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.
Having sent my family home
to England, I started in the beginning of June, 1852, on my last journey
from Cape Town. This journey extended from the southern extremity of the
continent to St. Paul de Loando, the capital of Angola, on the west coast,
and thence across South Central Africa in an oblique direction to Kilimane
(Quilimane) in Eastern Africa. I proceeded in the usual conveyance of the
country, the heavy, lumbering Cape wagon drawn by ten oxen, and was
accompanied by two Christian Bechuanas from Kuruman -- than whom I never
saw better servants any where -- by two Bakwain men, and two young girls,
who, having come as nurses with our children to the Cape, were returning
to their home at Kolobeng. Wagon-traveling in Africa has been so often
described that I need say no more than that it is a prolonged system of
picnicking, excellent for the health, and agreeable to those who are not
over-fastidious about trifles, and who delight in being in the open air.
Our route to the north lay near the centre of
the cone-shaped mass of land which constitutes the promontory of the Cape.
If we suppose this cone to be divided into three zones or longitudinal
bands, we find each presenting distinct peculiarities of climate, physical
appearance and population. These are more marked beyond than within the
colony. At some points one district seems to be continued in and to merge
into the other, but the general dissimilarity warrants the division, as an
aid to memory.
The eastern zone is often
furnished with mountains, well wooded with evergreen succulent trees, on
which neither fire nor droughts can have the smallest effect
(`Strelitzia', `Zamia horrida', `Portulacaria afra', `Schotia speciosa',
`Euphorbias', and `Aloes arborescens'); and its seaboard gorges are clad
with gigantic timber. It is also comparatively well watered with streams
and flowing rivers. The annual supply of rain is considerable, and the
inhabitants (Caffres or Zulus) are tall, muscular, and well made; they are
shrewd, energetic, and brave; altogether they merit the character given
them by military authorities, of being "magnificent savages". Their
splendid physical development and form of skull show that, but for the
black skin and woolly hair, they would take rank among the foremost
Europeans. The next
division, that which embraces the centre of the continent, can scarcely be
called hilly, for what hills there are are very low. It consists for the
most part of extensive, slightly undulating plains. There are no lofty
mountains, but few springs, and still fewer flowing streams. Rain is far
from abundant, and droughts may be expected every few years. Without
artificial irrigation no European grain can be raised, and the inhabitants
(Bechuanas), though evidently of the same stock, originally, with those
already mentioned, and closely resembling them in being an agricultural as
well as a pastoral people, are a comparatively timid race, and inferior to
the Caffres in physical development.
The western division is still more level than
the middle one, being rugged only near the coast. It includes the great
plain called the Kalahari Desert, which is remarkable for little water and
very considerable vegetation. The reason, probably, why so little rain
falls on this extensive plain is that the prevailing winds of most of the
interior country are easterly, with a little southing. The moisture taken
up by the atmosphere from the Indian Ocean is deposited on the eastern
hilly slope; and when the moving mass of air reaches its greatest
elevation, it is then on the verge of the great valley, or, as in the case
of the Kalahari, the great heated inland plains; there, meeting with the
rarefied air of that hot, dry surface, the ascending heat gives it greater
capacity for retaining all its remaining humidity, and few showers can be
given to the middle and western lands in consequence of the increased
hygrometric power.
This is the same phenomenon, on a gigantic scale, as that which takes
place on Table Mountain, at the Cape, in what is called the spreading of
the "table-cloth". The southeast wind causes a mass of air, equal to
the diameter of the mountain, suddenly to ascend at least three thousand
feet; the dilatation produced by altitude, with its attendant cold, causes
the immediate formation of a cloud on the summit; the water in the
atmosphere becomes visible; successive masses of gliding-up and
passing-over air cause the continual formation of clouds, but the top of
the vapory mass, or "table-cloth", is level, and seemingly motionless; on
the lee side, however, the thick volumes of vapor curl over and descend,
but when they reach the point below, where greater density and higher
temperature impart enlarged capacity for carrying water, they entirely
disappear. Now if, instead of a hollow on the lee side of Table Mountain,
we had an elevated heated plain, the clouds which curl over that side, and
disappear as they do at present when a "southeaster" is blowing, might
deposit some moisture on the windward ascent and top; but the heat would
then impart the increased capacity the air now receives at the lower level
in its descent to leeward, and, instead of an extended country with a
flora of the `Disa grandiflora', `gladiolus', `rushes', and `lichens',
which now appear on Table Mountain, we should have only the hardy
vegetation of the Kalahari.
