
Difficulty of getting Servants to accompany me on my Journey--
Start in November, 1852--Meet Sechele on his way to England to
obtain Redress from the Queen--He is unable to proceed beyond
the Cape--Meet Mr. Macabe on his Return from Lake Ngami--The
hot Wind of the Desert--Electric State of the Atmosphere--
Flock of Swifts--Reach Litubaruba--The Cave Lepelole--
Superstitions regarding it--Impoverished State of the
Bakwains--Retaliation on the Boers--Slavery--Attachment of the
Bechuanas to Children--Hydrophobia unknown--Diseases of the
Bakwains few in number--Yearly Epidemics--Hasty Burials--
Ophthalmia--Native Doctors--Knowledge of Surgery at a very low
Ebb--Little Attendance given to Women at their Confinements--
The "Child Medicine"--Salubrity of the Climate well adapted
for Invalids suffering from pulmonary Complaints.
Chapter 7. Departure from the Country of the Bakwains--Large
black Ant--Land Tortoises--Diseases of wild Animals--Habits of
old Lions--Cowardice of the Lion--Its Dread of a Snare--Major
Vardon's Note--The Roar of the Lion resembles the Cry of the
Ostrich--Seldom attacks full-grown Animals--Buffaloes and
Lions--Mice--Serpents--Treading on one--Venomous and harmless
Varieties--Fascination--Sekomi's Ideas of Honesty--Ceremony of
the Sechu for Boys--The Boyale for young Women--Bamangwato
Hills--The Unicorn's Pass--The Country beyond--Grain--Scarcity
of Water--Honorable Conduct of English Gentlemen--Gordon
Cumming's hunting Adventures--A Word of Advice for young
Sportsmen--Bushwomen drawing Water--Ostrich--Silly Habit--
Paces--Eggs--Food.
Chapter 8. Effects of Missionary Efforts--Belief in the Deity--
Ideas of the Bakwains on Religion--Departure from their
Country--Salt-pans--Sour Curd--Nchokotsa--Bitter Waters--
Thirst suffered by the wild Animals--Wanton Cruelty in
Hunting--Ntwetwe--Mowana-trees--Their extraordinary Vitality--
The Mopane-tree--The Morala--The Bushmen--Their Superstitions--
Elephant-hunting--Superiority of civilized over barbarous
Sportsmen--The Chief Kaisa--His Fear of Responsibility--Beauty
of the Country at Unku--The Mohonono Bush--Severe Labor in
cutting our Way--Party seized with Fever--Escape of our
Cattle--Bakwain Mode of recapturing them--Vagaries of sick
Servants--Discovery of grape-bearing Vines--An Ant-eater--
Difficulty of passing through the Forest--Sickness of my
Companion--The Bushmen--Their Mode of destroying Lions--
Poisons--The solitary Hill--A picturesque Valley--Beauty of
the Country--Arrive at the Sanshureh River--The flooded
Prairies--A pontooning Expedition--A night Bivouac--The Chobe--
Arrive at the Village of Moremi--Surprise of the Makololo at
our sudden Appearance--Cross the Chobe on our way to Linyanti.
Chapter 9. Reception at Linyanti--The court Herald--Sekeletu
obtains the Chieftainship from his Sister--Mpepe's Plot--
Slave-trading Mambari--Their sudden Flight--Sekeletu narrowly
escapes Assassination--Execution of Mpepe--The Courts of Law--
Mode of trying Offenses--Sekeletu's Reason for not learning to
read the Bible--The Disposition made of the Wives of a
deceased Chief--Makololo Women--They work but little--Employ
Serfs--Their Drink, Dress, and Ornaments--Public Religious
Services in the Kotla--Unfavorable Associations of the place--
Native Doctors--Proposals to teach the Makololo to read--
Sekeletu's Present--Reason for accepting it--Trading in Ivory--
Accidental Fire--Presents for Sekeletu--Two Breeds of native
Cattle--Ornamenting the Cattle--The Women and the Looking-
glass--Mode of preparing the Skins of Oxen for Mantles and for
Shields--Throwing the Spear.
Chapter 10. The Fever--Its Symptoms--Remedies of the native
Doctors--Hospitality of Sekeletu and his People--One of their
Reasons for Polygamy--They cultivate largely--The Makalaka or
subject Tribes--Sebituane's Policy respecting them--Their
Affection for him--Products of the Soil--Instrument of
Culture--The Tribute--Distributed by the Chief--A warlike
Demonstration--Lechulatebe's Provocations--The Makololo
determine to punish him--The Bechuanas--Meaning of the Term--
Three Divisions of the great Family of South Africans.
Chapter 11. Departure from Linyanti for Sesheke--Level
Country--Ant-hills--Wild Date-trees--Appearance of our
Attendants on the March--The Chief's Guard--They attempt to
ride on Ox-back--Vast Herds of the new Antelopes, Leches, and
Nakongs--The native way of hunting them--Reception at the
Villages--Presents of Beer and Milk--Eating with the Hand--The
Chief provides the Oxen for Slaughter--Social Mode of Eating--
The Sugar-cane--Sekeletu's novel Test of Character--
Cleanliness of Makololo Huts--Their Construction and
Appearance--The Beds--Cross the Leeambye--Aspect of this part
of the Country--The small Antelope Tianyane unknown in the
South--Hunting on foot--An Eland.
Chapter 12. Procure Canoes and ascend the Leeambye--Beautiful
Islands--Winter Landscape--Industry and Skill of the Banyeti--
Rapids--Falls of Gonye--Tradition--Annual Inundations--
Fertility of the great Barotse Valley--Execution of two
Conspirators--The Slave-dealer's Stockade--Naliele, the
Capital, built on an artificial Mound--Santuru, a great
Hunter--The Barotse Method of commemorating any remarkable
Event--Better Treatment of Women--More religious Feeling--
Belief in a future State, and in the Existence of spiritual
Beings--Gardens--Fish, Fruit, and Game--Proceed to the Limits
of the Barotse Country--Sekeletu provides Rowers and a Herald--
The River and Vicinity--Hippopotamus-hunters--No healthy
Location--Determine to go to Loanda--Buffaloes, Elands, and
Lions above Libonta--Interview with the Mambari--Two Arabs
from Zanzibar--Their Opinion of the Portuguese and the English
--Reach the Town of Ma-Sekeletu--Joy of the People at the
first Visit of their Chief--Return to Sesheke--Heathenism.
Chapter 13. Preliminary Arrangements for the Journey--A Picho--
Twenty-seven Men appointed to accompany me to the West--
Eagerness of the Makololo for direct Trade with the Coast--
Effects of Fever--A Makololo Question--The lost Journal--
Reflections--The Outfit for the Journey--11th November, 1853,
leave Linyanti, and embark on the Chobe--Dangerous
Hippopotami--Banks of Chobe--Trees--The Course of the River--
The Island Mparia at the Confluence of the Chobe and the
Leeambye--Anecdote--Ascend the Leeambye--A Makalaka Mother
defies the Authority of the Makololo Head Man at Sesheke--
Punishment of Thieves--Observance of the new Moon--Public
Addresses at Sesheke--Attention of the People--Results--
Proceed up the River--The Fruit which yields 'Nux vomica'--
Other Fruits--The Rapids--Birds--Fish--Hippopotami and their
Young.
Chapter 14. Increasing Beauty of the Country--Mode of spending
the Day--The People and the Falls of Gonye--A Makololo Foray--
A second prevented, and Captives delivered up--Politeness and
Liberality of the People--The Rains--Present of Oxen--The
fugitive Barotse--Sekobinyane's Misgovernment--Bee-eaters and
other Birds--Fresh-water Sponges--Current--Death from a Lion's
Bite at Libonta--Continued Kindness--Arrangements for spending
the Night during the Journey--Cooking and Washing--Abundance
of animal Life--Different Species of Birds--Water-fowl--
Egyptian Geese--Alligators--Narrow Escape of one of my Men--
Superstitious Feelings respecting the Alligator--Large Game--
The most vulnerable Spot--Gun Medicine--A Sunday--Birds of
Song--Depravity; its Treatment--Wild Fruits--Green Pigeons--
Shoals of Fish--Hippopotami.
Chapter 15. Message to Masiko, the Barotse Chief, regarding
the Captives--Navigation of the Leeambye--Capabilities of this
District--The Leeba--Flowers and Bees--Buffalo-hunt--Field for
a Botanist--Young Alligators; their savage Nature--Suspicion
of the Balonda--Sekelenke's Present--A Man and his two Wives--
Hunters--Message from Manenko, a female Chief--Mambari
Traders--A Dream--Sheakondo and his People--Teeth-filing--
Desire for Butter--Interview with Nyamoana, another female
Chief--Court Etiquette--Hair versus Wool--Increase of
Superstition--Arrival of Manenko; her Appearance and Husband--
Mode of Salutation--Anklets--Embassy, with a Present from
Masiko--Roast Beef--Manioc--Magic Lantern--Manenko an
accomplished Scold: compels us to wait--Unsuccessful Zebra-
hunt.
Chapter 16. Nyamoana's Present--Charms--Manenko's pedestrian
Powers--An Idol--Balonda Arms--Rain--Hunger--Palisades--Dense
Forests--Artificial Beehives--Mushrooms--Villagers lend the
Roofs of their Houses--Divination and Idols--Manenko's Whims--
A night Alarm--Shinte's Messengers and Present--The proper
Way to approach a Village--A Merman--Enter Shinte's Town: its
Appearance--Meet two half-caste Slave-traders--The Makololo
scorn them--The Balonda real Negroes--Grand Reception from
Shinte--His Kotla--Ceremony of Introduction--The Orators--
Women--Musicians and Musical Instruments--A disagreeable
Request--Private Interviews with Shinte--Give him an Ox--
Fertility of Soil--Manenko's new Hut--Conversation with
Shinte--Kolimbota's Proposal--Balonda's Punctiliousness--
Selling Children--Kidnapping--Shinte's Offer of a Slave--Magic
Lantern--Alarm of Women--Delay--Sambanza returns intoxicated--
The last and greatest Proof of Shinte's Friendship.
Chapter 17. Leave Shinte--Manioc Gardens--Mode of preparing
the poisonous kind--Its general Use--Presents of Food--
Punctiliousness of the Balonda--Their Idols and Superstition--
Dress of the Balonda--Villages beyond Lonaje--Cazembe--Our
Guides and the Makololo--Night Rains--Inquiries for English
cotton Goods--Intemese's Fiction--Visit from an old Man--
Theft--Industry of our Guide--Loss of Pontoon--Plains covered
with Water--Affection of the Balonda for their Mothers--A
Night on an Island--The Grass on the Plains--Source of the
Rivers--Loan of the Roofs of Huts--A Halt--Fertility of the
Country through which the Lokalueje flows--Omnivorous Fish--
Natives' Mode of catching them--The Village of a Half-brother
of Katema, his Speech and Present--Our Guide's Perversity--
Mozenkwa's pleasant Home and Family--Clear Water of the
flooded Rivers--A Messenger from Katema--Quendende's Village:
his Kindness--Crop of Wool--Meet People from the Town of
Matiamvo--Fireside Talk--Matiamvo's Character and Conduct--
Presentation at Katema's Court: his Present, good Sense, and
Appearance--Interview on the following Day--Cattle--A Feast
and a Makololo Dance--Arrest of a Fugitive--Dignified old
Courtier--Katema's lax Government--Cold Wind from the North--
Canaries and other singing Birds--Spiders, their Nests and
Webs--Lake Dilolo--Tradition--Sagacity of Ants.
