Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa

The myth of the black pot assumed serious proportions. I attempted to benefit the tribes among the Boers of Magaliesberg by placing native teachers at different points. "You must teach the blacks," said Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, the commandant in chief, "that they are not equal to us." Other Boers told me, "I might as well teach the baboons on the rocks as the Africans," but declined the test which I proposed, namely, to examine whether they or my native attendants could read best. Two of their clergymen came to baptize the children of the Boers; so, supposing these good men would assist me in overcoming the repugnance of their flock to the education of the blacks, I called on them; but my visit ended in a 'ruse' practiced by the Boerish commandant, whereby I was led, by professions of the greatest friendship, to retire to Kolobeng, while a letter passed me by another way to the other missionaries in the south, demanding my instant recall "for lending a cannon to their enemies." The colonial government was also gravely informed that the story was true, and I came to be looked upon as a most suspicious character in consequence.

These notices of the Boers are not intended to produce a sneer at their ignorance, but to excite the compassion of their friends. They are perpetually talking about their laws; but practically theirs is only the law of the strongest. The Bechuanas could never understand the changes which took place in their commandants. "Why, one can never know who is the chief among these Boers. Like the Bushmen, they have no king—they must be the Bushmen of the English." The idea that any tribe of men could be so senseless as not to have an hereditary chief was so absurd to these people, that, in order not to appear equally stupid, I was obliged to tell them that we English were so anxious to preserve the royal blood, that we had made a young lady our chief. This seemed to them a most convincing proof of our sound sense. We shall see farther on the confidence my account of our queen inspired.

The Boers, encouraged by the accession of Mr. Pretorius, determined at last to put a stop to English traders going past Kolobeng, by dispersing the tribe of Bakwains, and expelling all the missionaries. Sir George Cathcart proclaimed the independence of the Boers, the best thing that could have been done had they been between us and the Caffres. A treaty was entered into with these Boers; an article for the free passage of Englishmen to the country beyond, and also another, that no slavery should be allowed in the independent territory, were duly inserted, as expressive of the views of her majesty's government at home. "But what about the missionaries?" inquired the Boers. "YOU MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE WITH THEM," is said to have been the answer of the "Commissioner". This remark, if uttered at all, was probably made in joke: designing men, however, circulated it, and caused the general belief in its accuracy which now prevails all over the country, and doubtless led to the destruction of three mission stations immediately after. The Boers, four hundred in number, were sent by the late Mr. Pretorius to attack the Bakwains in 1852. Boasting that the English had given up all the blacks into their power, and had agreed to aid them in their subjugation by preventing all supplies of ammunition from coming into the Bechuana country, they assaulted the Bakwains, and, besides killing a considerable number of adults, carried off two hundred of our school children into slavery. The natives under Sechele defended themselves till the approach of night enabled them to flee to the mountains; and having in that defense killed a number of the enemy, the very first ever slain in this country by Bechuanas, I received the credit of having taught the tribe to kill Boers! My house, which had stood perfectly secure for years under the protection of the natives, was plundered in revenge. English gentlemen, who had come in the footsteps of Mr. Cumming to hunt in the country beyond, and had deposited large quantities of stores in the same keeping, and upward of eighty head of cattle as relays for the return journeys, were robbed of all, and, when they came back to Kolobeng, found the skeletons of the guardians strewed all over the place. The books of a good library—my solace in our solitude—were not taken away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out and scattered over the place. My stock of medicines was smashed; and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at public auction to pay the expenses of the foray.

I do not mention these things by way of making a pitiful wail over my losses, nor in order to excite commiseration; for, though I do feel sorry for the loss of lexicons, dictionaries, &c., which had been the companions of my boyhood, yet, after all, the plundering only set me entirely free for my expedition to the north, and I have never since had a moment's concern for any thing I left behind. The Boers resolved to shut up the interior, and I determined to open the country, and we shall see who have been most successful in resolution, they or I.

