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.
The permanence of the
station called Kuruman depends entirely on the fine ever-flowing fountain
of that name. It comes from beneath the trap-rock, of which I shall have
to speak when describing the geology of the entire country; and as it
usually issues at a temperature of 72 Deg. Fahr., it probably comes from
the old silurian schists, which formed the bottom of the great primeval
valley of the continent. I could not detect any diminution in the flow of
this gushing fountain during my residence in the country; but when Mr.
Moffat first attempted a settlement here, thirty-five years ago, he made a
dam six or seven miles below the present one, and led out the stream for
irrigation, where not a drop of the fountain-water ever now flows. Other
parts, fourteen miles below the Kuruman gardens, are pointed out as having
contained, within the memory of people now living, hippopotami, and pools
sufficient to drown both men and cattle. This failure of water must be
chiefly ascribed to the general desiccation of the country, but partly
also to the amount of irrigation carried on along both banks of the stream
at the mission station. This latter circumstance would have more weight
were it not coincident with the failure of fountains over a wide extent of
country.
Without at present entering
minutely into this feature of the climate, it may be remarked that the
Kuruman district presents evidence of this dry southern region having, at
no very distant date, been as well watered as the country north of Lake
Ngami is now. Ancient river-beds and water-courses abound, and the very
eyes of fountains long since dried up may be seen, in which the flow of
centuries has worn these orifices from a slit to an oval form, having on
their sides the tufa so abundantly deposited from these primitive waters;
and just where the splashings, made when the stream fell on the rock
below, may be supposed to have reached and evaporated, the same phenomenon
appears. Many of these failing fountains no longer flow, because the brink
over which they ran is now too high, or because the elevation of the
western side of the country lifts the land away from the water supply
below; but let a cutting be made from a lower level than the brink, and
through it to a part below the surface of the water, and water flows
perennially. Several of these ancient fountains have been resuscitated by
the Bechuanas near Kuruman, who occasionally show their feelings of
self-esteem by laboring for months at deep cuttings, which, having once
begun, they feel bound in honor to persevere in, though told by a
missionary that they can never force water to run up hill.
It is interesting to
observe the industry of many Boers in this region in making long and deep
canals from lower levels up to spots destitute of the slightest indication
of water existing beneath except a few rushes and a peculiar kind of
coarse, reddish-colored grass growing in a hollow, which anciently must
have been the eye of a fountain, but is now filled up with soft tufa. In
other instances, the indication of water below consists of the rushes
growing on a long, sandy ridge a foot or two in height instead of in a
furrow. A deep transverse cutting made through the higher part of this is
rewarded by a stream of running water. The reason why the ground covering
this water is higher than the rest of the locality is that the winds carry
quantities of fine dust and sand about the country, and hedges, bushes,
and trees cause its deposit. The rushes in this case perform the part of
the hedges, and the moisture rising as dew by night fixes the sand
securely among the roots, and a height, instead of a hollow, is the
result. While on this subject it may be added that there is no perennial
fountain in this part of the country except those that come from beneath
the quartzose trap, which constitutes the "filling up" of the ancient
valley; and as the water supply seems to rest on the old silurian schists
which form its bottom, it is highly probable that Artesian wells would in
several places perform the part which these deep cuttings now do.
The aspect of this part of
the country during most of the year is of a light yellow color; for some
months during the rainy season it is of a pleasant green mixed with
yellow. Ranges of hills appear in the west, but east of them we find
hundreds of miles of grass-covered plains. Large patches of these flats
are covered with white calcareous tufa resting on perfectly horizontal
strata of trap. There the vegetation consists of fine grass growing in
tufts among low bushes of the "wait-a-bit" thorn (`Acacia detinens'), with
its annoying fish-hook-like spines. Where these rocks do not appear on the
surface, the soil consists of yellow sand and tall, coarse grasses,
growing among berry-yielding bushes, named moretloa (`Grewia flava') and
mohatla (`Tarchonanthus'), which has enough of aromatic resinous matter to
burn brightly, though perfectly green. In more sheltered spots we come on
clumps of the white-thorned mimosa (`Acacia horrida', also `A.
atomiphylla'), and great abundance of wild sage (`Salvia Africana'), and
various leguminosae, ixias, and large-flowering bulbs: the `Amaryllis
toxicaria' and `A. Brunsvigia multiflora' (the former a poisonous bulb)
yield in the decayed lamellae a soft, silky down, a good material for
stuffing mattresses.
In some few parts of the
country the remains of ancient forests of wild olive-trees (`Olea
similis') and of the camel-thorn (`Acacia giraffe') are still to be met
with; but when these are leveled in the proximity of a Bechuana village,
no young trees spring up to take their places. This is not because the
wood has a growth so slow as not to be appreciable in its increase during
the short period that it can be observed by man, which might be supposed
from its being so excessively hard; for having measured a young tree of
this species growing in the corner of Mr. Moffat's garden near the water,
I found that it increased at the rate of a quarter of an inch in diameter
annually during a number of years. Moreover, the larger specimens, which
now find few or no successors, if they had more rain in their youth, can
not be above two or three hundred years old. It is probable that this is
the tree of which the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle were
constructed, as it is reported to be found where the Israelites were at
the time these were made. It is an imperishable wood, while that usually
pointed out as the "shittim" (or `Acacia nilotica') soon decays and wants
beauty. In association with it we always observe a curious plant, named
ngotuane, which bears such a profusion of fine yellow strong-scented
flowers as quite to perfume the air. This plant forms a remarkable
exception to the general rule, that nearly all the plants in the dry parts
of Africa are scentless, or emit only a disagreeable odor. It, moreover,
contains an active poison; a French gentleman, having imbibed a mouthful
or two of an infusion of its flowers as tea, found himself rendered nearly
powerless. Vinegar has the peculiar property of rendering this poison
perfectly inert, whether in or out of the body. When mixed with vinegar,
the poison may be drunk with safety, while, if only tasted by itself, it
causes a burning sensation in the throat. This gentleman described the
action of the vinegar, when he was nearly deprived of power by the poison
imbibed, to have been as if electricity had run along his nerves as soon
as he had taken a single glassful. The cure was instantaneous and
complete. I had always to regret want of opportunity for investigating
this remarkable and yet controllable agent on the nervous system. Its
usual proximity to camel-thorn-trees may be accounted for by the
PROBABILITY that the giraffe, which feeds on this tree, MAY make use of
the plant as a medicine.
