In All The Journeys I Had Previously Undertaken
For Wider Diffusion Of The Gospel, The Extra Expenses Were Defrayed
From My Salary Of 100 Pounds Per Annum.
This sum is sufficient
to enable a missionary to live in the interior of South Africa,
supposing he has
A garden capable of yielding corn and vegetables;
but should he not, and still consider that six or eight months
can not lawfully be spent simply in getting goods at a lower price
than they can be had from itinerant traders, the sum mentioned
is barely sufficient for the poorest fare and plainest apparel.
As we never felt ourselves justified in making journeys to the colony
for the sake of securing bargains, the most frugal living was necessary
to enable us to be a little charitable to others; but when to this were added
extra traveling expenses, the wants of an increasing family,
and liberal gifts to chiefs, it was difficult to make both ends meet.
The pleasure of missionary labor would be enhanced if one could devote
his life to the heathen, without drawing a salary from a society at all.
The luxury of doing good from one's own private resources,
without appearing to either natives or Europeans to be making a gain of it,
is far preferable, and an object worthy the ambition of the rich.
But few men of fortune, however, now devote themselves to Christian missions,
as of old. Presents were always given to the chiefs whom we visited,
and nothing accepted in return; but when Sebituane (in 1851)
offered some ivory, I took it, and was able by its sale
to present his son with a number of really useful articles of a higher value
than I had ever been able to give before to any chief. In doing this,
of course, I appeared to trade, but, feeling I had a right to do so,
I felt perfectly easy in my mind; and, as I still held the view
of the inexpediency of combining the two professions, I was glad
of the proposal of one of the most honorable merchants of Cape Town,
Mr. H. E. Rutherford, that he should risk a sum of money in Fleming's hands
for the purpose of attempting to develop a trade with the Makololo.
It was to this man I suggested Sekeletu should sell the tusks
which he had presented for my acceptance, but the chief refused
to take them back from me. The goods which Fleming had brought were
ill adapted for the use of the natives, but he got a pretty good load of ivory
in exchange; and though it was his first attempt at trading,
and the distance traveled over made the expenses enormous,
he was not a loser by the trip. Other traders followed, who demanded
90 lbs. of ivory for a musket. The Makololo, knowing nothing of steelyards,
but supposing that they were meant to cheat them, declined to trade
except by exchanging one bull and one cow elephant's tusk for each gun.
This would average 70 lbs.
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