Chapter 18. The Watershed between the northern and southern
Rivers--A deep Valley--Rustic Bridge--Fountains on the Slopes
of the Valleys--Village of Kabinje--Good Effects of the Belief
in the Power of Charms--Demand for Gunpowder and English
Calico--The Kasai--Vexatious Trick--Want of Food--No Game--
Katende's unreasonable Demand--A grave Offense--Toll-bridge
Keeper--Greedy Guides--Flooded Valleys--Swim the Nyuana Loke--
Prompt Kindness of my Men--Makololo Remarks on the rich
uncultivated Valleys--Difference in the Color of Africans--
Reach a Village of the Chiboque--The Head Man's impudent
Message--Surrounds our Encampment with his Warriors--The
Pretense--Their Demand--Prospect of a Fight--Way in which it
was averted--Change our Path--Summer--Fever--Beehives and the
Honey-guide--Instinct of Trees--Climbers--The Ox Sinbad--
Absence of Thorns in the Forests--Plant peculiar to a forsaken
Garden--Bad Guides--Insubordination suppressed--Beset by
Enemies--A Robber Party--More Troubles--Detained by Ionga
Panza--His Village--Annoyed by Bangala Traders--My Men
discouraged--Their Determination and Precaution.
Chapter 19. Guides prepaid--Bark Canoes--Deserted by Guides--
Mistakes respecting the Coanza--Feelings of freed Slaves--
Gardens and Villages--Native Traders--A Grave--Valley of the
Quango--Bamboo--White Larvae used as Food--Bashinje Insolence--
A posing Question--The Chief Sansawe--His Hostility--Pass him
safely--The River Quango--Chief's mode of dressing his Hair--
Opposition--Opportune Aid by Cypriano--His generous
Hospitality--Ability of Half-castes to read and write--Books
and Images--Marauding Party burned in the Grass--Arrive at
Cassange--A good Supper--Kindness of Captain Neves--
Portuguese Curiosity and Questions--Anniversary of the
Resurrection--No Prejudice against Color--Country around
Cassange--Sell Sekeletu's Ivory--Makololo's Surprise at the
high Price obtained--Proposal to return Home, and Reasons--
Soldier-guide--Hill Kasala--Tala Mungongo, Village of--
Civility of Basongo--True Negroes--A Field of Wheat--Carriers--
Sleeping-places--Fever--Enter District of Ambaca--Good Fruits
of Jesuit Teaching--The 'Tampan'; its Bite--Universal
Hospitality of the Portuguese--A Tale of the Mambari--
Exhilarating Effects of Highland Scenery--District of Golungo
Alto--Want of good Roads--Fertility--Forests of gigantic
Timber--Native Carpenters--Coffee Estate--Sterility of Country
near the Coast--Mosquitoes--Fears of the Makololo--Welcome by
Mr. Gabriel to Loanda.
Chapter 20. Continued Sickness--Kindness of the Bishop of
Angola and her Majesty's Officers--Mr. Gabriel's unwearied
Hospitality--Serious Deportment of the Makololo--They visit
Ships of War--Politeness of the Officers and Men--The Makololo
attend Mass in the Cathedral--Their Remarks--Find Employment
in collecting Firewood and unloading Coal--Their superior
Judgment respecting Goods--Beneficial Influence of the Bishop
of Angola--The City of St. Paul de Loanda--The Harbor--Custom-
house--No English Merchants--Sincerity of the Portuguese
Government in suppressing the Slave-trade--Convict Soldiers--
Presents from Bishop and Merchants for Sekeletu--Outfit--Leave
Loanda 20th September, 1854--Accompanied by Mr. Gabriel as far
as Icollo i Bengo--Sugar Manufactory--Geology of this part of
the Country--Women spinning Cotton--Its Price--Native Weavers--
Market-places--Cazengo; its Coffee Plantations--South
American Trees--Ruins of Iron Foundry--Native Miners--The
Banks of the Lucalla--Cottages with Stages--Tobacco-plants--
Town of Massangano--Sugar and Rice--Superior District for
Cotton--Portuguese Merchants and foreign Enterprise--Ruins--
The Fort and its ancient Guns--Former Importance of
Massangano--Fires--The Tribe Kisama--Peculiar Variety of
Domestic Fowl--Coffee Plantations--Return to Golungo Alto--
Self-complacency of the Makololo--Fever--Jaundice--Insanity.
Chapter 21. Visit a deserted Convent--Favorable Report of
Jesuits and their Teaching--Gradations of native Society--
Punishment of Thieves--Palm-toddy; its baneful Effects--
Freemasons--Marriages and Funerals--Litigation--Mr. Canto's
Illness--Bad Behavior of his Slaves--An Entertainment--Ideas
on Free Labor--Loss of American Cotton-seed--Abundance of
Cotton in the country--Sickness of Sekeletu's Horse--Eclipse
of the Sun--Insects which distill Water--Experiments with
them--Proceed to Ambaca--Sickly Season--Office of Commandant--
Punishment of official Delinquents--Present from Mr. Schut of
Loanda--Visit Pungo Andongo--Its good Pasturage, Grain, Fruit,
etc.--The Fort and columnar Rocks--The Queen of Jinga--
Salubrity of Pungo Andongo--Price of a Slave--A Merchant-
prince--His Hospitality--Hear of the Loss of my Papers in
"Forerunner"--Narrow Escape from an Alligator--Ancient Burial-
places--Neglect of Agriculture in Angola--Manioc the staple
Product--Its Cheapness--Sickness--Friendly Visit from a
colored Priest--The Prince of Congo--No Priests in the
Interior of Angola.
Chapter 22. Leave Pungo Andongo--Extent of Portuguese Power--
Meet Traders and Carriers--Red Ants; their fierce Attack;
Usefulness; Numbers--Descend the Heights of Tala Mungongo--
Fruit-trees in the Valley of Cassange--Edible Muscle--Birds--
Cassange Village--Quinine and Cathory--Sickness of Captain
Neves' Infant--A Diviner thrashed--Death of the Child--
Mourning--Loss of Life from the Ordeal--Wide-spread
Superstitions--The Chieftainship--Charms--Receive Copies of
the "Times"--Trading Pombeiros--Present for Matiamvo--Fever
after westerly Winds--Capabilities of Angola for producing the
raw Materials of English Manufacture--Trading Parties with
Ivory--More Fever--A Hyaena's Choice--Makololo Opinion of the
Portuguese--Cypriano's Debt--A Funeral--Dread of disembodied
Spirits--Beautiful Morning Scenes--Crossing the Quango--
Ambakistas called "The Jews of Angola"--Fashions of the
Bashinje--Approach the Village of Sansawe--His Idea of
Dignity--The Pombeiros' Present--Long Detention--A Blow on the
Beard--Attacked in a Forest--Sudden Conversion of a fighting
Chief to Peace Principles by means of a Revolver--No Blood
shed in consequence--Rate of Traveling--Slave Women--Way of
addressing Slaves--Their thievish Propensities--Feeders of the
Congo or Zaire--Obliged to refuse Presents--Cross the Loajima--
Appearance of People; Hair Fashions.
Chapter 23. Make a Detour southward--Peculiarities of the
Inhabitants--Scarcity of Animals--Forests--Geological
Structure of the Country--Abundance and Cheapness of Food near
the Chihombo--A Slave lost--The Makololo Opinion of
Slaveholders--Funeral Obsequies in Cabango--Send a Sketch of
the Country to Mr. Gabriel--Native Information respecting the
Kasai and Quango--The Trade with Luba--Drainage of Londa--
Report of Matiamvo's Country and Government--Senhor Faria's
Present to a Chief--The Balonda Mode of spending Time--
Faithless Guide--Makololo lament the Ignorance of the Balonda--
Eagerness of the Villagers for Trade--Civility of a Female
Chief--The Chief Bango and his People--Refuse to eat Beef--
Ambition of Africans to have a Village--Winters in the
Interior--Spring at Kolobeng--White Ants: "Never could desire
to eat any thing better"--Young Herbage and Animals--Valley of
the Loembwe--The white Man a Hobgoblin--Specimen of
Quarreling--Eager Desire for Calico--Want of Clothing at
Kawawa's--Funeral Observances--Agreeable Intercourse with
Kawawa--His impudent Demand--Unpleasant Parting--Kawawa tries
to prevent our crossing the River Kasai--Stratagem.
Chapter 24. Level Plains--Vultures and other Birds--Diversity
of Color in Flowers of the same Species--The Sundew--Twenty-
seventh Attack of Fever--A River which flows in opposite
Directions--Lake Dilolo the Watershed between the Atlantic and
Indian Oceans--Position of Rocks--Sir Roderick Murchison's
Explanation--Characteristics of the Rainy Season in connection
with the Floods of the Zambesi and the Nile--Probable Reason
of Difference in Amount of Rain South and North of the
Equator--Arab Reports of Region east of Londa--Probable
Watershed of the Zambesi and the Nile--Lake Dilolo--Reach
Katema's Town: his renewed Hospitality; desire to appear like
a White Man; ludicrous Departure--Jackdaws--Ford southern
Branch of Lake Dilolo--Small Fish--Project for a Makololo
Village near the Confluence of the Leeba and the Leeambye--
Hearty Welcome from Shinte--Kolimbota's Wound--Plant-seeds and
Fruit-trees brought from Angola--Masiko and Limboa's Quarrel--
Nyamoana now a Widow--Purchase Canoes and descend the Leeba--
Herds of wild Animals on its Banks--Unsuccessful Buffalo-
hunt--Frogs--Sinbad and the Tsetse--Dispatch a Message to
Manenko--Arrival of her Husband Sambanza--The Ceremony called
Kasendi--Unexpected Fee for performing a surgical Operation--
Social Condition of the Tribes--Desertion of Mboenga--
Stratagem of Mambowe Hunters--Water-turtles--Charged by a
Buffalo--Reception from the People of Libonta--Explain the
Causes of our long Delay--Pitsane's Speech--Thanksgiving
Services--Appearance of my "Braves"--Wonderful Kindness of the
People.
Chapter 25. Colony of Birds called Linkololo--The Village of
Chitlane--Murder of Mpololo's Daughter--Execution of the
Murderer and his Wife--My Companions find that their Wives
have married other Husbands--Sunday--A Party from Masiko--
Freedom of Speech--Canoe struck by a Hippopotamus--Gonye--
Appearance of Trees at the end of Winter--Murky Atmosphere--
Surprising Amount of organic Life--Hornets--The Packages
forwarded by Mr. Moffat--Makololo Suspicions and Reply to the
Matebele who brought them--Convey the Goods to an Island and
build a Hut over them--Ascertain that Sir R. Murchison had
recognized the true Form of African Continent--Arrival at
Linyanti--A grand Picho--Shrewd Inquiry--Sekeletu in his
Uniform--A Trading-party sent to Loanda with Ivory--Mr.
Gabriel's Kindness to them--Difficulties in Trading--Two
Makololo Forays during our Absence--Report of the Country to
the N.E.--Death of influential Men--The Makololo desire to be
nearer the Market--Opinions upon a Change of Residence--
Climate of Barotse Valley--Diseases--Author's Fevers not a
fair Criterion in the Matter--The Interior an inviting Field
for the Philanthropist--Consultations about a Path to the East
Coast--Decide on descending North Bank of Zambesi--Wait for
the Rainy Season--Native way of spending Time during the
period of greatest Heat--Favorable Opening for Missionary
Enterprise--Ben Habib wishes to marry--A Maiden's Choice--
Sekeletu's Hospitality--Sulphureted Hydrogen and Malaria--
Conversations with Makololo--Their moral Character and
Conduct--Sekeletu wishes to purchase a Sugar-mill, etc.--The
Donkeys--Influence among the Natives--"Food fit for a Chief"--
Parting Words of Mamire--Motibe's Excuses.