During the period of my
visit at Kuruman, Mr. Moffat, who has been a missionary in Africa during
upward of forty years, and is well known by his interesting work, "Scenes
and Labors in South Africa", was busily engaged in carrying through the
press, with which his station is furnished, the Bible in the language of
the Bechuanas, which is called Sichuana. This has been a work of immense
labor; and as he was the first to reduce their speech to a written form,
and has had his attention directed to the study for at least thirty years,
he may be supposed to be better adapted for the task than any man living.
Some idea of the
copiousness of the language may be formed from the fact that even he never
spends a week at his work without discovering new words; the phenomenon,
therefore, of any man who, after a few months' or years' study of a native
tongue, cackles forth a torrent of vocables, may well be wondered at, if
it is meant to convey instruction. In my own case, though I have had as
much intercourse with the purest idiom as most Englishmen, and have
studied the language carefully, yet I can never utter an important
statement without doing so very slowly, and repeating it too, lest the
foreign accent, which is distinctly perceptible in all Europeans, should
render the sense unintelligible. In this I follow the example of the
Bechuana orators, who, on important matters, always speak slowly,
deliberately, and with reiteration. The capabilities of this language may
be inferred from the fact that the Pentateuch is fully expressed in Mr.
Moffat's translation in fewer words than in the Greek Septuagint, and in a
very considerably smaller number than in our own English version. The
language is, however, so simple in its construction, that its copiousness
by no means requires the explanation that the people have fallen from a
former state of civilization and culture.
Language seems to be an
attribute of the human mind and thought; and the inflections, various as
they are in the most barbarous tongues, as that of the Bushmen, are
probably only proofs of the race being human, and endowed with the power
of thinking; the fuller development of language taking place as the
improvement of our other faculties goes on. It is fortunate that the
translation of the Bible has been effected before the language became
adulterated with half-uttered foreign words, and while those who have
heard the eloquence of the native assemblies are still living; for the
young, who are brought up in our schools, know less of the language than
the missionaries; and Europeans born in the country, while possessed of
the idiom perfectly, if not otherwise educated, can not be referred to for
explanation of any uncommon word. A person who acted as interpreter to Sir
George Cathcart actually told his excellency that the language of the
Basutos was not capable of expressing the substance of a chief's
diplomatic paper, while every one acquainted with Moshesh, the chief who
sent it, well knows that he could in his own tongue have expressed it
without study all over again in three or four different ways. The
interpreter could scarcely have done as much in English.
This language both rich and
poor speak correctly; there is no vulgar style; but children have a
`patois' of their own, using many words in their play which men would
scorn to repeat. The Bamapela have adopted a click into their dialect, and
a large infusion of the ringing "ny", which seems to have been for the
purpose of preventing others from understanding them.
The fact of the complete translation of the Bible at a station seven
hundred miles inland from the Cape naturally suggests the question whether
it is likely to be permanently useful, and whether Christianity, as
planted by modern missions, is likely to retain its vitality without
constant supplies of foreign teaching? It would certainly be no cause for
congratulation if the Bechuana Bible seemed at all likely to meet the fate
of Elliot's Choctaw version, a specimen of which may be seen in the
library of one of the American colleges -- as God's word in a language
which no living tongue can articulate, nor living mortal understand; but a
better destiny seems in store for this, for the Sichuana language has been
introduced into the new country beyond Lake Ngami. There it is the court
language, and will take a stranger any where through a district larger
than France. The Bechuanas, moreover, in all probability possess that
imperishability which forms so remarkable a feature in the entire African
race.
When converts are made from
heathenism by modern missionaries, it becomes an interesting
question whether their faith possesses the elements of permanence, or is
only an exotic too tender for self-propagation when the fostering care of
the foreign cultivators is withdrawn. If neither habits of self-reliance
are cultivated, nor opportunities given for the exercise of that virtue,
the most promising converts are apt to become like spoiled children.
In Madagascar, a few
Christians were left with nothing but the Bible in their hands; and though
exposed to persecution, and even death itself, as the penalty of adherence
to their profession, they increased ten-fold in numbers, and are, if
possible, more decided believers now than they were when, by an edict of
the queen of that island, the missionaries ceased their teaching. In South
Africa such an experiment could not be made, for such a variety of
Christian sects have followed the footsteps of the London Missionary
Society's successful career, that converts of one denomination, if left to
their own resources, are eagerly adopted by another, and are thus more
likely to become spoiled than trained to the manly Christian virtues.
