Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, David Livingstone [novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗

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.

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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.

Chapter 6.

Kuruman -- Its fine Fountain -- Vegetation of the District --

Remains of ancient Forests -- Vegetable Poison --

The Bible translated by Mr. Moffat -- Capabilities of the Language --

Christianity among the Natives -- The Missionaries should extend their Labors more beyond the Cape Colony -- Model Christians --

Disgraceful Attack of the Boers on the Bakwains -- Letter from Sechele --

Details of the Attack -- Numbers of School-children carried away into Slavery -- Destruction of House and Property at Kolobeng --

The Boers vow Vengeance against me -- Consequent Difficulty of getting Servants to accompany me on my Journey -- Start in November, 1852 --

Meet Sechele on his way to England to obtain Redress from the Queen --

He is unable to proceed beyond the Cape -- Meet Mr. Macabe on his Return from Lake Ngami -- The hot Wind of the Desert --

Electric State of the Atmosphere -- Flock of Swifts --

Reach Litubaruba -- The Cave Lepelole -- Superstitions regarding it --

Impoverished State of the Bakwains -- Retaliation on the Boers --

Slavery -- Attachment of the Bechuanas to Children --

Hydrophobia unknown -- Diseases of the Bakwains few in number --

Yearly Epidemics -- Hasty Burials -- Ophthalmia -- Native Doctors --

Knowledge of Surgery at a very low Ebb -- Little Attendance given to Women at their Confinements -- The "Child Medicine" -- Salubrity of the Climate well adapted for Invalids suffering from pulmonary Complaints.

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