Chapter 26. Departure from Linyanti--A Thunder-storm--An Act
of genuine Kindness--Fitted out a second time by the Makololo--
Sail down the Leeambye--Sekote's Kotla and human Skulls; his
Grave adorned with Elephants' Tusks--Victoria Falls--Native
Names--Columns of Vapor--Gigantic Crack--Wear of the Rocks--
Shrines of the Barimo--"The Pestle of the Gods"--Second Visit
to the Falls--Island Garden--Store-house Island--Native
Diviners--A European Diviner--Makololo Foray--Marauder to be
fined--Mambari--Makololo wish to stop Mambari Slave-trading--
Part with Sekeletu--Night Traveling--River Lekone--Ancient
fresh-water Lakes--Formation of Lake Ngami--Native Traditions--
Drainage of the Great Valley--Native Reports of the Country
to the North--Maps--Moyara's Village--Savage Customs of the
Batoka--A Chain of Trading Stations--Remedy against Tsetse--
"The Well of Joy"--First Traces of Trade with Europeans--
Knocking out the front Teeth--Facetious Explanation--
Degradation of the Batoka--Description of the Traveling Party--
Cross the Unguesi--Geological Formation--Ruins of a large
Town--Productions of the Soil similar to those in Angola--
Abundance of Fruit.
Chapter 27. Low Hills--Black Soldier-Ants; their Cannibalism--
The Plasterer and its Chloroform--White Ants; their
Usefulness--Mutokwane-smoking; its Effects--Border Territory--
Healthy Table-lands--Geological Formation--Cicadae--Trees--
Flowers--River Kalomo--Physical Conformation of Country--
Ridges, sanatoria--A wounded Buffalo assisted--Buffalo-bird--
Rhinoceros-bird--Leaders of Herds--The Honey-guide--The White
Mountain--Mozuma River--Sebituane's old Home--Hostile Village--
Prophetic Phrensy--Food of the Elephant--Ant-hills--Friendly
Batoka--Clothing despised--Method of Salutation--Wild Fruits--
The Captive released--Longings for Peace--Pingola's Conquests--
The Village of Monze--Aspect of the Country--Visit from the
Chief Monze and his Wife--Central healthy Locations--Friendly
Feelings of the People in reference to a white Resident--
Fertility of the Soil--Bashukulompo Mode of dressing their
Hair--Gratitude of the Prisoner we released--Kindness and
Remarks of Monze's Sister--Dip of the Rocks--Vegetation--
Generosity of the Inhabitants--Their Anxiety for Medicine--
Hooping-cough--Birds and Rain.
Chapter 28. Beautiful Valley--Buffalo--My young Men kill two
Elephants--The Hunt--Mode of measuring Height of live
Elephants--Wild Animals smaller here than in the South, though
their Food is more abundant--The Elephant a dainty Feeder--
Semalembue--His Presents--Joy in prospect of living in Peace--
Trade--His People's way of wearing their Hair--Their Mode of
Salutation--Old Encampment--Sebituane's former Residence--Ford
of Kafue--Hippopotami--Hills and Villages--Geological
Formation--Prodigious Quantities of large Game--Their
Tameness--Rains--Less Sickness than in the Journey to Loanda--
Reason--Charge from an Elephant--Vast Amount of animal Life on
the Zambesi--Water of River discolored--An Island with
Buffaloes and Men on it--Native Devices for killing Game--
Tsetse now in Country--Agricultural Industry--An Albino
murdered by his Mother--"Guilty of Tlolo"--Women who make
their Mouths "like those of Ducks"--First Symptom of the
Slave-trade on this side--Selole's Hostility--An armed Party
hoaxed--An Italian Marauder slain--Elephant's Tenacity of
Life--A Word to young Sportsmen--Mr. Oswell's Adventure with
an Elephant; narrow Escape--Mburuma's Village--Suspicious
Conduct of his People--Guides attempt to detain us--The
Village and People of Ma Mburuma--Character our Guides give of
us.
Chapter 29. Confluence of Loangwa and Zambesi--Hostile
Appearances--Ruins of a Church--Turmoil of Spirit--Cross the
River--Friendly Parting--Ruins of stone Houses--The Situation
of Zumbo for Commerce--Pleasant Gardens--Dr. Lacerda's Visit
to Cazembe--Pereira's Statement--Unsuccessful Attempt to
establish Trade with the People of Cazembe--One of my Men
tossed by a Buffalo--Meet a Man with Jacket and Hat on--Hear
of the Portuguese and native War--Holms and Terraces on the
Banks of a River--Dancing for Corn--Beautiful Country--
Mpende's Hostility--Incantations--A Fight anticipated--Courage
and Remarks of my Men--Visit from two old Councilors of
Mpende--Their Opinion of the English--Mpende concludes not to
fight us--His subsequent Friendship--Aids us to cross the
River--The Country--Sweet Potatoes--Bakwain Theory of Rain
confirmed--Thunder without Clouds--Desertion of one of my Men--
Other Natives' Ideas of the English--Dalama (gold)--
Inhabitants dislike Slave-buyers--Meet native Traders with
American Calico--Game-laws--Elephant Medicine--Salt from the
Sand--Fertility of Soil--Spotted Hyaena--Liberality and
Politeness of the People--Presents--A stingy white Trader--
Natives' Remarks about him--Effect on their Minds--Rain and
Wind now from an opposite Direction--Scarcity of Fuel--Trees
for Boat-building--Boroma--Freshets--Leave the River--Chicova,
its Geological Features--Small Rapid near Tete--Loquacious
Guide--Nyampungo, the Rain-charmer--An old Man--No Silver--
Gold-washing--No Cattle.
Chapter 30. An Elephant-hunt--Offering and Prayers to the
Barimo for Success--Native Mode of Expression--Working of
Game-laws--A Feast--Laughing Hyaenas--Numerous Insects--
Curious Notes of Birds of Song--Caterpillars--Butterflies--
Silica--The Fruit Makoronga and Elephants--Rhinoceros
Adventure--Korwe Bird--Its Nest--A real Confinement--Honey and
Beeswax--Superstitious Reverence for the Lion--Slow Traveling--
Grapes--The Ue--Monina's Village--Native Names--Government of
the Banyai--Electing a Chief--Youths instructed in "Bonyai"--
Suspected of Falsehood--War-dance--Insanity and Disappearance
of Monahin--Fruitless Search--Monina's Sympathy--The Sand-
river Tangwe--The Ordeal Muavi: its Victims--An unreasonable
Man--"Woman's Rights"--Presents--Temperance--A winding Course
to shun Villages--Banyai Complexion and Hair--Mushrooms--The
Tubers, Mokuri--The Tree Shekabakadzi--Face of the Country--
Pot-holes--Pursued by a Party of Natives--Unpleasant Threat--
Aroused by a Company of Soldiers--A civilized Breakfast--
Arrival at Tete.
Chapter 31. Kind Reception from the Commandant--His Generosity
to my Men--The Village of Tete--The Population--Distilled
Spirits--The Fort--Cause of the Decadence of Portuguese Power--
Former Trade--Slaves employed in Gold-washing--Slave-trade
drained the Country of Laborers--The Rebel Nyaude's Stockade--
He burns Tete--Kisaka's Revolt and Ravages--Extensive Field of
Sugar-cane--The Commandant's good Reputation among the
Natives--Providential Guidance--Seams of Coal--A hot Spring--
Picturesque Country--Water-carriage to the Coal-fields--
Workmen's Wages--Exports--Price of Provisions--Visit Gold-
washings--The Process of obtaining the precious Metal--Coal
within a Gold-field--Present from Major Sicard--Natives raise
Wheat, etc.--Liberality of the Commandant--Geographical
Information from Senhor Candido--Earthquakes--Native Ideas of
a Supreme Being--Also of the Immortality and Transmigration of
Souls--Fondness for Display at Funerals--Trade Restrictions--
Former Jesuit Establishment--State of Religion and Education
at Tete--Inundation of the Zambesi--Cotton cultivated--The
fibrous Plants Conge and Buaze--Detained by Fever--The
Kumbanzo Bark--Native Medicines--Iron, its Quality--Hear of
Famine at Kilimane--Death of a Portuguese Lady--The Funeral--
Disinterested Kindness of the Portuguese.
Chapter 32. Leave Tete and proceed down the River--Pass the
Stockade of Bonga--Gorge of Lupata--"Spine of the World"--
Width of River--Islands--War Drum at Shiramba--Canoe
Navigation--Reach Senna--Its ruinous State--Landeens levy
Fines upon the Inhabitants--Cowardice of native Militia--State
of the Revenue--No direct Trade with Portugal--Attempts to
revive the Trade of Eastern Africa--Country round Senna--
Gorongozo, a Jesuit Station--Manica, the best Gold Region in
Eastern Africa--Boat-building at Senna--Our Departure--Capture
of a Rebel Stockade--Plants Alfacinya and Njefu at the
Confluence of the Shire--Landeen Opinion of the Whites--
Mazaro, the point reached by Captain Parker--His Opinion
respecting the Navigation of the River from this to the Ocean--
Lieutenant Hoskins' Remarks on the same subject--Fever, its
Effects--Kindly received into the House of Colonel Nunes at
Kilimane--Forethought of Captain Nolloth and Dr. Walsh--Joy
imbittered--Deep Obligations to the Earl of Clarendon, etc.--
On developing Resources of the Interior--Desirableness of
Missionary Societies selecting healthy Stations--Arrangements
on leaving my Men--Retrospect--Probable Influence of the
Discoveries on Slavery--Supply of Cotton, Sugar, etc., by Free
Labor--Commercial Stations--Development of the Resources of
Africa a Work of Time--Site of Kilimane--Unhealthiness--Death
of a shipwrecked Crew from Fever--The Captain saved by
Quinine--Arrival of H. M. Brig "Frolic"--Anxiety of one of my
Men to go to England--Rough Passage in the Boats to the Ship--
Sekwebu's Alarm--Sail for Mauritius--Sekwebu on board; he
becomes insane; drowns himself--Kindness of Major-General C.
M. Hay--Escape Shipwreck--Reach Home.
Appendix.--Latitudes and Longitudes of Positions.
Appendix.--Book Review in Harper's New Monthly Magazine,
February, 1858.
Appendix.--Notes to etext.
--------------------------------------------------
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
--------------------------------------------------
Introduction.
Personal Sketch--Highland Ancestors--Family Traditions--Grandfather
removes to the Lowlands--Parents--Early Labors and Efforts
--Evening School--Love of Reading--Religious Impressions--Medical
Education--Youthful Travels--Geology--Mental Discipline--Study
in Glasgow--London Missionary Society--Native Village--Medical
Diploma--Theological Studies--Departure for Africa--No Claim to Literary
Accomplishments.
My own inclination would lead me to say as little as possible about
myself; but several friends, in whose judgment I have confidence, have
suggested that, as the reader likes to know something about the author,
a short account of his origin and early life would lend additional
interest to this book. Such is my excuse for the following egotism; and,
if an apology be necessary for giving a genealogy, I find it in the fact
that it is not very long, and contains only one incident of which I have
reason to be proud.
Our great-grandfather fell at the battle of Culloden, fighting for the
old line of kings; and our grandfather was a small farmer in Ulva,
where my father was born. It is one of that cluster of the Hebrides thus
alluded to by Walter Scott:
"And Ulva dark, and Colonsay,
And all the group of islets gay
That guard famed Staffa round."*
* Lord of the Isles, canto 4.
Our grandfather was intimately acquainted with all the traditionary
legends which that great writer has since made use of in the "Tales of a
Grandfather" and other works. As a boy I remember listening to him with
delight, for his memory was stored with a never-ending stock of stories,
many of which were wonderfully like those I have since heard while
sitting by the African evening fires. Our grandmother, too, used to
sing Gaelic songs, some of which, as she believed, had been composed by
captive islanders languishing hopelessly among the Turks.