Another element of weakness
in this part of the missionary field is the fact of the missionary
societies considering the Cape Colony itself as a proper sphere for their
peculiar operations. In addition to a well-organized and efficient Dutch
Reformed Established Church, and schools for secular instruction,
maintained by government, in every village of any extent in the colony, we
have a number of other sects, as the Wesleyans, Episcopalians, Moravians,
all piously laboring at the same good work. Now it is deeply to be
regretted that so much honest zeal should be so lavishly expended in a
district wherein there is so little scope for success. When we hear an
agent of one sect urging his friends at home to aid him quickly to occupy
some unimportant nook, because, if it is not speedily laid hold of, he
will "not have room for the sole of his foot," one can not help longing
that both he and his friends would direct their noble aspirations to the
millions of untaught heathen in the regions beyond, and no longer continue
to convert the extremity of the continent into, as it were, a dam of
benevolence.
I would earnestly recommend
all young missionaries to go at once to the real heathen, and never to be
content with what has been made ready to their hands by men of greater
enterprise. The idea of making model Christians of the young need not be
entertained by any one who is secretly convinced, as most men who know
their own hearts are, that he is not a model Christian himself. The
Israelitish slaves brought out of Egypt by Moses were not converted and
elevated in one generation, though under the direct teaching of God
himself.
Notwithstanding the numbers
of miracles he wrought, a generation had to be cut off because of
unbelief. Our own elevation, also, has been the work of centuries, and,
remembering this, we should not indulge in overwrought expectations as to
the elevation which those who have inherited the degradation of ages may
attain in our day. The principle might even be adopted by missionary
societies, that one ordinary missionary's lifetime of teaching should be
considered an ample supply of foreign teaching for any tribe in a
thinly-peopled country, for some never will receive the Gospel at all,
while in other parts, when Christianity is once planted, the work is sure
to go on.
A missionary is soon known
to be supported by his friends at home; and though the salary is but a
bare subsistence, to Africans it seems an enormous sum; and, being unable
to appreciate the motives by which he is actuated, they consider
themselves entitled to various services at his hands, and defrauded if
these are not duly rendered. This feeling is all the stronger when a young
man, instead of going boldly to the real heathen, settles down in a
comfortable house and garden prepared by those into whose labors he has
entered. A remedy for this evil might be found in appropriating the houses
and gardens raised by the missionaries' hands to their own families. It is
ridiculous to call such places as Kuruman, for instance, "Missionary
Society's property". This beautiful station was made what it is, not by
English money, but by the sweat and toil of fathers whose children have,
notwithstanding, no place on earth which they can call a home. The
Society's operations may be transferred to the north, and then the
strong-built mission premises become the home of a Boer, and the stately
stone church his cattle-pen. This place has been what the monasteries of
Europe are said to have been when pure.
The monks did not disdain
to hold the plow. They introduced fruit-trees, flowers, and vegetables, in
addition to teaching and emancipating the serfs. Their monasteries were
mission stations, which resembled ours in being dispensaries for the sick,
almshouses for the poor, and nurseries of learning. Can we learn nothing
from them in their prosperity as the schools of Europe, and see naught in
their history but the pollution and laziness of their decay? Can our wise
men tell us why the former mission stations (primitive monasteries) were
self-supporting, rich, and flourishing as pioneers of civilization and
agriculture, from which we even now reap benefits, and modern mission
stations are mere pauper establishments, without that permanence or
ability to be self-supporting which they possessed?
Protestant missionaries of
every denomination in South Africa all agree in one point, that no mere
profession of Christianity is sufficient to entitle the converts to the
Christian name. They are all anxious to place the Bible in the hands of
the natives, and, with ability to read that, there can be little doubt as
to the future. We believe Christianity to be divine, and equal to all it
has to perform; then let the good seed be widely sown, and, no matter to
what sect the converts may belong, the harvest will be glorious. Let
nothing that I have said be interpreted as indicative of feelings inimical
to any body of Christians, for I never, as a missionary, felt myself to be
either Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Independent, or called upon in any
way to love one denomination less than another.
My earnest desire is, that
those who really have the best interests of the heathen at heart should go
to them; and assuredly, in Africa at least, self-denying labors among real
heathen will not fail to be appreciated. Christians have never yet dealt
fairly by the heathen and been disappointed. When Sechele understood that
we could no longer remain with him at Kolobeng, he sent his children to
Mr. Moffat, at Kuruman, for instruction in all the knowledge of the white
men. Mr. Moffat very liberally received at once an accession of five to
his family, with their attendants.
Having been detained
at Kuruman about a fortnight by the breaking of a wagon-wheel, I was thus
providentially prevented from being present at the attack of the Boers on
the Bakwains, news of which was brought, about the end of that time, by
Masebele, the wife of Sechele. She had herself been hidden in a cleft of a
rock, over which a number of Boers were firing. Her infant began to cry,
and, terrified lest this should attract the attention of the men, the
muzzles of whose guns appeared at every discharge over her head, she took
off her armlets as playthings to quiet the child. She brought Mr. Moffat a
letter, which tells its own tale. Nearly literally translated it was as
follows:
"Friend of my heart's love,
and of all the confidence of my heart, I am Sechele. I am undone by the
Boers, who attacked me, though I had no guilt with them. They demanded
that I should be in their kingdom, and I refused. They demanded that I
should prevent the English and Griquas from passing (northward). I
replied, These are my friends, and I can prevent no one (of them). They
came on Saturday, and I besought them not to fight on Sunday, and they
assented. They began on Monday morning at twilight, and fired with all
their might, and burned the town with fire, and scattered us. They killed
sixty of my people, and captured women, and children, and men. And the
mother of Baleriling (a former wife of Sechele) they also took prisoner.
They took all the cattle and all the goods of the Bakwains; and the house
of Livingstone they plundered, taking away all his goods. The number of
wagons they had was eighty-five, and a cannon; and after they had stolen
my own wagon and that of Macabe, then the number of their wagons (counting
the cannon as one) was eighty-eight. All the goods of the hunters (certain
English gentlemen hunting and exploring in the north) were burned in the
town; and of the Boers were killed twenty-eight. Yes, my beloved friend,
now my wife goes to see the children, and Kobus Hae will convey her to
you.