Why there should be so much vegetation on the
Kalahari may be explained by the geological formation of the country.
There is a rim or fringe of ancient rocks round a great central valley,
which, dipping inward, form a basin, the bottom of which is composed of
the oldest silurian rocks. This basin has been burst through and filled up
in many parts by eruptive traps and breccias, which often bear in their
substances angular fragments of the more ancient rocks, as shown in the
fossils they contain. Now, though large areas have been so dislocated that
but little trace of the original valley formation appears, it is highly
probable that the basin shape prevails over large tracts of the country;
and as the strata on the slopes, where most of the rain falls, dip in
toward the centre, they probably guide water beneath the plains but ill
supplied with moisture from the clouds.
The phenomenon of stagnant
fountains becoming by a new and deeper outlet never-failing streams may be
confirmatory of the view that water is conveyed from the sides of the
country into the bottom of the central valley; and it is not beyond the
bounds of possibility that the wonderful river system in the north, which,
if native information be correct, causes a considerable increase of water
in the springs called Matlomagan-yana (the Links), extends its fertilizing
influence beneath the plains of the Kalahari. The peculiar formation of
the country may explain why there is such a difference in the vegetation
between the 20th and 30th parallels of latitude in South Africa and the
same latitudes in Central Australia. The want of vegetation is as
true of some parts too in the centre of South America as of Australia; and
the cause of the difference holds out a probability for the success of
artesian wells in extensive tracts of Africa now unpeopled solely on
account of the want of surface water. We may be allowed to speculate a
little at least on the fact of much greater vegetation, which, from
whatever source it comes, presents for South Africa prospects of future
greatness which we can not hope for in Central Australia. As the interior
districts of the Cape Colony are daily becoming of higher value, offering
to honest industry a fair remuneration for capital, and having a climate
unequaled in salubrity for consumptive patients, I should unhesitatingly
recommend any farmer at all afraid of that complaint in his family to try
this colony. With the means of education already possessed, and the onward
and upward movement of the Cape population, he need entertain no
apprehensions of his family sinking into barbarism.
The route we at this time followed ran along
the middle, or skirted the western zone before alluded to, until we
reached the latitude of Lake Ngami, where a totally different country
begins. While in the colony, we passed through districts inhabited by the
descendants of Dutch and French refugees who had fled from religious
persecution. Those living near the capital differ but little from the
middle classes in English counties, and are distinguished by public spirit
and general intelligence; while those situated far from the centres of
civilization are less informed, but are a body of frugal, industrious, and
hospitable peasantry.
A most efficient system of
public instruction was established in the time of Governor Sir George
Napier, on a plan drawn up in a great measure by that accomplished
philosopher, Sir John Herschel. The system had to contend with less
sectarian rancor than elsewhere; indeed, until quite recently, that
spirit, except in a mild form, was unknown. The population here described
ought not to be confounded with some Boers who fled from British rule on
account of the emancipation of their Hottentot slaves, and perhaps never
would have been so had not every now and then some Rip Van Winkle started
forth at the Cape to justify in the public prints the deeds of blood and
slave-hunting in the far interior. It is therefore not to be wondered at
if the whole race is confounded and held in low estimation by those who do
not know the real composition of the Cape community.
Population among the Boers
increases rapidly; they marry soon, are seldom sterile, and continue to
have children late. I once met a worthy matron whose husband thought it
right to imitate the conduct of Abraham while Sarah was barren; she
evidently agreed in the propriety of the measure, for she was pleased to
hear the children by a mother of what has been thought an inferior race
address her as their mother. Orphans are never allowed to remain long
destitute; and instances are frequent in which a tender-hearted farmer has
adopted a fatherless child, and when it came of age portioned it as his
own.
Two centuries of the South
African climate have not had much effect upon the physical condition of
the Boers. They are a shade darker, or rather ruddier, than Europeans, and
are never cadaverous-looking, as descendants of Europeans are said to be
elsewhere. There is a tendency to the development of steatopyga, so
characteristic of Arabs and other African tribes; and it is probable that
the interior Boers in another century will become in color what the
learned imagine our progenitors, Adam and Eve, to have been.