Grandfather could give particulars of the lives of his ancestors for
six generations of the family before him; and the only point of the
tradition I feel proud of is this: One of these poor hardy islanders
was renowned in the district for great wisdom and prudence; and it is
related that, when he was on his death-bed, he called all his children
around him and said, "Now, in my lifetime, I have searched most
carefully through all the traditions I could find of our family, and
I never could discover that there was a dishonest man among our
forefathers. If, therefore, any of you or any of your children should
take to dishonest ways, it will not be because it runs in our blood: it
does not belong to you. I leave this precept with you: Be honest." If,
therefore, in the following pages I fall into any errors, I hope they
will be dealt with as honest mistakes, and not as indicating that I have
forgotten our ancient motto. This event took place at a time when the
Highlanders, according to Macaulay, were much like the Cape Caffres,
and any one, it was said, could escape punishment for cattle-stealing by
presenting a share of the plunder to his chieftain. Our ancestors were
Roman Catholics; they were made Protestants by the laird coming round
with a man having a yellow staff, which would seem to have attracted
more attention than his teaching, for the new religion went long
afterward, perhaps it does so still, by the name of "the religion of the
yellow stick".
Finding his farm in Ulva insufficient to support a numerous family, my
grandfather removed to Blantyre Works, a large cotton manufactory on
the beautiful Clyde, above Glasgow; and his sons, having had the best
education the Hebrides afforded, were gladly received as clerks by
the proprietors, Monteith and Co. He himself, highly esteemed for his
unflinching honesty, was employed in the conveyance of large sums of
money from Glasgow to the works, and in old age was, according to the
custom of that company, pensioned off, so as to spend his declining
years in ease and comfort.
Our uncles all entered his majesty's service during the last French
war, either as soldiers or sailors; but my father remained at home, and,
though too conscientious ever to become rich as a small tea-dealer, by
his kindliness of manner and winning ways he made the heart-strings
of his children twine around him as firmly as if he had possessed, and
could have bestowed upon them, every worldly advantage. He reared
his children in connection with the Kirk of Scotland--a religious
establishment which has been an incalculable blessing to that
country--but he afterward left it, and during the last twenty years of
his life held the office of deacon of an independent church in Hamilton,
and deserved my lasting gratitude and homage for presenting me, from
my infancy, with a continuously consistent pious example, such as that
ideal of which is so beautifully and truthfully portrayed in Burns's
"Cottar's Saturday Night". He died in February, 1856, in peaceful hope
of that mercy which we all expect through the death of our Lord and
Savior. I was at the time on my way below Zumbo, expecting no greater
pleasure in this country than sitting by our cottage fire and telling
him my travels. I revere his memory.
The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture so often seen
among the Scottish poor--that of the anxious housewife striving to
make both ends meet. At the age of ten I was put into the factory as a
"piecer", to aid by my earnings in lessening her anxiety. With a part of
my first week's wages I purchased Ruddiman's "Rudiments of Latin",
and pursued the study of that language for many years afterward, with
unabated ardor, at an evening school, which met between the hours of
eight and ten. The dictionary part of my labors was followed up till
twelve o'clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere by jumping up
and snatching the books out of my hands. I had to be back in the
factory by six in the morning, and continue my work, with intervals for
breakfast and dinner, till eight o'clock at night. I read in this way
many of the classical authors, and knew Virgil and Horace better at
sixteen than I do now. Our schoolmaster--happily still alive--was
supported in part by the company; he was attentive and kind, and so
moderate in his charges that all who wished for education might have
obtained it. Many availed themselves of the privilege; and some of my
schoolfellows now rank in positions far above what they appeared ever
likely to come to when in the village school. If such a system were
established in England, it would prove a never-ending blessing to the
poor.
In reading, every thing that I could lay my hands on was devoured except
novels. Scientific works and books of travels were my especial delight;
though my father, believing, with many of his time who ought to have
known better, that the former were inimical to religion, would have
preferred to have seen me poring over the "Cloud of Witnesses", or
Boston's "Fourfold State". Our difference of opinion reached the point
of open rebellion on my part, and his last application of the rod was
on my refusal to peruse Wilberforce's "Practical Christianity". This
dislike to dry doctrinal reading, and to religious reading of every
sort, continued for years afterward; but having lighted on those
admirable works of Dr. Thomas Dick, "The Philosophy of Religion" and
"The Philosophy of a Future State", it was gratifying to find my own
ideas, that religion and science are not hostile, but friendly to each
other, fully proved and enforced.
Great pains had been taken by my parents to instill the doctrines of
Christianity into my mind, and I had no difficulty in understanding the
theory of our free salvation by the atonement of our Savior, but it was
only about this time that I really began to feel the necessity and value
of a personal application of the provisions of that atonement to my own
case. The change was like what may be supposed would take place were it
possible to cure a case of "color blindness". The perfect freeness with
which the pardon of all our guilt is offered in God's book drew forth
feelings of affectionate love to Him who bought us with his blood, and
a sense of deep obligation to Him for his mercy has influenced, in some
small measure, my conduct ever since. But I shall not again refer to
the inner spiritual life which I believe then began, nor do I intend to
specify with any prominence the evangelistic labors to which the love of
Christ has since impelled me. This book will speak, not so much of what
has been done, as of what still remains to be performed, before the
Gospel can be said to be preached to all nations.
In the glow of love which Christianity inspires, I soon resolved to
devote my life to the alleviation of human misery. Turning this idea
over in my mind, I felt that to be a pioneer of Christianity in China
might lead to the material benefit of some portions of that immense
empire; and therefore set myself to obtain a medical education, in order
to be qualified for that enterprise.
In recognizing the plants pointed out in my first medical book, that
extraordinary old work on astrological medicine, Culpeper's "Herbal",
I had the guidance of a book on the plants of Lanarkshire, by Patrick.
Limited as my time was, I found opportunities to scour the whole
country-side, "collecting simples". Deep and anxious were my studies on
the still deeper and more perplexing profundities of astrology, and I
believe I got as far into that abyss of phantasies as my author said he
dared to lead me. It seemed perilous ground to tread on farther, for the
dark hint seemed to my youthful mind to loom toward "selling soul and
body to the devil", as the price of the unfathomable knowledge of the
stars. These excursions, often in company with brothers, one now in
Canada, and the other a clergyman in the United States, gratified my
intense love of nature; and though we generally returned so unmercifully
hungry and fatigued that the embryo parson shed tears, yet we
discovered, to us, so many new and interesting things, that he was
always as eager to join us next time as he was the last.
On one of these exploring tours we entered a limestone quarry--long
before geology was so popular as it is now. It is impossible to describe
the delight and wonder with which I began to collect the shells found
in the carboniferous limestone which crops out in High Blantyre and
Cambuslang. A quarry-man, seeing a little boy so engaged, looked with
that pitying eye which the benevolent assume when viewing the insane.
Addressing him with, "How ever did these shells come into these rocks?"
"When God made the rocks, he made the shells in them," was the damping
reply. What a deal of trouble geologists might have saved themselves by
adopting the Turk-like philosophy of this Scotchman!
My reading while at work was carried on by placing the book on a portion
of the spinning-jenny, so that I could catch sentence after sentence as
I passed at my work; I thus kept up a pretty constant study undisturbed
by the roar of the machinery. To this part of my education I owe my
present power of completely abstracting the mind from surrounding
noises, so as to read and write with perfect comfort amid the play
of children or near the dancing and songs of savages. The toil of
cotton-spinning, to which I was promoted in my nineteenth year, was
excessively severe on a slim, loose-jointed lad, but it was well paid
for; and it enabled me to support myself while attending medical and
Greek classes in Glasgow in winter, as also the divinity lectures of Dr.
Wardlaw, by working with my hands in summer. I never received a farthing
of aid from any one, and should have accomplished my project of going to
China as a medical missionary, in the course of time, by my own efforts,
had not some friends advised my joining the London Missionary Society
on account of its perfectly unsectarian character. It "sends neither
Episcopacy, nor Presbyterianism, nor Independency, but the Gospel of
Christ to the heathen." This exactly agreed with my ideas of what a
missionary society ought to do; but it was not without a pang that I
offered myself, for it was not quite agreeable to one accustomed to work
his own way to become in a measure dependent on others; and I would not
have been much put about though my offer had been rejected.
Looking back now on that life of toil, I can not but feel thankful
that it formed such a material part of my early education; and, were
it possible, I should like to begin life over again in the same lowly
style, and to pass through the same hardy training.
Time and travel have not effaced the feelings of respect I imbibed for
the humble inhabitants of my native village. For morality, honesty,
and intelligence, they were, in general, good specimens of the Scottish
poor. In a population of more than two thousand souls, we had, of
course, a variety of character. In addition to the common run of men,
there were some characters of sterling worth and ability, who exerted
a most beneficial influence on the children and youth of the place by
imparting gratuitous religious instruction.* Much intelligent interest
was felt by the villagers in all public questions, and they furnished a
proof that the possession of the means of education did not render them
an unsafe portion of the population. They felt kindly toward each other,
and much respected those of the neighboring gentry who, like the late
Lord Douglas, placed some confidence in their sense of honor. Through
the kindness of that nobleman, the poorest among us could stroll at
pleasure over the ancient domains of Bothwell, and other spots hallowed
by the venerable associations of which our school-books and local
traditions made us well aware; and few of us could view the dear
memorials of the past without feeling that these carefully kept
monuments were our own. The masses of the working-people of Scotland
have read history, and are no revolutionary levelers. They rejoice in
the memories of "Wallace and Bruce and a' the lave," who are still much
revered as the former champions of freedom. And while foreigners imagine
that we want the spirit only to overturn capitalists and aristocracy, we
are content to respect our laws till we can change them, and hate those
stupid revolutions which might sweep away time-honored institutions,
dear alike to rich and poor.
* The reader will pardon my mentioning the names of two of
these most worthy men--David Hogg, who addressed me on his
death-bed with the words, "Now, lad, make religion the every-
day business of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts;
for if you do not, temptation and other things will get the
better of you;" and Thomas Burke, an old Forty-second
Peninsula soldier, who has been incessant and never weary in
good works for about forty years. I was delighted to find him
still alive; men like these are an honor to their country and
profession.
Having finished the medical curriculum and presented a thesis on a
subject which required the use of the stethoscope for its diagnosis, I
unwittingly procured for myself an examination rather more severe
and prolonged than usual among examining bodies. The reason was, that
between me and the examiners a slight difference of opinion existed as
to whether this instrument could do what was asserted. The wiser
plan would have been to have had no opinion of my own. However, I was
admitted a Licentiate of Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. It was
with unfeigned delight I became a member of a profession which is
pre-eminently devoted to practical benevolence, and which with unwearied
energy pursues from age to age its endeavors to lessen human woe.
But though now qualified for my original plan, the opium war was then
raging, and it was deemed inexpedient for me to proceed to China. I had
fondly hoped to have gained access to that then closed empire by means
of the healing art; but there being no prospect of an early peace with
the Chinese, and as another inviting field was opening out through the
labors of Mr. Moffat, I was induced to turn my thoughts to Africa; and
after a more extended course of theological training in England than
I had enjoyed in Glasgow, I embarked for Africa in 1840, and, after a
voyage of three months, reached Cape Town. Spending but a short time
there, I started for the interior by going round to Algoa Bay, and soon
proceeded inland, and have spent the following sixteen years of my
life, namely, from 1840 to 1856, in medical and missionary labors there
without cost to the inhabitants.
As to those literary qualifications which are acquired by habits of
writing, and which are so important to an author, my African life has
not only not been favorable to the growth of such accomplishments, but
quite the reverse; it has made composition irksome and laborious. I
think I would rather cross the African continent again than undertake to
write another book. It is far easier to travel than to write about it.
I intended on going to Africa to continue my studies; but as I could not
brook the idea of simply entering into other men's labors made ready to
my hands, I entailed on myself, in addition to teaching, manual labor
in building and other handicraft work, which made me generally as much
exhausted and unfit for study in the evenings as ever I had been when
a cotton-spinner. The want of time for self-improvement was the only
source of regret that I experienced during my African career. The
reader, remembering this, will make allowances for the mere gropings for
light of a student who has the vanity to think himself "not yet too old
to learn". More precise information on several subjects has necessarily
been omitted in a popular work like the present; but I hope to give such
details to the scientific reader through some other channel.
Chapter 1.