I am, SECHELE,
The Son of Mochoasele."
This statement is in exact
accordance with the account given by the native teacher Mebalwe, and also
that sent by some of the Boers themselves to the public colonial papers.
The crime of cattle-stealing, of which we hear so much near Caffreland,
was never alleged against these people, and, if a single case had occurred
when I was in the country, I must have heard of it, and would at once say
so. But the only crime imputed in the papers was that "Sechele was getting
too saucy." The demand made for his subjection and service in preventing
the English traders passing to the north was kept out of view.
Very soon after Pretorius
had sent the marauding party against Kolobeng, he was called away to the
tribunal of infinite justice. His policy is justified by the Boers
generally from the instructions given to the Jewish warriors in
Deuteronomy 20:10-14. Hence, when he died, the obituary notice ended with
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." I wish he had not "forbidden
us to preach unto the Gentiles
that they may be saved." The report of this outrage on the Bakwains,
coupled with denunciations against myself for having, as it was alleged,
taught them to kill Boers, produced such a panic in the country, that I
could not engage a single servant to accompany me to the north. I have
already alluded to their mode of warfare, and in all previous Boerish
forays the killing had all been on one side; now, however, that a tribe
where an Englishman had lived had begun to shed THEIR blood as well, it
was considered the strongest presumptive evidence against me. Loud vows of
vengeance were uttered against my head, and threats of instant pursuit by
a large party on horseback, should I dare to go into or beyond their
country; and as these were coupled with the declaration that the English
government had given over the whole of the native tribes to their rule,
and would assist in their entire subjection by preventing fire-arms and
ammunition from entering the country, except for the use of the Boers, it
was not to be wondered at that I was detained for months at Kuruman from
sheer inability to get wagon-drivers. The English name, from being honored
and respected all over the country, had become somewhat more than
suspected; and as the policy of depriving those friendly tribes of the
means of defense was represented by the Boers as proof positive of the
wish of the English that they should be subjugated, the conduct of a
government which these tribes always thought the paragon of justice and
friendship was rendered totally incomprehensible to them; they could
neither defend themselves against their enemies, nor shoot the animals in
the produce of which we wished them to trade.
At last I found three
servants willing to risk a journey to the north; and a man of color named
George Fleming, who had generously been assisted by Mr. H. E. Rutherford,
a mercantile gentleman of Cape Town, to endeavor to establish a trade with
the Makololo, had also managed to get a similar number; we accordingly
left Kuruman on the 20th of November, and proceeded on our journey. Our
servants were the worst possible specimens of those who imbibe the vices
without the virtues of Europeans, but we had no choice, and were
glad to get away on any terms.
When we reached Motito,
forty miles off, we met Sechele on his way, as he said, "to the Queen of
England." Two of his own children, and their mother, a former wife, were
among the captives seized by the Boers; and being strongly imbued with the
then very prevalent notion of England's justice and generosity, he thought
that in consequence of the violated treaty he had a fair case to lay
before her majesty. He employed all his eloquence and powers of persuasion
to induce me to accompany him, but I excused myself on the ground that my
arrangements were already made for exploring the north. On explaining the
difficulties of the way, and endeavoring to dissuade him from the attempt,
on account of the knowledge I possessed of the governor's policy, he put
the pointed question, "Will the queen not listen to me, supposing I should
reach her?" I replied, "I believe she would listen, but the difficulty is
to get to her." "Well, I shall reach her," expressed his final
determination.
Others explained the
difficulties more fully, but nothing could shake his resolution. When he
reached Bloemfontein he found the English army just returning from a
battle with the Basutos, in which both parties claimed the victory, and
both were glad that a second engagement was not tried. Our officers
invited Sechele to dine with them, heard his story, and collected a
handsome sum of money to enable him to pursue his journey to England. The
commander refrained from noticing him, as a single word in favor of the
restoration of the children of Sechele would have been a virtual
confession of the failure of his own policy at the very outset. Sechele
proceeded as far as the Cape; but his resources being there expended, he
was obliged to return to his own country, one thousand miles distant,
without accomplishing the object of his journey.
On his return he adopted a
mode of punishment which he had seen in the colony, namely, making
criminals work on the public roads. And he has since, I am informed, made
himself the missionary to his own people. He is tall, rather corpulent,
and has more of the negro feature than common, but has large eyes. He is
very dark, and his people swear by "Black Sechele". He has great
intelligence, reads well, and is a fluent speaker.
Great numbers of the tribes
formerly living under the Boers have taken refuge under his sway, and he
is now greater in power than he was before the attack on Kolobeng. Having
parted with Sechele, we skirted along the Kalahari Desert, and sometimes
within its borders, giving the Boers a wide berth. A larger fall of rain
than usual had occurred in 1852, and that was the completion of a cycle of
eleven or twelve years, at which the same phenomenon is reported to have
happened on three occasions. An unusually large crop of melons had
appeared in consequence.
We had the pleasure of
meeting with Mr. J. Macabe returning from Lake Ngami, which he had
succeeded in reaching by going right across the Desert from a point a
little to the south of Kolobeng. The accounts of the abundance of
watermelons were amply confirmed by this energetic traveler; for, having
these in vast quantities, his cattle subsisted on the fluid contained in
them for a period of no less than twenty-one days; and when at last they
reached a supply of water, they did not seem to care much about it. Coming
to the lake from the southeast, he crossed the Teoughe, and went round the
northern part of it, and is the only European traveler who had actually
seen it all. His estimate of the extent of the lake is higher than that
given by Mr. Oswell and myself, or from about ninety to one hundred miles
in circumference. Before the lake was discovered, Macabe wrote a letter in
one of the Cape papers recommending a certain route as likely to lead to
it. The Transvaal Boers fined him 500 dollars for writing about "ouze
felt", OUR country, and imprisoned him, too, till the fine was paid. I now
learned from his own lips that the public report of this is true. Mr.