The parts of the colony
through which we passed were of sterile aspect; and, as the present winter
had been preceded by a severe drought, many farmers had lost two thirds of
their stock. The landscape was uninviting; the hills, destitute of trees,
were of a dark brown color, and the scanty vegetation on the plains made
me feel that they deserved the name of Desert more than the Kalahari. When
first taken possession of, these parts are said to have been covered with
a coating of grass, but that has disappeared with the antelopes which fed
upon it, and a crop of mesembryanthemums and crassulas occupies its place.
It is curious to observe
how, in nature, organizations the most dissimilar are mutually dependent
on each other for their perpetuation. Here the original grasses were
dependent for dissemination on the grass-feeding animals, which scattered
the seeds. When, by the death of the antelopes, no fresh sowing was made,
the African droughts proved too much for this form of vegetation.
But even this contingency
was foreseen by the Omniscient One; for, as we may now observe in the
Kalahari Desert, another family of plants, the mesembryanthemums, stood
ready to neutralize the aridity which must otherwise have followed. This
family of plants possesses seed-vessels which remain firmly shut on their
contents while the soil is hot and dry, and thus preserve the vegetative
power intact during the highest heat of the torrid sun; but when rain
falls, the seed-vessel opens and sheds its contents just when there is the
greatest probability of their vegetating. In other plants heat and drought
cause the seed-vessels to burst and shed their charge.
One of this family is edible
(`Mesembryanthemum edule'); another possesses a tuberous root, which may
be eaten raw; and all are furnished with thick, fleshy leaves, having
pores capable of imbibing and retaining moisture from a very dry
atmosphere and soil, so that, if a leaf is broken during a period of the
greatest drought, it shows abundant circulating sap. The plants of this
family are found much farther north, but the great abundance of the
grasses prevents them from making any show. There, however, they stand
ready to fill up any gap which may occur in the present prevailing
vegetation; and should the grasses disappear, animal life would not
necessarily be destroyed, because a reserve supply, equivalent to a fresh
act of creative power, has been provided.
One of this family, `M.
turbiniforme', is so colored as to blend in well with the hue of the soil
and stones around it; and a `gryllus' of the same color feeds on it. In
the case of the insect, the peculiar color is given as compensation for
the deficiency of the powers of motion to enable it to elude the notice of
birds. The continuation of the species is here the end in view. In the
case of the plant the same device is adopted for a sort of double end,
viz., perpetuation of the plant by hiding it from animals, with the view
that ultimately its extensive appearance will sustain that race. As this
new vegetation is better adapted for sheep and goats in a dry country than
grass, the Boers supplant the latter by imitating the process by which
graminivorous antelopes have so abundantly disseminated the seed of
grasses. A few wagon-loads of mesembryanthemum plants, in seed, are
brought to a farm covered with a scanty crop of coarse grass, and placed
on a spot to which the sheep have access in the evenings. As they eat a
little every night, the seeds are dropped over the grazing grounds in this
simple way, with a regularity which could not be matched except at the
cost of an immense amount of labor. The place becomes in the course of a
few years a sheep-farm, as these animals thrive on such herbage.
As already mentioned, some
plants of this family are furnished with an additional contrivance for
withstanding droughts, viz., oblong tubers, which, buried deep enough
beneath the soil for complete protection from the scorching sun, serve as
reservoirs of sap and nutriment during those rainless periods which recur
perpetually in even the most favored spots of Africa. I have adverted to
this peculiarity as often seen in the vegetation of the Desert; and,
though rather out of place, it may be well -- while noticing a clever
imitation of one process in nature by the Cape farmers -- to suggest
another for their consideration. The country beyond south lat. 18 Deg.
abounds in three varieties of grape-bearing vines, and one of these is
furnished with oblong tubers every three or four inches along the
horizontal root. They resemble closely those of the asparagus. This
increase of power to withstand the effects of climate might prove of value
in the more arid parts of the Cape colony, grapes being well known to be
an excellent restorative in the debility produced by heat: by ingrafting,
or by some of those curious manipulations which we read of in books on
gardening, a variety might be secured better adapted to the country than
the foreign vines at present cultivated.
The Americans find that
some of their native vines yield wines superior to those made from the
very best imported vines from France and Portugal. What a boon a vine of
the sort contemplated would have been to a Rhenish missionary I met at a
part in the west of the colony called Ebenezer, whose children had never
seen flowers, though old enough to talk about them!