The Bakwain Country--Study of the Language--Native Ideas regarding
Comets--Mabotsa Station--A Lion Encounter--Virus of the Teeth of
Lions--Names of the Bechuana Tribes--Sechele--His Ancestors--Obtains
the Chieftainship--His Marriage and Government--The Kotla--First public
Religious Services--Sechele's Questions--He Learns to Read--Novel
mode for Converting his Tribe--Surprise at their Indifference--
Polygamy--Baptism of Sechele--Opposition of the Natives--Purchase Land
at Chonuane--Relations with the People--Their Intelligence--Prolonged
Drought--Consequent Trials--Rain-medicine--God's Word blamed--Native
Reasoning--Rain-maker--Dispute between Rain Doctor and Medical
Doctor--The Hunting Hopo--Salt or animal Food a necessary of
Life--Duties of a Missionary.
The general instructions I received from the Directors of the London
Missionary Society led me, as soon as I reached Kuruman or Lattakoo,
then, as it is now, their farthest inland station from the Cape, to turn
my attention to the north. Without waiting longer at Kuruman than was
necessary to recruit the oxen, which were pretty well tired by the long
journey from Algoa Bay, I proceeded, in company with another missionary,
to the Bakuena or Bakwain country, and found Sechele, with his tribe,
located at Shokuane. We shortly after retraced our steps to Kuruman; but
as the objects in view were by no means to be attained by a temporary
excursion of this sort, I determined to make a fresh start into the
interior as soon as possible. Accordingly, after resting three months at
Kuruman, which is a kind of head station in the country, I returned to
a spot about fifteen miles south of Shokuane, called Lepelole (now
Litubaruba). Here, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of the
language, I cut myself off from all European society for about six
months, and gained by this ordeal an insight into the habits, ways of
thinking, laws, and language of that section of the Bechuanas called
Bakwains, which has proved of incalculable advantage in my intercourse
with them ever since.
In this second journey to Lepelole--so called from a cavern of that
name--I began preparations for a settlement, by making a canal to
irrigate gardens, from a stream then flowing copiously, but now quite
dry. When these preparations were well advanced, I went northward to
visit the Bakaa and Bamangwato, and the Makalaka, living between 22
Degrees and 23 Degrees south latitude. The Bakaa Mountains had been
visited before by a trader, who, with his people, all perished from
fever. In going round the northern part of these basaltic hills near
Letloche I was only ten days distant from the lower part of the Zouga,
which passed by the same name as Lake Ngami;* and I might then (in 1842)
have discovered that lake, had discovery alone been my object. Most part
of this journey beyond Shokuane was performed on foot, in consequence
of the draught oxen having become sick. Some of my companions who had
recently joined us, and did not know that I understood a little of their
speech, were overheard by me discussing my appearance and powers: "He
is not strong; he is quite slim, and only appears stout because he puts
himself into those bags (trowsers); he will soon knock up." This caused
my Highland blood to rise, and made me despise the fatigue of keeping
them all at the top of their speed for days together, and until I heard
them expressing proper opinions of my pedestrian powers.
* Several words in the African languages begin with the ringing sound
heard in the end of the word "comING". If the reader puts an 'i'
to the beginning of the name of the lake, as Ingami,
and then sounds the 'i' as little as possible, he will have
the correct pronunciation. The Spanish n [ny] is employed
to denote this sound, and Ngami is spelt nyami--naka means a tusk,
nyaka a doctor. Every vowel is sounded in all native words,
and the emphasis in pronunciation is put upon the penultimate.
Returning to Kuruman, in order to bring my luggage to our proposed
settlement, I was followed by the news that the tribe of Bakwains,
who had shown themselves so friendly toward me, had been driven from
Lepelole by the Barolongs, so that my prospects for the time of forming
a settlement there were at an end. One of those periodical outbreaks
of war, which seem to have occurred from time immemorial, for the
possession of cattle, had burst forth in the land, and had so changed
the relations of the tribes to each other, that I was obliged to set out
anew to look for a suitable locality for a mission station.
In going north again, a comet blazed on our sight, exciting the
wonder of every tribe we visited. That of 1816 had been followed by an
irruption of the Matebele, the most cruel enemies the Bechuanas ever
knew, and this they thought might portend something as bad, or it might
only foreshadow the death of some great chief. On this subject of comets
I knew little more than they did themselves, but I had that confidence
in a kind, overruling Providence, which makes such a difference between
Christians and both the ancient and modern heathen.
As some of the Bamangwato people had accompanied me to Kuruman, I was
obliged to restore them and their goods to their chief Sekomi. This made
a journey to the residence of that chief again necessary, and, for the
first time, I performed a distance of some hundred miles on ox-back.
Returning toward Kuruman, I selected the beautiful valley of Mabotsa
(lat. 25d 14' south, long. 26d 30'?) as the site of a missionary
station, and thither I removed in 1843. Here an occurrence took place
concerning which I have frequently been questioned in England, and
which, but for the importunities of friends, I meant to have kept in
store to tell my children when in my dotage. The Bakatla of the village
Mabotsa were much troubled by lions, which leaped into the cattle-pens
by night, and destroyed their cows. They even attacked the herds in open
day. This was so unusual an occurrence that the people believed that
they were bewitched--"given," as they said, "into the power of the lions
by a neighboring tribe." They went once to attack the animals, but,
being rather a cowardly people compared to Bechuanas in general on such
occasions, they returned without killing any.
It is well known that if one of a troop of lions is killed, the others
take the hint and leave that part of the country. So, the next time the
herds were attacked, I went with the people, in order to encourage them
to rid themselves of the annoyance by destroying one of the marauders.
We found the lions on a small hill about a quarter of a mile in length,
and covered with trees. A circle of men was formed round it, and they
gradually closed up, ascending pretty near to each other. Being down
below on the plain with a native schoolmaster, named Mebalwe, a most
excellent man, I saw one of the lions sitting on a piece of rock within
the now closed circle of men. Mebalwe fired at him before I could, and
the ball struck the rock on which the animal was sitting. He bit at
the spot struck, as a dog does at a stick or stone thrown at him; then
leaping away, broke through the opening circle and escaped unhurt. The
men were afraid to attack him, perhaps on account of their belief in
witchcraft. When the circle was re-formed, we saw two other lions in
it; but we were afraid to fire lest we should strike the men, and they
allowed the beasts to burst through also. If the Bakatla had acted
according to the custom of the country, they would have speared the
lions in their attempt to get out. Seeing we could not get them to kill
one of the lions, we bent our footsteps toward the village; in going
round the end of the hill, however, I saw one of the beasts sitting on
a piece of rock as before, but this time he had a little bush in front.
Being about thirty yards off, I took a good aim at his body through the
bush, and fired both barrels into it. The men then called out, "He is
shot, he is shot!" Others cried, "He has been shot by another man too;
let us go to him!" I did not see any one else shoot at him, but I saw
the lion's tail erected in anger behind the bush, and, turning to the
people, said, "Stop a little, till I load again." When in the act of
ramming down the bullets, I heard a shout. Starting, and looking half
round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing upon me. I was upon
a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to
the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook
me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to
that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat.
It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor
feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening.
It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform
describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This
singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake
annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the
beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed
by the carnivora; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent
Creator for lessening the pain of death. Turning round to relieve myself
of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes
directed to Mebalwe, who was trying to shoot him at a distance of ten
or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed fire in both barrels; the
lion immediately left me, and, attacking Mebalwe, bit his thigh. Another
man, whose life I had saved before, after he had been tossed by a
buffalo, attempted to spear the lion while he was biting Mebalwe. He
left Mebalwe and caught this man by the shoulder, but at that moment the
bullets he had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole
was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysms of
dying rage. In order to take out the charm from him, the Bakatla on the
following day made a huge bonfire over the carcass, which was declared
to be that of the largest lion they had ever seen. Besides crunching the
bone into splinters, he left eleven teeth wounds on the upper part of my
arm.
A wound from this animal's tooth resembles a gun-shot wound; it is
generally followed by a great deal of sloughing and discharge, and pains
are felt in the part periodically ever afterward. I had on a tartan
jacket on the occasion, and I believe that it wiped off all the virus
from the teeth that pierced the flesh, for my two companions in this
affray have both suffered from the peculiar pains, while I have escaped
with only the inconvenience of a false joint in my limb. The man whose
shoulder was wounded showed me his wound actually burst forth afresh on
the same month of the following year. This curious point deserves the
attention of inquirers.
The different Bechuana tribes are named after certain animals, showing
probably that in former times they were addicted to animal-worship like
the ancient Egyptians. The term Bakatla means "they of the monkey";
Bakuena, "they of the alligator"; Batlapi, "they of the fish": each
tribe having a superstitious dread of the animal after which it is
called. They also use the word "bina", to dance, in reference to the
custom of thus naming themselves, so that, when you wish to ascertain
what tribe they belong to, you say, "What do you dance?" It would seem
as if that had been a part of the worship of old. A tribe never eats the
animal which is its namesake, using the term "ila", hate or dread, in
reference to killing it. We find traces of many ancient tribes in the
country in individual members of those now extinct, as the Batau, "they
of the lion"; the Banoga, "they of the serpent"; though no such tribes
now exist. The use of the personal pronoun they, Ba-Ma, Wa, Va or Ova,
Am-Ki, &c., prevails very extensively in the names of tribes in Africa.
A single individual is indicated by the terms Mo or Le. Thus Mokwain is
a single person of the Bakwain tribe, and Lekoa is a single white man or
Englishman--Makoa being Englishmen.
I attached myself to the tribe called Bakuena or Bakwains, the chief of
which, named Sechele, was then living with his people at a place called
Shokuane. I was from the first struck by his intelligence, and by
the marked manner in which we both felt drawn to each other. As this
remarkable man has not only embraced Christianity, but expounds its
doctrines to his people, I will here give a brief sketch of his career.
His great-grandfather Mochoasele was a great traveler, and the first
that ever told the Bakwains of the existence of white men. In his
father's lifetime two white travelers, whom I suppose to have been Dr.
Cowan and Captain Donovan, passed through the country (in 1808), and,
descending the River Limpopo, were, with their party, all cut off by
fever. The rain-makers there, fearing lest their wagons might drive away
the rain, ordered them to be thrown into the river. This is the true
account of the end of that expedition, as related to me by the son of
the chief at whose village they perished. He remembered, when a boy,
eating part of one of the horses, and said it tasted like zebra's flesh.
Thus they were not killed by the Bangwaketse, as reported, for they
passed the Bakwains all well. The Bakwains were then rich in cattle; and
as one of the many evidences of the desiccation of the country, streams
are pointed out where thousands and thousands of cattle formerly drank,
but in which water now never flows, and where a single herd could not
find fluid for its support.
When Sechele was still a boy, his father, also called Mochoasele, was
murdered by his own people for taking to himself the wives of his
rich under-chiefs. The children being spared, their friends invited
Sebituane, the chief of the Makololo, who was then in those parts, to
reinstate them in the chieftainship. Sebituane surrounded the town
of the Bakwains by night; and just as it began to dawn, his herald
proclaimed in a loud voice that he had come to revenge the death of
Mochoasele. This was followed by Sebituane's people beating loudly on
their shields all round the town. The panic was tremendous, and the rush
like that from a theatre on fire, while the Makololo used their javelins
on the terrified Bakwains with a dexterity which they alone can employ.
Sebituane had given orders to his men to spare the sons of the chief;
and one of them, meeting Sechele, put him in ward by giving him such a
blow on the head with a club as to render him insensible. The usurper
was put to death; and Sechele, reinstated in his chieftainship, felt
much attached to Sebituane. The circumstances here noticed ultimately
led me, as will be seen by-and-by, into the new, well-watered country to
which this same Sebituane had preceded me by many years.