Macabe's companion, Mahar, was mistaken by a tribe of Barolongs for a
Boer, and shot as he approached their village. When Macabe came up and
explained that he was an Englishman, they expressed the utmost regret, and
helped to bury him.
This was the first case in
recent times of an Englishman being slain by the Bechuanas. We afterward
heard that there had been some fighting between these Barolongs and the
Boers, and that there had been capturing of cattle on both sides. If this
was true, I can only say that it was the first time that I ever heard of
cattle being taken by Bechuanas. This was a Caffre war in stage the
second; the third stage in the development is when both sides are equally
well armed and afraid of each other; the fourth, when the English take up
a quarrel not their own, and the Boers slip out of the fray.
Two other English gentlemen
crossed and recrossed the Desert about the same time, and nearly in the
same direction. On returning, one of them, Captain Shelley, while riding
forward on horseback, lost himself, and was obliged to find his way alone
to Kuruman, some hundreds of miles distant. Reaching that station
shirtless, and as brown as a Griqua, he was taken for one by Mrs. Moffat,
and was received by her with a salutation in Dutch, that being the
language spoken by this people. His sufferings must have been far more
severe than any we endured. The result of the exertions of both Shelley
and Macabe is to prove that the general view of the Desert always given by
the natives has been substantially correct.
Occasionally, during the
very dry seasons which succeed our winter and precede our rains, a hot
wind blows over the Desert from north to south. It feels somewhat as if it
came from an oven, and seldom blows longer at a time than three days. It
resembles in its effects the harmattan of the north of Africa, and at the
time the missionaries first settled in the country, thirty-five years ago,
it came loaded with fine reddish-colored sand. Though no longer
accompanied by sand, it is so devoid of moisture as to cause the wood of
the best seasoned English boxes and furniture to shrink, so that every
wooden article not made in the country is warped. The verls of ramrods
made in England are loosened, and on returning to Europe fasten again.
This wind is in such an electric state that a bunch of ostrich feathers
held a few seconds against it becomes as strongly charged as if attached
to a powerful electrical machine, and clasps the advancing hand with a
sharp crackling sound.
When this hot wind is
blowing, and even at other times, the peculiarly strong electrical state
of the atmosphere causes the movement of a native in his kaross to produce
therein a stream of small sparks. The first time I noticed this appearance
was while a chief was traveling with me in my wagon. Seeing part of the
fur of his mantle, which was exposed to slight friction by the movement of
the wagon, assume quite a luminous appearance, I rubbed it smartly with
the hand, and found it readily gave out bright sparks, accompanied with
distinct cracks. "Don't you see this?" said I. "The white men did not show
us this," he replied; "we had it long before white men came into the
country, we and our forefathers of old." Unfortunately, I never inquired
the name which they gave to this appearance, but I have no doubt there is
one for it in the language. Otto von Guerrike is said, by Baron Humboldt,
to have been the first that ever observed this effect in Europe, but the
phenomenon had been familiar to the Bechuanas for ages. Nothing came of
that, however, for they viewed the sight as if with the eyes of an ox.
The human mind has remained
here as stagnant to the present day, in reference to the physical
operations of the universe, as it once did in England. No science has been
developed, and few questions are ever discussed except those which have an
intimate connection with the wants of the stomach. Very large flocks of
swifts (`Cypselus apus') were observed flying over the plains north of
Kuruman. I counted a stream of them, which, by the time it took to pass
toward the reeds of that valley, must have numbered upward of four
thousand. Only a few of these birds breed at any time in this country. I
have often observed them, and noticed that there was no appearance of
their having paired; there was no chasing of each other, nor any playing
together.
There are several other
birds which continue in flocks, and move about like wandering gipsies,
even during the breeding season, which in this country happens in the
intervals between the cold and hot seasons, cold acting somewhat in the
same way here as the genial warmth of spring does in Europe. Are these the
migratory birds of Europe, which return there to breed and rear their
young?
On the 31st of December,
1852, we reached the town of Sechele, called, from the part of the range
on which it is situated, Litubaruba. Near the village there exists a cave
named Lepelole; it is an interesting evidence of the former existence of a
gushing fountain. No one dared to enter the Lohaheng, or cave, for it was
the common belief that it was the habitation of the Deity. As we never had
a holiday from January to December, and our Sundays were the periods of
our greatest exertions in teaching, I projected an excursion into the cave
on a week-day to see the god of the Bakwains. The old men said that every
one who went in remained there forever, adding, "If the teacher is so mad
as to kill himself, let him do so alone, we shall not be to blame." The
declaration of Sechele, that he would follow where I led, produced the
greatest consternation. It is curious that in all their pretended dreams
or visions of their god he has always a crooked leg, like the Egyptian
Thau. Supposing that those who were reported to have perished in this cave
had fallen over some precipice, we went well provided with lights, ladder,
lines, &c.; but it turned out to be only an open cave, with an entrance
about ten feet square, which contracts into two water-worn branches,
ending in round orifices through which the water once flowed. The
only inhabitants it seems ever to have had were baboons. I left at the end
of the upper branch one of Father Mathew's leaden teetotal tickets.