The slow pace at which we wound our way
through the colony made almost any subject interesting. The attention is
attracted to the names of different places, because they indicate the
former existence of buffaloes, elands, and elephants, which are now to be
found only hundreds of miles beyond. A few blesbucks (`Antilope pygarga'),
gnus, bluebucks (`A. cerulea'), steinbucks, and the ostrich (`Struthio
camelus'), continue, like the Bushmen, to maintain a precarious existence
when all the rest are gone. The elephant, the most sagacious, flees the
sound of fire-arms first; the gnu and ostrich, the most wary and the most
stupid, last.
The first emigrants found
the Hottentots in possession of prodigious herds of fine cattle, but no
horses, asses, or camels. The original cattle, which may still be seen in
some parts of the frontier, must have been brought south from the
north-northeast, for from this point the natives universally ascribe their
original migration. They brought cattle, sheep, goats, and dogs; why not
the horse, the delight of savage hordes? Horses thrive well in the Cape
Colony when imported. Naturalists point out certain mountain ranges as
limiting the habitat of certain classes of animals; but there is no
Cordillera in Africa to answer that purpose, there being no visible
barrier between the northeastern Arabs and the Hottentot tribes to prevent
the different hordes, as they felt their way southward, from indulging
their taste for the possession of this noble animal.
I am here led to notice an invisible barrier,
more insurmountable than mountain ranges, but which is not opposed to the
southern progress of cattle, goats, and sheep. The tsetse would prove a
barrier only until its well-defined habitat was known, but the disease
passing under the term of horse-sickness (peripneumonia) exists in such
virulence over nearly seven degrees of latitude that no precaution would
be sufficient to save these animals. The horse is so liable to this
disease, that only by great care in stabling can he be kept any where
between 20 Deg. and 27 Deg. S. during the time between December and April.
The winter, beginning in
the latter month, is the only period in which Englishmen can hunt on
horseback, and they are in danger of losing all their studs some months
before December. To this disease the horse is especially exposed, and it
is almost always fatal. One attack, however, seems to secure immunity from
a second. Cattle, too, are subject to it, but only at intervals of a few,
sometimes many years; but it never makes a clean sweep of the whole cattle
of a village, as it would do of a troop of fifty horses. This barrier,
then, seems to explain the absence of the horse among the Hottentots,
though it is not opposed to the southern migration of cattle, sheep, and
goats. When the flesh
of animals that have died of this disease is eaten, it causes a malignant
carbuncle, which, when it appears over any important organ, proves rapidly
fatal. It is more especially dangerous over the pit of the stomach. The
effects of the poison have been experienced by missionaries who had eaten
properly cooked food, the flesh of sheep really but not visibly affected
by the disease. The virus in the flesh of the animal is destroyed neither
by boiling nor roasting. This fact, of which we have had innumerable
examples, shows the superiority of experiments on a large scale to those
of acute and able physiologists and chemists in the laboratory, for a well
known physician of Paris, after careful investigation, considered that the
virus in such cases was completely neutralized by boiling.
This disease attacks wild animals too. During
our residence at Chonuan great numbers of tolos, or koodoos, were
attracted to the gardens of the Bakwains, abandoned at the usual period of
harvest because there was no prospect of the corn (`Holcus sorghum')
bearing that year. The koodoo is remarkably fond of the green stalks of
this kind of millet. Free feeding produced that state of fatness favorable
for the development of this disease, and no fewer than twenty-five died on
the hill opposite our house. Great numbers of gnus and zebras perished
from the same cause, but the mortality produced no sensible diminution in
the numbers of the game, any more than the deaths of many of the Bakwains
who persisted, in spite of every remonstrance, in eating the dead meat,
caused any sensible decrease in the strength of the tribe.
The farms of the Boers
consist generally of a small patch of cultivated land in the midst of some
miles of pasturage. They are thus less an agricultural than a pastoral
people. Each farm must have its fountain; and where no such supply of
water exists, the government lands are unsalable. An acre in England is
thus generally more valuable than a square mile in Africa. But the country
is prosperous, and capable of great improvement. The industry of the Boers
augurs well for the future formation of dams and tanks, and for the
greater fruitfulness that would certainly follow.