A short sketch of African housekeeping may not prove uninteresting to the reader. The entire absence of shops led us to make every thing we needed from the raw materials. You want bricks to build a house, and must forthwith proceed to the field, cut down a tree, and saw it into planks to make the brick-moulds; the materials for doors and windows, too, are standing in the forest; and, if you want to be respected by the natives, a house of decent dimensions, costing an immense amount of manual labor, must be built. The people can not assist you much; for, though most willing to labor for wages, the Bakwains have a curious inability to make or put things square: like all Bechuanas, their dwellings are made round. In the case of three large houses, erected by myself at different times, every brick and stick had to be put square by my own right hand.

Having got the meal ground, the wife proceeds to make it into bread; an extempore oven is often constructed by scooping out a large hole in an anthill, and using a slab of stone for a door. Another plan, which might be adopted by the Australians to produce something better than their "dampers", is to make a good fire on a level piece of ground, and, when the ground is thoroughly heated, place the dough in a small, short-handled frying-pan, or simply on the hot ashes; invert any sort of metal pot over it, draw the ashes around, and then make a small fire on the top. Dough, mixed with a little leaven from a former baking, and allowed to stand an hour or two in the sun, will by this process become excellent bread.

We made our own butter, a jar serving as a churn; and our own candles by means of moulds; and soap was procured from the ashes of the plant salsola, or from wood-ashes, which in Africa contain so little alkaline matter that the boiling of successive leys has to be continued for a month or six weeks before the fat is saponified. There is not much hardship in being almost entirely dependent on ourselves; there is something of the feeling which must have animated Alexander Selkirk on seeing conveniences springing up before him from his own ingenuity; and married life is all the sweeter when so many comforts emanate directly from the thrifty striving housewife's hands.

To some it may appear quite a romantic mode of life; it is one of active benevolence, such as the good may enjoy at home. Take a single day as a sample of the whole. We rose early, because, however hot the day may have been, the evening, night, and morning at Kolobeng were deliciously refreshing; cool is not the word, where you have neither an increase of cold nor heat to desire, and where you can sit out till midnight with no fear of coughs or rheumatism. After family worship and breakfast between six and seven, we went to keep school for all who would attend—men, women, and children being all invited. School over at eleven o'clock, while the missionary's wife was occupied in domestic matters, the missionary himself had some manual labor as a smith, carpenter, or gardener, according to whatever was needed for ourselves or for the people; if for the latter, they worked for us in the garden, or at some other employment; skilled labor was thus exchanged for the unskilled. After dinner and an hour's rest, the wife attended her infant-school, which the young, who were left by their parents entirely to their own caprice, liked amazingly, and generally mustered a hundred strong; or she varied that with a sewing-school, having classes of girls to learn the art; this, too, was equally well relished. During the day every operation must be superintended, and both husband and wife must labor till the sun declines. After sunset the husband went into the town to converse with any one willing to do so, sometimes on general subjects, at other times on religion. On three nights of the week, as soon as the milking of the cows was over and it had become dark, we had a public religious service, and one of instruction on secular subjects, aided by pictures and specimens. These services were diversified by attending upon the sick and prescribing for them, giving food, and otherwise assisting the poor and wretched. We tried to gain their affections by attending to the wants of the body. The smallest acts of friendship, an obliging word and civil look, are, as St. Xavier thought, no despicable part of the missionary armor. Nor ought the good opinion of the most abject to be uncared for, when politeness may secure it. Their good word in the aggregate forms a reputation which may be well employed in procuring favor for the Gospel. Show kind attention to the reckless opponents of Christianity on the bed of sickness and pain, and they never can become your personal enemies. Here, if any where, love begets love.