I never saw the Bakwains
looking so haggard and lean as at this time. Most of their cattle had been
swept away by the Boers, together with about eighty fine draught oxen; and
much provision left with them by two officers, Captains Codrington and
Webb, to serve for their return journey south, had been carried off also.
On their return these officers found the skeletons of the Bakwains where
they expected to find their own goods. All the corn, clothing, and
furniture of the people, too, had been consumed in the flames which the
Boers had forced the subject tribes to apply to the town during the fight,
so that its inhabitants were now literally starving.
Sechele had given orders to
his people not to commit any act of revenge pending his visit to the Queen
of England; but some of the young men ventured to go to meet a party of
Boers returning from hunting, and, as the Boers became terrified and ran
off, they brought their wagons to Litubaruba. This seems to have given the
main body of Boers an idea that the Bakwains meant to begin a guerrilla
war upon them. This "Caffre war" was, however, only in embryo, and not
near that stage of development in which the natives have found out that
the hide-and-seek system is the most successful.
The Boers, in alarm, sent
four of their number to ask for peace! I, being present, heard the
condition: "Sechele's children must be restored to him." I never saw men
so completely and unconsciously in a trap as these four Boers were. Strong
parties of armed Bakwains occupied every pass in the hills and gorges
around; and had they not promised much more than they intended, or did
perform, that day would have been their last. The commandant Scholz had
appropriated the children of Sechele to be his own domestic slaves. I was
present when one little boy, Khari, son of Sechele, was returned to his
mother; the child had been allowed to roll into the fire, and there were
three large unbound open sores on different parts of his body. His mother
and the women received him with a flood of silent tears.
Slavery is said to be mild
and tender-hearted in some places. The Boers assert that they are the best
of masters, and that, if the English had possessed the Hottentot slaves,
they would have received much worse treatment than they did: what that
would have been it is difficult to imagine. I took down the names of some
scores of boys and girls, many of whom I knew as our scholars; but I could
not comfort the weeping mothers by any hope of their ever returning from
slavery. The Bechuanas are universally much attached to children. A little
child toddling near a party of men while they are eating is sure to get a
handful of the food. This love of children may arise, in a great measure,
from the patriarchal system under which they dwell.
Every little stranger forms
an increase of property to the whole community, and is duly reported
to the chief -- boys being more welcome than girls. The parents take the
name of the child, and often address their children as Ma (mother), or Ra
(father). Our eldest boy being named Robert, Mrs. Livingstone was, after
his birth, always addressed as Ma-Robert, instead of Mary, her Christian
name.
I have examined several
cases in which a grandmother has taken upon herself to suckle a
grandchild. Masina of Kuruman had no children after the birth of her
daughter Sina, and had no milk after Sina was weaned, an event which
usually is deferred till the child is two or three years old. Sina married
when she was seventeen or eighteen, and had twins; Masina, after at least
fifteen years' interval since she had suckled a child, took possession of
one of them, applied it to her breast, and milk flowed, so that she was
able to nurse the child entirely. Masina was at this time at least forty
years of age. I have witnessed several other cases analogous to this. A
grandmother of forty, or even less, for they become withered at an early
age, when left at home with a young child, applies it to her own shriveled
breast, and milk soon follows.
In some cases, as that of
Ma-bogosing, the chief wife of Mahure, who was about thirty-five years of
age, the child was not entirely dependent on the grandmother's breast, as
the mother suckled it too. I had witnessed the production of milk so
frequently by the simple application of the lips of the child, that I was
not therefore surprised when told by the Portuguese in Eastern Africa of a
native doctor who, by applying a poultice of the pounded larvae of hornets
to the breast of a woman, aided by the attempts of the child, could bring
back the milk. Is it not possible that the story in the "Cloud of
Witnesses" of a man, during the time of persecution in Scotland, putting
his child to his own breast, and finding, to the astonishment of the whole
country, that milk followed the act, may have been literally true? It was
regarded and is quoted as a miracle; but the feelings of the father toward
the child of a murdered mother must have been as nearly as possible
analogous to the maternal feeling; and, as anatomists declare the
structure of both male and female breasts to be identical, there is
nothing physically impossible in the alleged result.
The illustrious Baron
Humboldt quotes an instance of the male breast yielding milk; and, though
I am not conscious of being over-credulous, the strange instances I have
examined in the opposite sex make me believe that there is no error in
that philosopher's statement. The Boers know from experience that adult
captives may as well be left alone, for escape is so easy in a wild
country that no fugitive-slave-law
can come into operation; they therefore adopt the system of seizing only
the youngest children, in order that these may forget their parents and
remain in perpetual bondage. I have seen mere infants in their houses
repeatedly. This fact was formerly denied; and the only thing which was
wanting to make the previous denial of the practice of slavery and
slave-hunting by the Transvaal Boers no longer necessary was the
declaration of their independence.
In conversation with some
of my friends here I learned that Maleke, a chief of the Bakwains, who
formerly lived on the hill Litubaruba, had been killed by the bite of a
mad dog. My curiosity was strongly excited by this statement, as rabies is
so rare in this country. I never heard of another case, and could not
satisfy myself that even this was real hydrophobia. While I was at
Mabotsa, some dogs became affected by a disease which led them to run
about in an incoherent state; but I doubt whether it was any thing but an
affection of the brain. No individual or animal got the complaint by
inoculation from the animals' teeth; and from all that I could hear, the
prevailing idea of hydrophobia not existing within the tropics seems to be
quite correct.
The diseases known among
the Bakwains are remarkably few. There is no consumption nor scrofula, and
insanity and hydrocephalus are rare. Cancer and cholera are quite unknown.