Sechele married the daughters of three of his under-chiefs, who had, on
account of their blood relationship, stood by him in his adversity. This
is one of the modes adopted for cementing the allegiance of a tribe. The
government is patriarchal, each man being, by virtue of paternity, chief
of his own children. They build their huts around his, and the greater
the number of children, the more his importance increases. Hence
children are esteemed one of the greatest blessings, and are always
treated kindly. Near the centre of each circle of huts there is a spot
called a "kotla", with a fireplace; here they work, eat, or sit and
gossip over the news of the day. A poor man attaches himself to the
kotla of a rich one, and is considered a child of the latter. An
under-chief has a number of these circles around his; and the collection
of kotlas around the great one in the middle of the whole, that of the
principal chief, constitutes the town. The circle of huts immediately
around the kotla of the chief is composed of the huts of his wives and
those of his blood relations. He attaches the under-chiefs to himself
and his government by marrying, as Sechele did, their daughters, or
inducing his brothers to do so. They are fond of the relationship to
great families. If you meet a party of strangers, and the head man's
relationship to some uncle of a certain chief is not at once proclaimed
by his attendants, you may hear him whispering, "Tell him who I am."
This usually involves a counting on the fingers of a part of his
genealogical tree, and ends in the important announcement that the head
of the party is half-cousin to some well-known ruler.
Sechele was thus seated in his chieftainship when I made his
acquaintance. On the first occasion in which I ever attempted to hold
a public religious service, he remarked that it was the custom of his
nation, when any new subject was brought before them, to put questions
on it; and he begged me to allow him to do the same in this case. On
expressing my entire willingness to answer his questions, he inquired if
my forefathers knew of a future judgment. I replied in the affirmative,
and began to describe the scene of the "great white throne, and Him who
shall sit on it, from whose face the heaven and earth shall flee away,"
&c. He said, "You startle me: these words make all my bones to shake; I
have no more strength in me; but my forefathers were living at the same
time yours were, and how is it that they did not send them word about
these terrible things sooner? They all passed away into darkness
without knowing whither they were going." I got out of the difficulty
by explaining the geographical barriers in the North, and the gradual
spread of knowledge from the South, to which we first had access by
means of ships; and I expressed my belief that, as Christ had said,
the whole world would yet be enlightened by the Gospel. Pointing to the
great Kalahari desert, he said, "You never can cross that country to the
tribes beyond; it is utterly impossible even for us black men, except in
certain seasons, when more than the usual supply of rain falls, and
an extraordinary growth of watermelons follows. Even we who know the
country would certainly perish without them." Reasserting my belief
in the words of Christ, we parted; and it will be seen farther on that
Sechele himself assisted me in crossing that desert which had previously
proved an insurmountable barrier to so many adventurers.
As soon as he had an opportunity of learning, he set himself to read
with such close application that, from being comparatively thin, the
effect of having been fond of the chase, he became quite corpulent from
want of exercise. Mr. Oswell gave him his first lesson in figures, and
he acquired the alphabet on the first day of my residence at Chonuane.
He was by no means an ordinary specimen of the people, for I never went
into the town but I was pressed to hear him read some chapters of the
Bible. Isaiah was a great favorite with him; and he was wont to use the
same phrase nearly which the professor of Greek at Glasgow, Sir D.
K. Sandford, once used respecting the Apostle Paul, when reading his
speeches in the Acts: "He was a fine fellow, that Paul!" "He was a fine
man, that Isaiah; he knew how to speak." Sechele invariably offered me
something to eat on every occasion of my visiting him.
Seeing me anxious that his people should believe the words of Christ, he
once said, "Do you imagine these people will ever believe by your merely
talking to them? I can make them do nothing except by thrashing them;
and if you like, I shall call my head men, and with our litupa (whips of
rhinoceros hide) we will soon make them all believe together." The idea
of using entreaty and persuasion to subjects to become Christians--whose
opinion on no other matter would he condescend to ask--was especially
surprising to him. He considered that they ought only to be too happy to
embrace Christianity at his command. During the space of two years and
a half he continued to profess to his people his full conviction of the
truth of Christianity; and in all discussions on the subject he took
that side, acting at the same time in an upright manner in all the
relations of life. He felt the difficulties of his situation long before
I did, and often said, "Oh, I wish you had come to this country before
I became entangled in the meshes of our customs!" In fact, he could not
get rid of his superfluous wives, without appearing to be ungrateful to
their parents, who had done so much for him in his adversity.
In the hope that others would be induced to join him in his attachment
to Christianity, he asked me to begin family worship with him in
his house. I did so; and by-and-by was surprised to hear how well he
conducted the prayer in his own simple and beautiful style, for he was
quite a master of his own language. At this time we were suffering from
the effects of a drought, which will be described further on, and none
except his family, whom he ordered to attend, came near his meeting.
"In former times," said he, "when a chief was fond of hunting, all
his people got dogs, and became fond of hunting too. If he was fond of
dancing or music, all showed a liking to these amusements too. If the
chief loved beer, they all rejoiced in strong drink. But in this case
it is different. I love the Word of God, and not one of my brethren will
join me." One reason why we had no volunteer hypocrites was the hunger
from drought, which was associated in their minds with the presence of
Christian instruction; and hypocrisy is not prone to profess a creed
which seems to insure an empty stomach.
Sechele continued to make a consistent profession for about three years;
and perceiving at last some of the difficulties of his case, and also
feeling compassion for the poor women, who were by far the best of our
scholars, I had no desire that he should be in any hurry to make a
full profession by baptism, and putting away all his wives but one. His
principal wife, too, was about the most unlikely subject in the tribe
ever to become any thing else than an out-and-out greasy disciple of
the old school. She has since become greatly altered, I hear, for the
better; but again and again have I seen Sechele send her out of church
to put her gown on, and away she would go with her lips shot out, the
very picture of unutterable disgust at his new-fangled notions.
When he at last applied for baptism, I simply asked him how he, having
the Bible in his hand, and able to read it, thought he ought to act. He
went home, gave each of his superfluous wives new clothing, and all his
own goods, which they had been accustomed to keep in their huts for him,
and sent them to their parents with an intimation that he had no fault
to find with them, but that in parting with them he wished to follow
the will of God. On the day on which he and his children were baptized,
great numbers came to see the ceremony. Some thought, from a stupid
calumny circulated by enemies to Christianity in the south, that the
converts would be made to drink an infusion of "dead men's brains",
and were astonished to find that water only was used at baptism. Seeing
several of the old men actually in tears during the service, I asked
them afterward the cause of their weeping; they were crying to see their
father, as the Scotch remark over a case of suicide, "SO FAR LEFT TO
HIMSELF". They seemed to think that I had thrown the glamour over him,
and that he had become mine. Here commenced an opposition which we had
not previously experienced. All the friends of the divorced wives became
the opponents of our religion. The attendance at school and church
diminished to very few besides the chief's own family. They all treated
us still with respectful kindness, but to Sechele himself they said
things which, as he often remarked, had they ventured on in former
times, would have cost them their lives. It was trying, after all we had
done, to see our labors so little appreciated; but we had sown the good
seed, and have no doubt but it will yet spring up, though we may not
live to see the fruits.
Leaving this sketch of the chief, I proceed to give an equally rapid one
of our dealing with his people, the Bakena, or Bakwains. A small piece
of land, sufficient for a garden, was purchased when we first went to
live with them, though that was scarcely necessary in a country where
the idea of buying land was quite new. It was expected that a request
for a suitable spot would have been made, and that we should have
proceeded to occupy it as any other member of the tribe would. But we
explained to them that we wished to avoid any cause of future dispute
when land had become more valuable; or when a foolish chief began to
reign, and we had erected large or expensive buildings, he might wish
to claim the whole. These reasons were considered satisfactory. About 5
Pounds worth of goods were given for a piece of land, and an arrangement
was come to that a similar piece should be allotted to any other
missionary, at any other place to which the tribe might remove. The
particulars of the sale sounded strangely in the ears of the tribe, but
were nevertheless readily agreed to.
In our relations with this people we were simply strangers exercising
no authority or control whatever. Our influence depended entirely on
persuasion; and having taught them by kind conversation as well as by
public instruction, I expected them to do what their own sense of right
and wrong dictated. We never wished them to do right merely because it
would be pleasing to us, nor thought ourselves to blame when they did
wrong, although we were quite aware of the absurd idea to that effect.
We saw that our teaching did good to the general mind of the people by
bringing new and better motives into play. Five instances are positively
known to me in which, by our influence on public opinion, war was
prevented; and where, in individual cases, we failed, the people did
no worse than they did before we came into the country. In general they
were slow, like all the African people hereafter to be described, in
coming to a decision on religious subjects; but in questions affecting
their worldly affairs they were keenly alive to their own interests.
They might be called stupid in matters which had not come within the
sphere of their observation, but in other things they showed more
intelligence than is to be met with in our own uneducated peasantry.
They are remarkably accurate in their knowledge of cattle, sheep, and
goats, knowing exactly the kind of pasturage suited to each; and
they select with great judgment the varieties of soil best suited to
different kinds of grain. They are also familiar with the habits of wild
animals, and in general are well up in the maxims which embody their
ideas of political wisdom.
The place where we first settled with the Bakwains is called Chonuane,
and it happened to be visited, during the first year of our residence
there, by one of those droughts which occur from time to time in even
the most favored districts of Africa.
The belief in the gift or power of RAIN-MAKING is one of the most
deeply-rooted articles of faith in this country. The chief Sechele was
himself a noted rain-doctor, and believed in it implicitly. He has often
assured me that he found it more difficult to give up his faith in that
than in any thing else which Christianity required him to abjure. I
pointed out to him that the only feasible way of watering the gardens
was to select some good, never-failing river, make a canal, and irrigate
the adjacent lands. This suggestion was immediately adopted, and soon
the whole tribe was on the move to the Kolobeng, a stream about forty
miles distant. The experiment succeeded admirably during the first
year. The Bakwains made the canal and dam in exchange for my labor in
assisting to build a square house for their chief. They also built their
own school under my superintendence. Our house at the River Kolobeng,
which gave a name to the settlement, was the third which I had reared
with my own hands. A native smith taught me to weld iron; and having
improved by scraps of information in that line from Mr. Moffat, and also
in carpentering and gardening, I was becoming handy at almost any trade,
besides doctoring and preaching; and as my wife could make candles,
soap, and clothes, we came nearly up to what may be considered as
indispensable in the accomplishments of a missionary family in Central
Africa, namely, the husband to be a jack-of-all-trades without doors,
and the wife a maid-of-all-work within. But in our second year again no
rain fell. In the third the same extraordinary drought followed. Indeed,
not ten inches of water fell during these two years, and the Kolobeng
ran dry; so many fish were killed that the hyaenas from the whole
country round collected to the feast, and were unable to finish the
putrid masses. A large old alligator, which had never been known to
commit any depredations, was found left high and dry in the mud among
the victims. The fourth year was equally unpropitious, the fall of rain
being insufficient to bring the grain to maturity. Nothing could be more
trying. We dug down in the bed of the river deeper and deeper as the
water receded, striving to get a little to keep the fruit-trees alive
for better times, but in vain. Needles lying out of doors for months did
not rust; and a mixture of sulphuric acid and water, used in a galvanic
battery, parted with all its water to the air, instead of imbibing more
from it, as it would have done in England. The leaves of indigenous
trees were all drooping, soft, and shriveled, though not dead; and those
of the mimosae were closed at midday, the same as they are at night.