When at Kolobeng, during the droughts we were entirely dependent on Kuruman for supplies of corn. Once we were reduced to living on bran, to convert which into fine meal we had to grind it three times over. We were much in want of animal food, which seems to be a greater necessary of life there than vegetarians would imagine. Being alone, we could not divide the butcher-meat of a slaughtered animal with a prospect of getting a return with regularity. Sechele had, by right of chieftainship, the breast of every animal slaughtered either at home or abroad, and he most obligingly sent us a liberal share during the whole period of our sojourn. But these supplies were necessarily so irregular that we were sometimes fain to accept a dish of locusts. These are quite a blessing in the country, so much so that the RAIN-DOCTORS sometimes promised to bring them by their incantations. The locusts are strongly vegetable in taste, the flavor varying with the plants on which they feed. There is a physiological reason why locusts and honey should be eaten together. Some are roasted and pounded into meal, which, eaten with a little salt, is palatable. It will keep thus for months. Boiled, they are disagreeable; but when they are roasted I should much prefer locusts to shrimps, though I would avoid both if possible.

In traveling we sometimes suffered considerably from scarcity of meat, though not from absolute want of food. This was felt more especially by my children; and the natives, to show their sympathy, often gave them a large kind of caterpillar, which they seemed to relish; these insects could not be unwholesome, for the natives devoured them in large quantities themselves.

Another article of which our children partook with eagerness was a very large frog, called "Matlametlo".*

These enormous frogs, which, when cooked, look like chickens, are supposed by the natives to fall down from thunder-clouds, because after a heavy thunder-shower the pools, which are filled and retain water a few days, become instantly alive with this loud-croaking, pugnacious game. This phenomenon takes place in the driest parts of the desert, and in places where, to an ordinary observer, there is not a sign of life. Having been once benighted in a district of the Kalahari where there was no prospect of getting water for our cattle for a day or two, I was surprised to hear in the fine still evening the croaking of frogs. Walking out until I was certain that the musicians were between me and our fire, I found that they could be merry on nothing else but a prospect of rain. From the Bushmen I afterward learned that the matlametlo makes a hole at the root of certain bushes, and there ensconces himself during the months of drought. As he seldom emerges, a large variety of spider takes advantage of the hole, and makes its web across the orifice. He is thus furnished with a window and screen gratis; and no one but a Bushman would think of searching beneath a spider's web for a frog. They completely eluded my search on the occasion referred to; and as they rush forth into the hollows filled by the thunder-shower when the rain is actually falling, and the Bechuanas are cowering under their skin garments, the sudden chorus struck up simultaneously from all sides seems to indicate a descent from the clouds.

The presence of these matlametlo in the desert in a time of drought was rather a disappointment, for I had been accustomed to suppose that the note was always emitted by them when they were chin-deep in water. Their music was always regarded in other spots as the most pleasant sound that met the ear after crossing portions of the thirsty desert; and I could fully appreciate the sympathy for these animals shown by Aesop, himself an African, in his fable of the "Boys and the Frogs".

It is remarkable that attempts have not been made to any extent to domesticate some of the noble and useful creatures of Africa in England. The eland, which is the most magnificent of all antelopes, would grace the parks of our nobility more than deer. This animal, from the excellence of its flesh, would be appropriate to our own country; and as there is also a splendid esculent frog nearly as large as a chicken, it would no doubt tend to perpetuate the present alliance if we made a gift of that to France.

The scavenger beetle is one of the most useful of all insects, as it effectually answers the object indicated by the name. Where they abound, as at Kuruman, the villages are sweet and clean, for no sooner are animal excretions dropped than, attracted by the scent, the scavengers are heard coming booming up the wind. They roll away the droppings of cattle at once, in round pieces often as large as billiard-balls; and when they reach a place proper by its softness for the deposit of their eggs and the safety of their young, they dig the soil out from beneath the ball till they have quite let it down and covered it: they then lay their eggs within the mass. While the larvae are growing, they devour the inside of the ball before coming above ground to begin the world for themselves. The beetles with their gigantic balls look like Atlas with the world on his back; only they go backward, and, with their heads down, push with the hind legs, as if a boy should roll a snow-ball with his legs while standing on his head. As we recommend the eland to John Bull, and the gigantic frog to France, we can confidently recommend this beetle to the dirty Italian towns and our own Sanitary Commissioners.

