The Place Where We First Settled With The Bakwains Is Called Chonuane,
And It Happened To Be Visited, During The First Year Of Our Residence There,
By One Of Those Droughts Which Occur From Time To Time
In Even The Most Favored Districts Of Africa.
The belief in the gift or power of RAIN-MAKING is one of the most
deeply-rooted articles of faith in this country.
The chief Sechele
was himself a noted rain-doctor, and believed in it implicitly. He has often
assured me that he found it more difficult to give up his faith in that
than in any thing else which Christianity required him to abjure.
I pointed out to him that the only feasible way of watering the gardens
was to select some good, never-failing river, make a canal,
and irrigate the adjacent lands. This suggestion was immediately adopted,
and soon the whole tribe was on the move to the Kolobeng,
a stream about forty miles distant. The experiment succeeded admirably
during the first year. The Bakwains made the canal and dam
in exchange for my labor in assisting to build a square house for their chief.
They also built their own school under my superintendence.
Our house at the River Kolobeng, which gave a name to the settlement,
was the third which I had reared with my own hands. A native smith taught me
to weld iron; and having improved by scraps of information in that line
from Mr. Moffat, and also in carpentering and gardening,
I was becoming handy at almost any trade, besides doctoring and preaching;
and as my wife could make candles, soap, and clothes,
we came nearly up to what may be considered as indispensable
in the accomplishments of a missionary family in Central Africa,
namely, the husband to be a jack-of-all-trades without doors,
and the wife a maid-of-all-work within.
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