Small-pox and measles passed through the country about twenty years ago,
and committed great ravages; but, though the former has since broken out
on the coast repeatedly, neither disease has since traveled inland. For
small-pox, the natives employed, in some parts, inoculation in the
forehead with some animal deposit; in other parts, they employed the
matter of the small-pox itself; and in one village they seem to have
selected a virulent case for the matter used in the operation, for nearly
all the village was swept off by the disease in a malignant confluent
form. Where the idea came from I can not conceive.
It was practiced by the
Bakwains at a time when they had no intercourse, direct or indirect, with
the southern missionaries. They all adopt readily the use of vaccine virus
when it is brought within their reach. A certain loathsome disease, which
decimates the North American Indians, and threatens extirpation to the
South Sea Islanders, dies out in the interior of Africa without the aid of
medicine; and the Bangwaketse, who brought it from the west coast, lost it
when they came into their own land southwest of Kolobeng.
It seems incapable of
permanence in any form in persons of pure African blood any where in the
centre of the country. In persons of mixed blood it is otherwise; and the
virulence of the secondary symptoms seemed to be, in all the cases that
came under my care, in exact proportion to the greater or less amount of
European blood in the patient.
Among the Corannas and
Griquas of mixed breed it produces the same ravages as in Europe; among
half-blood Portuguese it is equally frightful in its inroads on the
system; but in the pure Negro of the central parts it is quite incapable
of permanence. Among the Barotse I found a disease called manassah, which
closely resembles that of the `foeda mulier' of history.
Equally unknown is stone in
the bladder and gravel. I never met with a case, though the waters are
often so strongly impregnated with sulphate of lime that kettles quickly
become incrusted internally with the salt; and some of my patients, who
were troubled with indigestion, believed that their stomachs had got into
the same condition. This freedom from calculi would appear to be
remarkable in the negro race, even in the United States; for seldom indeed
have the most famed lithotomists there ever operated on a negro.
The diseases most prevalent
are the following: pneumonia, produced by sudden changes of temperature,
and other inflammations, as of the bowels, stomach, and pleura;
rheumatism; disease of the heart -- but these become rare as the people
adopt the European dress -- various forms of indigestion and ophthalmia;
hooping-cough comes frequently; and every year the period preceding the
rains is marked by some sort of epidemic. Sometimes it is general
ophthalmia, resembling closely the Egyptian. In another year it is a kind
of diarrhoea, which nothing will cure until there is a fall of rain, and
any thing acts as a charm after that. One year the epidemic period was
marked by a disease which looked like pneumonia, but had the peculiar
symptom strongly developed of great pain in the seventh cervical process.
Many persons died of it,
after being in a comatose state for many hours or days before their
decease. No inspection of the body being ever allowed by these people, and
the place of sepulture being carefully concealed, I had to rest satisfied
with conjecture. Frequently the Bakwains buried their dead in the huts
where they died, for fear lest the witches (Baloi) should disinter their
friends, and use some part of the body in their fiendish arts.
Scarcely is the breath out
of the body when the unfortunate patient is hurried away to be buried. An
ant-eater's hole is often selected, in order to save the trouble of
digging a grave. On two occasions while I was there this hasty burial was
followed by the return home of the men, who had been buried alive, to
their affrighted relatives. They had recovered, while in their graves,
from prolonged swoons. In ophthalmia the doctors cup on the temples, and
apply to the eyes the pungent smoke of certain roots, the patient, at the
same time, taking strong draughts of it up his nostrils. We found the
solution of nitrate of silver, two or three grains to the ounce of
rain-water, answer the same end so much more effectually, that every
morning numbers of patients crowded round our house for the collyrium. It
is a good preventive of an acute attack when poured into the eyes as soon
as the pain begins, and might prove valuable for travelers. Cupping is
performed with the horn of a goat or antelope, having a little hole
pierced in the small end. In some cases a small piece of wax is attached,
and a temporary hole made through it to the horn. When the air is well
withdrawn, and kept out by touching the orifice, at every inspiration,
with the point of the tongue, the wax is at last pressed together with the
teeth, and the little hole in it closed up, leaving a vacuum within the
horn for the blood to flow from the already scarified parts. The edges of
the horn applied to the surface are wetted, and cupping is well performed,
though the doctor occasionally, by separating the fibrine from the blood
in a basin of water by his side, and exhibiting it, pretends that he has
extracted something more than blood. He can thus explain the rationale of
the cure by his own art, and the ocular demonstration given is well
appreciated.
Those doctors who have
inherited their profession as an heirloom from their fathers and
grandfathers generally possess some valuable knowledge, the result of long
and close observation; but if a man can not say that the medical art is in
his family, he may be considered a quack. With the regular practitioners I
always remained on the best terms, by refraining from appearing to doubt
their skill in the presence of their patients. Any explanation in private
was thankfully received by them, and wrong treatment changed into
something more reasonable with cordial good-will, if no one but the doctor
and myself were present at the conversation. English medicines were
eagerly asked for and accepted by all; and we always found medical
knowledge an important aid in convincing the people that we were really
anxious for their welfare. We can not accuse them of ingratitude; in fact,
we shall remember the kindness of the Bakwains to us as long as we live.
The surgical knowledge of
the native doctors is rather at a low ebb. No one ever attempted to remove
a tumor except by external applications. Those with which the natives are
chiefly troubled are fatty and fibrous tumors; and as they all have the
`vis medicatrix naturae' in remarkable activity, I safely removed an
immense number. In illustration of their want of surgical knowledge may be
mentioned the case of a man who had a tumor as large as a child's head.