In trying to benefit the tribes living under the Boers of the Cashan Mountains, I twice performed a journey of about three hundred miles to the eastward of Kolobeng. Sechele had become so obnoxious to the Boers that, though anxious to accompany me in my journey, he dared not trust himself among them. This did not arise from the crime of cattle-stealing; for that crime, so common among the Caffres, was never charged against his tribe, nor, indeed, against any Bechuana tribe. It is, in fact, unknown in the country, except during actual warfare. His independence and love of the English were his only faults. In my last journey there, of about two hundred miles, on parting at the River Marikwe he gave me two servants, "to be," as he said, "his arms to serve me," and expressed regret that he could not come himself. "Suppose we went north," I said, "would you come?" He then told me the story of Sebituane having saved his life, and expatiated on the far-famed generosity of that really great man. This was the first time I had thought of crossing the Desert to Lake Ngami.

The conduct of the Boers, who, as will be remembered, had sent a letter designed to procure my removal out of the country, and their well-known settled policy which I have already described, became more fully developed on this than on any former occasion. When I spoke to Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter of the danger of hindering the Gospel of Christ among these poor savages, he became greatly excited, and called one of his followers to answer me. He threatened to attack any tribe that might receive a native teacher, yet he promised to use his influence to prevent those under him from throwing obstacles in our way. I could perceive plainly that nothing more could be done in that direction, so I commenced collecting all the information I could about the desert, with the intention of crossing it, if possible. Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato, was acquainted with a route which he kept carefully to himself, because the Lake country abounded in ivory, and he drew large quantities thence periodically at but small cost to himself.

Sechele, who valued highly every thing European, and was always fully alive to his own interest, was naturally anxious to get a share of that inviting field. He was most anxious to visit Sebituane too, partly, perhaps, from a wish to show off his new acquirements, but chiefly, I believe, from having very exalted ideas of the benefits he would derive from the liberality of that renowned chieftain. In age and family Sechele is the elder and superior of Sekomi; for when the original tribe broke up into Bamangwato, Bangwaketse, and Bakwains, the Bakwains retained the hereditary chieftainship; so their chief, Sechele, possesses certain advantages over Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato. If the two were traveling or hunting together, Sechele would take, by right, the heads of the game shot by Sekomi.

There are several vestiges, besides, of very ancient partitions and lordships of tribes. The elder brother of Sechele's father, becoming blind, gave over the chieftainship to Sechele's father. The descendants of this man pay no tribute to Sechele, though he is the actual ruler, and superior to the head of that family; and Sechele, while in every other respect supreme, calls him Kosi, or Chief. The other tribes will not begin to eat the early pumpkins of a new crop until they hear that the Bahurutse have "bitten it", and there is a public ceremony on the occasion—the son of the chief being the first to taste of the new harvest.

Sechele, by my advice, sent men to Sekomi, asking leave for me to pass along his path, accompanying the request with the present of an ox. Sekomi's mother, who possesses great influence over him, refused permission, because she had not been propitiated. This produced a fresh message; and the most honorable man in the Bakwain tribe, next to Sechele, was sent with an ox for both Sekomi and his mother. This, too, was met by refusal. It was said, "The Matebele, the mortal enemies of the Bechuanas, are in the direction of the lake, and, should they kill the white man, we shall incur great blame from all his nation."