In the midst of this dreary drought, it was wonderful to see those tiny
creatures, the ants, running about with their accustomed vivacity. I put
the bulb of a thermometer three inches under the soil, in the sun, at
midday, and found the mercury to stand at 132 Deg. to 134 Deg.; and if
certain kinds of beetles were placed on the surface, they ran about
a few seconds and expired. But this broiling heat only augmented the
activity of the long-legged black ants: they never tire; their organs of
motion seem endowed with the same power as is ascribed by physiologists
to the muscles of the human heart, by which that part of the frame never
becomes fatigued, and which may be imparted to all our bodily organs in
that higher sphere to which we fondly hope to rise. Where do these
ants get their moisture? Our house was built on a hard ferruginous
conglomerate, in order to be out of the way of the white ant, but they
came in despite the precaution; and not only were they, in this sultry
weather, able individually to moisten soil to the consistency of mortar
for the formation of galleries, which, in their way of working, is done
by night (so that they are screened from the observation of birds by day
in passing and repassing toward any vegetable matter they may wish to
devour), but, when their inner chambers were laid open, these were also
surprisingly humid. Yet there was no dew, and, the house being placed on
a rock, they could have no subterranean passage to the bed of the river,
which ran about three hundred yards below the hill. Can it be that they
have the power of combining the oxygen and hydrogen of their vegetable
food by vital force so as to form water?*
* When we come to Angola, I shall describe an insect there
which distills several pints of water every night.
Rain, however, would not fall. The Bakwains believed that I had bound
Sechele with some magic spell, and I received deputations, in the
evenings, of the old counselors, entreating me to allow him to make only
a few showers: "The corn will die if you refuse, and we shall become
scattered. Only let him make rain this once, and we shall all, men,
women, and children, come to the school, and sing and pray as long as
you please." It was in vain to protest that I wished Sechele to act just
according to his own ideas of what was right, as he found the law laid
down in the Bible, and it was distressing to appear hard-hearted to
them. The clouds often collected promisingly over us, and rolling
thunder seemed to portend refreshing showers, but next morning the
sun would rise in a clear, cloudless sky; indeed, even these lowering
appearances were less frequent by far than days of sunshine are in
London.
The natives, finding it irksome to sit and wait helplessly until God
gives them rain from heaven, entertain the more comfortable idea that
they can help themselves by a variety of preparations, such as
charcoal made of burned bats, inspissated renal deposit of the mountain
cony--'Hyrax capensis'--(which, by the way, is used, in the form of
pills, as a good antispasmodic, under the name of "stone-sweat"*), the
internal parts of different animals--as jackals' livers, baboons' and
lions' hearts, and hairy calculi from the bowels of old cows--serpents'
skins and vertebrae, and every kind of tuber, bulb, root, and plant
to be found in the country. Although you disbelieve their efficacy
in charming the clouds to pour out their refreshing treasures, yet,
conscious that civility is useful every where, you kindly state that
you think they are mistaken as to their power. The rain-doctor selects a
particular bulbous root, pounds it, and administers a cold infusion to
a sheep, which in five minutes afterward expires in convulsions. Part of
the same bulb is converted into smoke, and ascends toward the sky;
rain follows in a day or two. The inference is obvious. Were we as much
harassed by droughts, the logic would be irresistible in England in
1857.
* The name arises from its being always voided on one spot,
in the manner practiced by others of the rhinocerontine family;
and, by the action of the sun, it becomes a black, pitchy substance.
As the Bakwains believed that there must be some connection between
the presence of "God's Word" in their town and these successive and
distressing droughts, they looked with no good will at the church bell,
but still they invariably treated us with kindness and respect. I am not
aware of ever having had an enemy in the tribe. The only avowed cause of
dislike was expressed by a very influential and sensible man, the uncle
of Sechele. "We like you as well as if you had been born among us; you
are the only white man we can become familiar with (thoaela); but we
wish you to give up that everlasting preaching and praying; we can not
become familiar with that at all. You see we never get rain, while those
tribes who never pray as we do obtain abundance." This was a fact; and
we often saw it raining on the hills ten miles off, while it would not
look at us "even with one eye". If the Prince of the power of the air
had no hand in scorching us up, I fear I often gave him the credit of
doing so.
As for the rain-makers, they carried the sympathies of the people along
with them, and not without reason. With the following arguments they
were all acquainted, and in order to understand their force, we must
place ourselves in their position, and believe, as they do, that all
medicines act by a mysterious charm. The term for cure may be translated
"charm" ('alaha').
MEDICAL DOCTOR. Hail, friend! How very many medicines you have about you
this morning! Why, you have every medicine in the country here.
RAIN DOCTOR. Very true, my friend; and I ought; for the whole country
needs the rain which I am making.
M. D. So you really believe that you can command the clouds? I think
that can be done by God alone.
R. D. We both believe the very same thing. It is God that makes the
rain, but I pray to him by means of these medicines, and, the rain
coming, of course it is then mine. It was I who made it for the Bakwains
for many years, when they were at Shokuane; through my wisdom, too,
their women became fat and shining. Ask them; they will tell you the
same as I do.
M. D. But we are distinctly told in the parting words of our Savior that
we can pray to God acceptably in his name alone, and not by means of
medicines.
R. D. Truly! but God told us differently. He made black men first, and
did not love us as he did the white men. He made you beautiful, and gave
you clothing, and guns, and gunpowder, and horses, and wagons, and many
other things about which we know nothing. But toward us he had no heart.
He gave us nothing except the assegai, and cattle, and rain-making; and
he did not give us hearts like yours. We never love each other. Other
tribes place medicines about our country to prevent the rain, so that we
may be dispersed by hunger, and go to them, and augment their power. We
must dissolve their charms by our medicines. God has given us one little
thing, which you know nothing of. He has given us the knowledge of
certain medicines by which we can make rain. WE do not despise those
things which you possess, though we are ignorant of them. We don't
understand your book, yet we don't despise it. YOU ought not to despise
our little knowledge, though you are ignorant of it.
M. D. I don't despise what I am ignorant of; I only think you are
mistaken in saying that you have medicines which can influence the rain
at all.
R. D. That's just the way people speak when they talk on a subject of
which they have no knowledge. When we first opened our eyes, we found
our forefathers making rain, and we follow in their footsteps. You, who
send to Kuruman for corn, and irrigate your garden, may do without rain;
WE can not manage in that way. If we had no rain, the cattle would have
no pasture, the cows give no milk, our children become lean and die, our
wives run away to other tribes who do make rain and have corn, and the
whole tribe become dispersed and lost; our fire would go out.
M. D. I quite agree with you as to the value of the rain; but you can
not charm the clouds by medicines. You wait till you see the clouds
come, then you use your medicines, and take the credit which belongs to
God only.
R. D. I use my medicines, and you employ yours; we are both doctors, and
doctors are not deceivers. You give a patient medicine. Sometimes God is
pleased to heal him by means of your medicine; sometimes not--he dies.
When he is cured, you take the credit of what God does. I do the same.
Sometimes God grants us rain, sometimes not. When he does, we take the
credit of the charm. When a patient dies, you don't give up trust in
your medicine, neither do I when rain fails. If you wish me to leave off
my medicines, why continue your own?
M. D. I give medicine to living creatures within my reach, and can see
the effects, though no cure follows; you pretend to charm the clouds,
which are so far above us that your medicines never reach them. The
clouds usually lie in one direction, and your smoke goes in another. God
alone can command the clouds. Only try and wait patiently; God will give
us rain without your medicines.
R. D. Mahala-ma-kapa-a-a!! Well, I always thought white men were wise
till this morning. Who ever thought of making trial of starvation? Is
death pleasant, then?
M. D. Could you make it rain on one spot and not on another?
R. D. I wouldn't think of trying. I like to see the whole country green,
and all the people glad; the women clapping their hands, and giving me
their ornaments for thankfulness, and lullilooing for joy.
M. D. I think you deceive both them and yourself.
R. D. Well, then, there is a pair of us (meaning both are rogues).
The above is only a specimen of their way of reasoning, in which, when
the language is well understood, they are perceived to be remarkably
acute. These arguments are generally known, and I never succeeded in
convincing a single individual of their fallacy, though I tried to do
so in every way I could think of. Their faith in medicines as charms is
unbounded. The general effect of argument is to produce the impression
that you are not anxious for rain at all; and it is very undesirable
to allow the idea to spread that you do not take a generous interest
in their welfare. An angry opponent of rain-making in a tribe would be
looked upon as were some Greek merchants in England during the Russian
war.
The conduct of the people during this long-continued drought was
remarkably good. The women parted with most of their ornaments to
purchase corn from more fortunate tribes. The children scoured the
country in search of the numerous bulbs and roots which can sustain
life, and the men engaged in hunting. Very great numbers of the large
game, buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, tsessebes, kamas or hartebeests,
kokongs or gnus, pallahs, rhinoceroses, etc., congregated at some
fountains near Kolobeng, and the trap called "hopo" was constructed,
in the lands adjacent, for their destruction. The hopo consists of two
hedges in the form of the letter V, which are very high and thick near
the angle. Instead of the hedges being joined there, they are made to
form a lane of about fifty yards in length, at the extremity of which
a pit is formed, six or eight feet deep, and about twelve or fifteen in
breadth and length. Trunks of trees are laid across the margins of the
pit, and more especially over that nearest the lane where the animals
are expected to leap in, and over that farthest from the lane where it
is supposed they will attempt to escape after they are in. The trees
form an overlapping border, and render escape almost impossible. The
whole is carefully decked with short green rushes, making the pit like
a concealed pitfall. As the hedges are frequently about a mile long, and
about as much apart at their extremities, a tribe making a circle three
or four miles round the country adjacent to the opening, and gradually
closing up, are almost sure to inclose a large body of game. Driving it
up with shouts to the narrow part of the hopo, men secreted there throw
their javelins into the affrighted herds, and on the animals rush to the
opening presented at the converging hedges, and into the pit, till that
is full of a living mass. Some escape by running over the others, as
a Smithfield market-dog does over the sheep's backs. It is a frightful
scene. The men, wild with excitement, spear the lovely animals with mad
delight; others of the poor creatures, borne down by the weight of their
dead and dying companions, every now and then make the whole mass heave
in their smothering agonies.
The Bakwains often killed between sixty and seventy head of large game
at the different hopos in a single week; and as every one, both rich and
poor, partook of the prey, the meat counteracted the bad effects of an
exclusively vegetable diet. When the poor, who had no salt, were forced
to live entirely on roots, they were often troubled with indigestion.
Such cases we had frequent opportunities of seeing at other times, for,
the district being destitute of salt, the rich alone could afford to
buy it. The native doctors, aware of the cause of the malady, usually
prescribed some of that ingredient with their medicines. The doctors
themselves had none, so the poor resorted to us for aid. We took the
hint, and henceforth cured the disease by giving a teaspoonful of salt,
minus the other remedies. Either milk or meat had the same effect,
though not so rapidly as salt. Long afterward, when I was myself
deprived of salt for four months, at two distinct periods, I felt no
desire for that condiment, but I was plagued by very great longing for
the above articles of food. This continued as long as I was confined
to an exclusively vegetable diet, and when I procured a meal of flesh,
though boiled in perfectly fresh rain-water, it tasted as pleasantly
saltish as if slightly impregnated with the condiment. Milk or meat,
obtained in however small quantities, removed entirely the excessive
longing and dreaming about roasted ribs of fat oxen, and bowls of cool
thick milk gurgling forth from the big-bellied calabashes; and I could
then understand the thankfulness to Mrs. L. often expressed by poor
Bakwain women, in the interesting condition, for a very little of
either.
In addition to other adverse influences, the general uncertainty, though
not absolute want of food, and the necessity of frequent absence for the
purpose of either hunting game or collecting roots and fruits, proved
a serious barrier to the progress of the people in knowledge. Our own
education in England is carried on at the comfortable breakfast and
dinner table, and by the cosy fire, as well as in the church and school.
Few English people with stomachs painfully empty would be decorous at
church any more than they are when these organs are overcharged. Ragged
schools would have been a failure had not the teachers wisely provided
food for the body as well as food for the mind; and not only must we
show a friendly interest in the bodily comfort of the objects of our
sympathy as a Christian duty, but we can no more hope for healthy
feelings among the poor, either at home or abroad, without feeding them
into them, than we can hope to see an ordinary working-bee reared into a
queen-mother by the ordinary food of the hive.