This was situated on the nape of his neck, and prevented his walking
straight. He applied to his chief, and he got some famous strange doctor
from the East Coast to cure him. He and his assistants attempted to
dissolve it by kindling on it a little fire made of a few small
pieces of medicinal roots. I removed it for him, and he always walked with
his head much more erect than he needed to do ever afterward. Both men and
women submit to an operation without wincing, or any of that shouting
which caused young students to faint in the operating theatre before the
introduction of chloroform.
The women pride themselves
on their ability to bear pain. A mother will address her little girl, from
whose foot a thorn is to be extracted, with, "Now, ma, you are a woman; a
woman does not cry." A man scorns to shed tears.
When we were passing one of
the deep wells in the Kalahari, a boy, the son of an aged father, had been
drowned in it while playing on its brink. When all hope was gone, the
father uttered an exceedingly great and bitter cry. It was sorrow without
hope. This was the only instance I ever met with of a man weeping in this
country. Their ideas on obstetrics are equally unscientific, and a medical
man going near a woman at her confinement appeared to them more out of
place than a female medical student appears to us in a dissecting-room. A
case of twins, however, happening, and the ointment of all the doctors of
the town proving utterly insufficient to effect the relief which a few
seconds of English art afforded, the prejudice vanished at once. As it
would have been out of the question for me to have entered upon this
branch of the profession -- as indeed it would be inexpedient for any
medical man to devote himself exclusively, in a thinly-peopled country, to
the practice of medicine -- I thereafter reserved myself for the difficult
cases only, and had the satisfaction of often conferring great benefits on
poor women in their hour of sorrow. The poor creatures are often placed in
a little hut built for the purpose, and are left without any assistance
whatever, and the numbers of umbilical herniae which are met with in
consequence is very great. The women suffer less at their confinement than
is the case in civilized countries; perhaps from their treating it, not as
a disease, but as an operation of nature, requiring no change of diet
except a feast of meat and abundance of fresh air. The husband on these
occasions is bound to slaughter for his lady an ox, or goat, or sheep,
according to his means.
My knowledge in the above
line procured for me great fame in a department in which I could lay no
claim to merit. A woman came a distance of one hundred miles for relief in
a complaint which seemed to have baffled the native doctors; a complete
cure was the result. Some twelve months after she returned to her husband,
she bore a son. Her husband having previously reproached her for being
barren, she sent me a handsome present, and proclaimed all over the
country that I possessed a medicine for the cure of sterility. The
consequence was, that I was teased with applications from husbands
and wives from all parts of the country.
Some came upward of two
hundred miles to purchase the great boon,and it was in vain for me to
explain that I had only cured the disease of the other case. The more I
denied, the higher their offers rose; they would give any money for the
"child medicine"; and it was really heart-rending to hear the earnest
entreaty, and see the tearful eye, which spoke the intense desire for
offspring: "I am getting old; you see gray hairs here and there on my
head, and I have no child; you know how Bechuana husbands cast their old
wives away; what can I do? I have no child to bring water to me when I am
sick," etc.
The whole of the country
adjacent to the Desert, from Kuruman to Kolobeng, or Litubaruba, and
beyond up to the latitude of Lake Ngami, is remarkable for its great
salubrity of climate. Not only the natives, but Europeans whose
constitutions have been impaired by an Indian climate, find the tract of
country indicated both healthy and restorative. The health and longevity
of the missionaries have always been fair, though mission-work is not very
conducive to either elsewhere. Cases have been known in which patients
have come from the coast with complaints closely resembling, if they were
not actually, those of consumption; and they have recovered by the
influence of the climate alone.
It must always be borne in
mind that the climate near the coast, from which we received such very
favorable reports of the health of the British troops, is actually
inferior for persons suffering from pulmonary complaints to that of any
part not subjected to the influence of sea-air. I have never seen the
beneficial effects of the inland climate on persons of shattered
constitutions, nor heard their high praises of the benefit they have
derived from traveling, without wishing that its bracing effects should
become more extensively known in England.
No one who has visited the
region I have above mentioned fails to remember with pleasure the wild,
healthful gipsy life of wagon-traveling. A considerable proportion of
animal diet seems requisite here. Independent of the want of salt, we
required meat in as large quantity daily as we do in England, and no bad
effects, in the way of biliousness, followed the free use of flesh, as in
other hot climates.
A vegetable diet causes
acidity and heartburn. Mr. Oswell thought this climate much superior to
that of Peru, as far as pleasure is concerned; the want of
instruments unfortunately prevented my obtaining accurate scientific data
for the medical world on this subject; and were it not for the great
expense of such a trip, I should have no hesitation in recommending the
borders of the Kalahari Desert as admirably suited for all patients having
pulmonary complaints. It is the complete antipodes to our cold, damp,
English climate.
The winter is perfectly
dry; and as not a drop of rain falls during that period, namely, from the
beginning of May to the end of August, damp and cold are never combined.
However hot the day may have been at Kolobeng -- and the thermometer
sometimes rose, previous to a fall of rain, up to 96 Deg. in the coolest
part of our house -- yet the atmosphere never has that steamy feeling nor
those debilitating effects so well known in India and on the coast of
Africa itself. In the evenings the air becomes deliciously cool, and a
pleasant refreshing night follows the hottest day. The greatest heat ever
felt is not so oppressive as it is when there is much humidity in the air;
and the great evaporation consequent on a fall of rain makes the rainy
season the most agreeable for traveling. Nothing can exceed the balmy
feeling of the evenings and mornings during the whole year. You wish for
an increase neither of cold nor heat; and you can sit out of doors till
midnight without ever thinking of colds or rheumatism; or you may sleep
out at night, looking up to the moon till you fall asleep, without a
thought or sign of moon-blindness. Indeed, during many months there is
scarcely any dew. |