The exact position of the Lake Ngami had, for half a century at least, been correctly pointed out by the natives, who had visited it when rains were more copious in the Desert than in more recent times, and many attempts had been made to reach it by passing through the Desert in the direction indicated; but it was found impossible, even for Griquas, who, having some Bushman blood in them, may be supposed more capable of enduring thirst than Europeans. It was clear, then, that our only chance of success was by going round, instead of through, the Desert. The best time for the attempt would have been about the end of the rainy season, in March or April, for then we should have been likely to meet with pools of rain-water, which always dry up during the rainless winter. I communicated my intention to an African traveler, Colonel Steele, then aid-de-camp to the Marquis of Tweedale at Madras, and he made it known to two other gentlemen, whose friendship we had gained during their African travel, namely, Major Vardon and Mr. Oswell. All of these gentlemen were so enamored with African hunting and African discovery that the two former must have envied the latter his good fortune in being able to leave India to undertake afresh the pleasures and pains of desert life. I believe Mr. Oswell came from his high position at a very considerable pecuniary sacrifice, and with no other end in view but to extend the boundaries of geographical knowledge. Before I knew of his coming, I had arranged that the payment for the guides furnished by Sechele should be the loan of my wagon, to bring back whatever ivory he might obtain from the chief at the lake. When, at last, Mr. Oswell came, bringing Mr. Murray with him, he undertook to defray the entire expenses of the guides, and fully executed his generous intention.

Sechele himself would have come with us, but, fearing that the much-talked-of assault of the Boers might take place during our absence, and blame be attached to me for taking him away, I dissuaded him against it by saying that he knew Mr. Oswell "would be as determined as himself to get through the Desert."

Before narrating the incidents of this journey, I may give some account of the great Kalahari Desert, in order that the reader may understand in some degree the nature of the difficulties we had to encounter.

The space from the Orange River in the south, lat. 29 Degrees, to Lake Ngami in the north, and from about 24 Degrees east long. to near the west coast, has been called a desert simply because it contains no running water, and very little water in wells. It is by no means destitute of vegetation and inhabitants, for it is covered with grass and a great variety of creeping plants; besides which there are large patches of bushes, and even trees. It is remarkably flat, but interesected in different parts by the beds of ancient rivers; and prodigious herds of certain antelopes, which require little or no water, roam over the trackless plains. The inhabitants, Bushmen and Bakalahari, prey on the game and on the countless rodentia and small species of the feline race which subsist on these. In general, the soil is light-colored soft sand, nearly pure silica. The beds of the ancient rivers contain much alluvial soil; and as that is baked hard by the burning sun, rain-water stands in pools in some of them for several months in the year.

The quantity of grass which grows on this remarkable region is astonishing, even to those who are familiar with India. It usually rises in tufts with bare spaces between, or the intervals are occupied by creeping plants, which, having their roots buried far beneath the soil, feel little the effects of the scorching sun. The number of these which have tuberous roots is very great; and their structure is intended to supply nutriment and moisture, when, during the long droughts, they can be obtained nowhere else. Here we have an example of a plant, not generally tuber-bearing, becoming so under circumstances where that appendage is necessary to act as a reservoir for preserving its life; and the same thing occurs in Angola to a species of grape-bearing vine, which is so furnished for the same purpose. The plant to which I at present refer is one of the cucurbitaceae, which bears a small, scarlet-colored, eatable cucumber. Another plant, named Leroshua, is a blessing to the inhabitants of the Desert. We see a small plant with linear leaves, and a stalk not thicker than a crow's quill; on digging down a foot or eighteen inches beneath, we come to a tuber, often as large as the head of a young child; when the rind is removed, we find it to be a mass of cellular tissue, filled with fluid much like that in a young turnip. Owing to the depth beneath the soil at which it is found, it is generally deliciously cool and refreshing. Another kind, named Mokuri, is seen in other parts of the country, where long-continued heat parches the soil. This plant is an herbaceous creeper, and deposits under ground a number of tubers, some as large as a man's head, at spots in a circle a yard or more, horizontally, from the stem. The natives strike the ground on the circumference of the circle with stones, till, by hearing a difference of sound, they know the water-bearing tuber to be beneath. They then dig down a foot or so, and find it.