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.
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