Sending the Gospel to the heathen must, if this view be correct, include
much more than is implied in the usual picture of a missionary, namely,
a man going about with a Bible under his arm. The promotion of commerce
ought to be specially attended to, as this, more speedily than any thing
else, demolishes that sense of isolation which heathenism engenders,
and makes the tribes feel themselves mutually dependent on, and mutually
beneficial to each other. With a view to this, the missionaries at
Kuruman got permission from the government for a trader to reside at
the station, and a considerable trade has been the result; the trader
himself has become rich enough to retire with a competence. Those laws
which still prevent free commercial intercourse among the civilized
nations seem to be nothing else but the remains of our own heathenism.
My observations on this subject make me extremely desirous to promote
the preparation of the raw materials of European manufactures in Africa,
for by that means we may not only put a stop to the slave-trade, but
introduce the negro family into the body corporate of nations, no one
member of which can suffer without the others suffering with it. Success
in this, in both Eastern and Western Africa, would lead, in the course
of time, to a much larger diffusion of the blessings of civilization
than efforts exclusively spiritual and educational confined to any one
small tribe. These, however, it would of course be extremely desirable
to carry on at the same time at large central and healthy stations, for
neither civilization nor Christianity can be promoted alone. In fact,
they are inseparable.
Chapter 2.
The Boers--Their Treatment of the Natives--Seizure of native Children
for Slaves--English Traders--Alarm of the Boers--Native Espionage--The
Tale of the Cannon--The Boers threaten Sechele--In violation of Treaty,
they stop English Traders and expel Missionaries--They attack
the Bakwains--Their Mode of Fighting--The Natives killed and
the School-children carried into Slavery--Destruction of English
Property--African Housebuilding and Housekeeping--Mode of Spending
the Day--Scarcity of Food--Locusts--Edible Frogs--Scavenger
Beetle--Continued Hostility of the Boers--The Journey
north--Preparations--Fellow-travelers--The Kalahari Desert--
Vegetation--Watermelons--The Inhabitants--The Bushmen--Their nomad Mode
of Life--Appearance--The Bakalahari--Their Love for Agriculture and
for domestic Animals--Timid Character--Mode of obtaining Water--Female
Water-suckers--The Desert--Water hidden.
Another adverse influence with which the mission had to contend was
the vicinity of the Boers of the Cashan Mountains, otherwise named
"Magaliesberg". These are not to be counfounded with the Cape colonists,
who sometimes pass by the name. The word Boer simply means "farmer", and
is not synonymous with our word boor. Indeed, to the Boers generally
the latter term would be quite inappropriate, for they are a sober,
industrious, and most hospitable body of peasantry. Those, however, who
have fled from English law on various pretexts, and have been joined
by English deserters and every other variety of bad character in their
distant localities, are unfortunately of a very different stamp. The
great objection many of the Boers had, and still have, to English law,
is that it makes no distinction between black men and white. They
felt aggrieved by their supposed losses in the emancipation of their
Hottentot slaves, and determined to erect themselves into a republic, in
which they might pursue, without molestation, the "proper treatment of
the blacks". It is almost needless to add that the "proper treatment"
has always contained in it the essential element of slavery, namely,
compulsory unpaid labor.
One section of this body, under the late Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter,
penetrated the interior as far as the Cashan Mountains, whence a Zulu
or Caffre chief, named Mosilikatze, had been expelled by the well-known
Caffre Dingaan; and a glad welcome was given them by the Bechuana
tribes, who had just escaped the hard sway of that cruel chieftain. They
came with the prestige of white men and deliverers; but the Bechuanas
soon found, as they expressed it, "that Mosilikatze was cruel to his
enemies, and kind to those he conquered; but that the Boers destroyed
their enemies, and made slaves of their friends." The tribes who still
retain the semblance of independence are forced to perform all the labor
of the fields, such as manuring the land, weeding, reaping, building,
making dams and canals, and at the same time to support themselves.
I have myself been an eye-witness of Boers coming to a village, and,
according to their usual custom, demanding twenty or thirty women to
weed their gardens, and have seen these women proceed to the scene of
unrequited toil, carrying their own food on their heads, their children
on their backs, and instruments of labor on their shoulders. Nor have
the Boers any wish to conceal the meanness of thus employing unpaid
labor; on the contrary, every one of them, from Mr. Potgeiter and Mr.
Gert Krieger, the commandants, downward, lauded his own humanity and
justice in making such an equitable regulation. "We make the people work
for us, in consideration of allowing them to live in our country."
I can appeal to the Commandant Krieger if the foregoing is not a fair
and impartial statement of the views of himself and his people. I am
sensible of no mental bias toward or against these Boers; and during the
several journeys I made to the poor enslaved tribes, I never avoided
the whites, but tried to cure and did administer remedies to their sick,
without money and without price. It is due to them to state that I was
invariably treated with respect; but it is most unfortunate that
they should have been left by their own Church for so many years to
deteriorate and become as degraded as the blacks, whom the stupid
prejudice against color leads them to detest.
This new species of slavery which they have adopted serves to supply the
lack of field-labor only. The demand for domestic servants must be met
by forays on tribes which have good supplies of cattle. The Portuguese
can quote instances in which blacks become so degraded by the love of
strong drink as actually to sell themselves; but never in any one case,
within the memory of man, has a Bechuana chief sold any of his people,
or a Bechuana man his child. Hence the necessity for a foray to seize
children. And those individual Boers who would not engage in it for the
sake of slaves can seldom resist the two-fold plea of a well-told
story of an intended uprising of the devoted tribe, and the prospect of
handsome pay in the division of the captured cattle besides.
It is difficult for a person in a civilized country to conceive that
any body of men possessing the common attributes of humanity (and these
Boers are by no means destitute of the better feelings of our nature)
should with one accord set out, after loading their own wives and
children with caresses, and proceed to shoot down in cold blood men
and women, of a different color, it is true, but possessed of domestic
feelings and affections equal to their own. I saw and conversed with
children in the houses of Boers who had, by their own and their masters'
account, been captured, and in several instances I traced the parents
of these unfortunates, though the plan approved by the long-headed among
the burghers is to take children so young that they soon forget their
parents and their native language also. It was long before I could give
credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses, and had I
received no other testimony but theirs I should probably have continued
skeptical to this day as to the truth of the accounts; but when I found
the Boers themselves, some bewailing and denouncing, others glorying in
the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the actors, I was
compelled to admit the validity of the testimony, and try to account for
the cruel anomaly. They are all traditionally religious, tracing their
descent from some of the best men (Huguenots and Dutch) the world ever
saw. Hence they claim to themselves the title of "Christians", and all
the colored race are "black property" or "creatures". They being the
chosen people of God, the heathen are given to them for an inheritance,
and they are the rod of divine vengeance on the heathen, as were the
Jews of old. Living in the midst of a native population much larger than
themselves, and at fountains removed many miles from each other, they
feel somewhat in the same insecure position as do the Americans in
the Southern States. The first question put by them to strangers is
respecting peace; and when they receive reports from disaffected or
envious natives against any tribe, the case assumes all the appearance
and proportions of a regular insurrection. Severe measures then appear
to the most mildly disposed among them as imperatively called for, and,
however bloody the massacre that follows, no qualms of conscience ensue:
it is a dire necessity for the sake of peace. Indeed, the late Mr.
Hendrick Potgeiter most devoutly believed himself to be the great
peacemaker of the country.
But how is it that the natives, being so vastly superior in numbers to
the Boers, do not rise and annihilate them? The people among whom they
live are Bechuanas, not Caffres, though no one would ever learn that
distinction from a Boer; and history does not contain one single
instance in which the Bechuanas, even those of them who possess
fire-arms, have attacked either the Boers or the English. If there is
such an instance, I am certain it is not generally known, either beyond
or in the Cape Colony. They have defended themselves when attacked, as
in the case of Sechele, but have never engaged in offensive war with
Europeans. We have a very different tale to tell of the Caffres, and the
difference has always been so evident to these border Boers that, ever
since those "magnificent savages"* obtained possession of fire-arms, not
one Boer has ever attempted to settle in Caffreland, or even face them
as an enemy in the field. The Boers have generally manifested a marked
antipathy to any thing but "long-shot" warfare, and, sidling away in
their emigrations toward the more effeminate Bechuanas, have left their
quarrels with the Caffres to be settled by the English, and their wars
to be paid for by English gold.
* The "United Service Journal" so styles them.
The Bakwains at Kolobeng had the spectacle of various tribes enslaved
before their eyes--the Bakatla, the Batlokua, the Bahukeng, the
Bamosetla, and two other tribes of Bakwains were all groaning under
the oppression of unrequited labor. This would not have been felt as so
great an evil but that the young men of those tribes, anxious to obtain
cattle, the only means of rising to respectability and importance among
their own people, were in the habit of sallying forth, like our Irish
and Highland reapers, to procure work in the Cape Colony. After laboring
there three or four years, in building stone dikes and dams for the
Dutch farmers, they were well content if at the end of that time they
could return with as many cows. On presenting one to their chief, they
ranked as respectable men in the tribe ever afterward. These volunteers
were highly esteemed among the Dutch, under the name of Mantatees. They
were paid at the rate of one shilling a day and a large loaf of bread
between six of them. Numbers of them, who had formerly seen me about
twelve hundred miles inland from the Cape, recognized me with the loud
laughter of joy when I was passing them at their work in the Roggefelt
and Bokkefelt, within a few days of Cape Town. I conversed with them and
with elders of the Dutch Church, for whom they were working, and found
that the system was thoroughly satisfactory to both parties. I do not
believe that there is one Boer, in the Cashan or Magaliesberg country,
who would deny that a law was made, in consequence of this labor passing
to the colony, to deprive these laborers of their hardly-earned cattle,
for the very cogent reason that, "if they want to work, let them work
for us their masters," though boasting that in their case it would not
be paid for. I can never cease to be most unfeignedly thankful that I
was not born in a land of slaves. No one can understand the effect of
the unutterable meanness of the slave-system on the minds of those
who, but for the strange obliquity which prevents them from feeling the
degradation of not being gentlemen enough to pay for services rendered,
would be equal in virtue to ourselves. Fraud becomes as natural to them
as "paying one's way" is to the rest of mankind.
Wherever a missionary lives, traders are sure to come; they are mutually
dependent, and each aids in the work of the other; but experience shows
that the two employments can not very well be combined in the same
person. Such a combination would not be morally wrong, for nothing would
be more fair, and apostolical too, than that the man who devotes
his time to the spiritual welfare of a people should derive temporal
advantage from upright commerce, which traders, who aim exclusively at
their own enrichment, modestly imagine ought to be left to them. But,
though it is right for missionaries to trade, the present system of
missions renders it inexpedient to spend time in so doing. No missionary
with whom I ever came in contact, traded; and while the traders, whom
we introduced and rendered secure in the country, waxed rich, the
missionaries have invariably remained poor, and have died so. The
Jesuits, in Africa at least, were wiser in their generation than we;
theirs were large, influential communities, proceeding on the system of
turning the abilities of every brother into that channel in which he
was most likely to excel; one, fond of natural history, was allowed to
follow his bent; another, fond of literature, found leisure to pursue
his studies; and he who was great in barter was sent in search of ivory
and gold-dust; so that while in the course of performing the religious
acts of his mission to distant tribes, he found the means of aiding
effectually the brethren whom he had left in the central settlement.* We
Protestants, with the comfortable conviction of superiority, have sent
out missionaries with a bare subsistence only, and are unsparing in our
laudations of some for not being worldly-minded whom our niggardliness
made to live as did the prodigal son. I do not speak of myself, nor need
I to do so, but for that very reason I feel at liberty to interpose a
word in behalf of others. I have before my mind at this moment facts and
instances which warrant my putting the case in this way: The command to
"go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature" must be
obeyed by Christians either personally or by substitute. Now it is quite
possible to find men whose love for the heathen and devotion to the work
will make them ready to go forth on the terms "ba