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.
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