As cattle and sheep farmers
the colonists are very successful. Larger and larger quantities of wool
are produced annually, and the value of colonial farms increases year by
year. But the system requires that with the increase of the population
there should be an extension of territory. Wide as the country is, and
thinly inhabited, the farmers feel it to be too limited, and they are
gradually spreading to the north. This movement proves prejudicial to the
country behind, for labor, which would be directed to the improvement of
the colony, is withdrawn and expended in a mode of life little adapted to
the exercise of industrial habits. That, however, does not much concern
the rest of mankind. Nor does it seem much of an evil for men who
cultivate the soil to claim a right to appropriate lands for tillage which
other men only hunt over, provided some compensation for the loss of
sustenance be awarded. The original idea of a titleseems to have been that
"subduing" or cultivating gave that right.
But this rather Chartist principle must be
received with limitations, for its recognition in England would lead to
the seizure of all our broad ancestral acres by those who are willing to
cultivate them. And, in the case under consideration, the encroachments
lead at once to less land being put under the plow than is subjected to
the native hoe, for it is a fact that the Basutos and Zulus, or Caffres of
Natal, cultivate largely, and undersell our farmers wherever they have
fair field and no favor.
Before we came to the Orange River we saw the
last portion of a migration of springbucks (`Gazella euchore', or tsepe).
They come from the great Kalahari Desert, and, when first seen after
crossing the colonial boundary, are said often to exceed forty thousand in
number. I can not give an estimate of their numbers, for they appear
spread over a vast expanse of country, and make a quivering motion as they
feed, and move, and toss their graceful horns. They feed chiefly on grass;
and as they come from the north about the time when the grass most
abounds, it can not be want of food that prompts the movement.
Nor is it want of water, for this antelope is
one of the most abstemious in that respect. Their nature prompts them to
seek as their favorite haunts level plains with short grass, where they
may be able to watch the approach of an enemy. The Bakalahari take
advantage of this feeling, and burn off large patches of grass, not only
to attract the game by the new crop when it comes up, but also to form
bare spots for the springbuck to range over.
It is not the springbuck alone that manifests
this feeling. When oxen are taken into a country of high grass, they are
much more ready to be startled; their sense of danger is increased by the
increased power of concealment afforded to an enemy by such cover, and
they will often start off in terror at the ill-defined outlines of each
other. The springbuck, possessing this feeling in an intense degree, and
being eminently gregarious, becomes uneasy as the grass of the Kalahari
becomes tall.
The vegetation being more
sparse in the more arid south, naturally induces the different herds to
turn in that direction. As they advance and increase in numbers, the
pasturage becomes more scarce; it is still more so the further they go,
until they are at last obliged, in order to obtain the means of
subsistence, to cross the Orange River, and become the pest of the
sheep-farmer in a country which contains scarcely any of their favorite
grassy food. If they light on a field of wheat in their way, an army of
locusts could not make a cleaner sweep of the whole than they will do. It
is questionable whether they ever return, as they have never been seen as
a returning body. Many perish from want of food, the country to which they
have migrated being unable to support them; the rest become scattered over
the colony; and in such a wide country there is no lack of room for all.
It is probable that, notwithstanding the continued destruction by
fire-arms, they will continue long to hold their place.
On crossing the Orange River we come into
independent territory inhabited by Griquas and Bechuanas. By Griquas is
meant any mixed race sprung from natives and Europeans. Those in question
were of Dutch extraction, through association with Hottentot and
Bushwomen. Half-castes of the first generation consider themselves
superior to those of the second, and all possess in some degree the
characteristics of both parents. They were governed for many years by an
elected chief, named Waterboer, who, by treaty, received a small sum per
annum from the colonial government for the support of schools in his
country, and proved a most efficient guard of our northwest boundary.
Cattle-stealing was totally unknown during the whole period of this able
chief's reign; and he actually drove back, single-handed, a formidable
force of marauding Mantatees that threatenedto invade the colony. But for
that brave Christian man, Waterboer, there is every human probability that
the northwest would have given the colonists as much trouble as the
eastern frontier; for large numbers among the original Griquas had as
little scruple about robbing farmers of cattle as the Caffres are reputed
to have. On the
election of Waterboer to the chieftainship, he distinctly declared THAT NO
MARAUDING SHOULD BE ALLOWED. As the government of none of these tribes is
despotic, some of his principal men, in spite of this declaration,
plundered some villages of Corannas living to the south of the Orange
River. He immediately seized six of the ringleaders, and, though the step
put his own position in jeopardy, he summoned his council, tried,
condemned, and publicly executed the whole six. This produced an
insurrection, and the insurgents twice attacked his capital, Griqua Town,
with the intention of deposing him; but he bravely defeated both attempts,
and from that day forth, during his long reign of thirty years, not a
single plundering expedition ever left his territory. Having witnessed the
deleterious effects of the introduction of ardent spirits among his
people, he, with characteristic energy, decreed that any Boer or Griqua
bringing brandy into the country should have his property in ardent
spirits confiscated and poured out on the ground. The Griqua chiefs living
farther east were unable to carry this law into effect as he did, hence
the greater facility with which Boers in that direction got the Griquas to
part with their farms.
Ten years after he was firmly established in
power he entered into a treaty with the colonial government, and during
the twenty years which followed not a single charge was ever brought
against either him or his people; on the contrary, his faithful adherence
to the stipulated provisions elicited numerous expressions of approbation
from successive governments.
A late governor, however,
of whom it is impossible to speak without respect, in a paroxysm of
generalship which might have been good, had it not been totally
inappropriate to the case, set about conciliating a band of rebellious
British subjects (Boers), who murdered the Honorable Captain Murray, by
proclaiming their independence while still in open rebellion, and not only
abrogated the treaty with the Griquas, but engaged to stop the
long-accustomed supplies of gunpowder for the defense of the frontier, and
even to prevent them from purchasing it for their own defense by lawful
trade. If it had been
necessary to prevent supplies of ammunition from finding their way into
the country, as it probably was, one might imagine that the exception
should not have been made in favor of either Boers or Caffres, our
openly-avowed enemies; but, nevertheless, the exception was made, and is
still continued in favor of the Boers, while the Bechuanas and Griquas,
our constant friends, are debarred from obtaining a single ounce for
either defense or trade; indeed, such was the state of ignorance as to the
relation of the border tribes with the English, even at Cape Town, that
the magistrates, though willing to aid my researches, were sorely afraid
to allow me to purchase more than ten pounds of gunpowder, lest the
Bechuanas should take it from me by force. As it turned out, I actually
left more than that quantity for upward of two years in an open box in my
wagon at Linyanti.
The lamented Sir George Cathcart, apparently unconscious of what he was
doing, entered into a treaty with the Transvaal Boers, in which articles
were introduced for the free passage of English traders to the north, and
for the entire prohibition of slavery in the free state. Then passed the
"gunpowder ordinance", by which the Bechuanas, whom alone the Boers dare
attempt to enslave, were rendered quite defenseless. The Boers never
attempt to fight with Caffres, nor to settle in Caffreland. We still
continue to observe the treaty. The Boers never did, and never intended to
abide by its provisions; for, immediately on the proclamation of their
independence, a slave-hunt was undertaken against the Bechuanas of Sechele
by four hundred Boers, under Mr. Peit Scholz, and the plan was adopted
which had been cherished in their hearts ever since the emancipation of
the Hottentots. Thus, from unfortunate ignorance of the country he had to
govern, an able and sagacious governor adopted a policy proper and wise
had it been in front of our enemies, but altogether inappropriate for our
friends against whom it has been applied. Such an error could not have
been committed by a man of local knowledge and experience, such as that
noble of colonial birth, Sir Andries Stockenstrom; and such instances of
confounding friend and foe, in the innocent belief of thereby promoting
colonial interests, will probably lead the Cape community, the chief part
of which by no means feels its interest to lie in the degradation of the
native tribes, to assert the right of choosing their own governors. This,
with colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament, in addition to
the local self-government already so liberally conceded, would undoubtedly
secure the perpetual union of the colony to the English crown.
Many hundreds of both Griquas and Bechuanas
have become Christians and partially civilized through the teaching of
English missionaries. My first impressions of the progress made were that
the accounts of the effects of the Gospel among them had been too highly
colored. I expected a higher degree of Christian simplicity and purity
than exists either among them or among ourselves. [The popular notion,
however, of the primitive Church is perhaps not very accurate. Those
societies especially which consisted of converted Gentiles -- men who had
been accustomed to the vices and immoralities of heathenism -- were
certainly any thing but pure. In spite of their conversion, some of them
carried the stains and vestiges of their former state with them when they
passed from the temple to the church. If the instructed and civilized
Greek did not all at once rise out of his former self, and understand and
realize the high ideal of his new faith, we should be careful, in judging
of the work of missionaries among savage tribes, not to apply to their
converts tests and standards of too great severity. If the scoffing
Lucian's account of the impostor Peregrinus may be believed, we find a
church probably planted by the apostles manifesting less intelligence even
than modern missionary churches. Peregrinus, a notoriously wicked man, was
elected to the chief place among them, while Romish priests, backed by the
power of France, could not find a place at all in the mission churches of
Tahiti and Madagascar.] I was not anxious for a deeper insight in
detecting shams than others, but I expected character, such as we imagine
the primitive disciples had -- and was disappointed.
When, however, I passed on
to the true heathen in the countries beyond the sphere of missionary
influence, and could compare the people there with the Christian natives,
I came to the conclusion that, if the question were examined in the most
rigidly severe or scientific way, the change effected by the missionary
movement would be considered unquestionably great.
We can not fairly compare
these poor people with ourselves, who have an atmosphere of Christianity
and enlightened public opinion, the growth of centuries, around us, to
influence our deportment; but let any one from the natural and proper
point of view behold the public morality of Griqua Town, Kuruman,
Likatlong, and other villages, and remember what even London was a century
ago, and he must confess
that the Christian mode of treating aborigines is incomparably the best.
The Griquas and Bechuanas
were in former times clad much like the Caffres, if such a word may be
used where there is scarcely any clothing at all. A bunch of leather
strings about eighteen inches long hung from the lady's waist in front,
and a prepared skin of a sheep or antelope covered the shoulders, leaving
the breast and abdomen bare: the men wore a patch of skin, about the size
of the crown of one's hat, which barely served for the purposes of
decency, and a mantle exactly like that of the women. To assist in
protecting the pores of the skin from the influence of the sun by day and
of the cold by night, all smeared themselves with a mixture of fat and
ochre; the head was anointed with pounded blue mica schist mixed with fat;
and the fine particles of shining mica, falling on the body and on strings
of beads and brass rings, were considered as highly ornamental, and fit
for the most fastidious dandy. Now these same people come to church in
decent though poor clothing, and behave with a decorum certainly superior
to what seems to have been the case in the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys in
London. Sunday is
well observed, and, even in localities where no missionary lives,
religious meetings are regularly held, and children and adults taught to
read by the more advanced of their own fellow-countrymen; and no one is
allowed to make a profession of faith by baptism unless he knows how to
read, and understands the nature of the Christian religion.
The Bechuana Mission has been so far
successful that, when coming from the interior, we always felt, on
reaching Kuruman, that we had returned to civilized life. But I would not
give any one to understand by this that they are model Christians -- we
can not claim to be model Christians ourselves -- or even in any degree
superior to the members of our country churches. They are more stingy and
greedy than the poor at home; but in many respects the two are exactly
alike. On asking an intelligent chief what he thought of them, he replied,
"You white men have no idea of how wicked we are; we know each other
better than you; some feign belief to ingratiate themselves with the
missionaries; some profess Christianity because they like the new system,
which gives so much more importance to the poor, and desire that the old
system may pass away; and the rest -- a pretty large number -- profess
because they are really true believers."
This testimony may be considered as very
nearly correct. There is not much prospect of this country ever producing
much of the materials of commerce except wool. At present the chief
articles of trade are karosses or mantles -- the skins of which they are
composed come from the Desert; next to them, ivory, the quantity of which
can not now be great, inasmuch as the means of shooting elephants is
sedulously debarred entrance into the country. A few skins and horns, and
some cattle, make up the remainder of the exports. English goods, sugar,
tea, and coffee are the articles received in exchange. All the natives of
these parts soon become remarkably fond of coffee. The acme of
respectability among the Bechuanas is the possession of cattle and a
wagon.
It is remarkable that,
though these latter require frequent repairs, none of the Bechuanas have
ever learned to mend them. Forges and tools have been at their service,
and teachers willing to aid them, but, beyond putting together a
camp-stool, no effort has ever been made to acquire a knowledge of the
trades. They observe most carefully a missionary at work until they
understand whether a tire is well welded or not, and then pronounce upon
its merits with great emphasis, but there their ambition rests satisfied.
It is the same peculiarity among ourselves which leads us in other
matters, such as book-making, to attain the excellence of fault-finding
without the wit to indite a page. It was in vain I tried to indoctrinate
the Bechuanas with the idea that criticism did not imply any superiority
over the workman, or even equality with him. |