Such An Error Could Not Have Been Committed By
A Man Of Local Knowledge And Experience, Such As That Noble
Of colonial birth,
Sir Andries Stockenstrom; and such instances of confounding friend and foe,
in the innocent belief of thereby
Promoting colonial interests,
will probably lead the Cape community, the chief part of which
by no means feels its interest to lie in the degradation of the native tribes,
to assert the right of choosing their own governors.
This, with colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament,
in addition to the local self-government already so liberally conceded,
would undoubtedly secure the perpetual union of the colony
to the English crown.
Many hundreds of both Griquas and Bechuanas have become Christians
and partially civilized through the teaching of English missionaries.
My first impressions of the progress made were that the accounts
of the effects of the Gospel among them had been too highly colored.
I expected a higher degree of Christian simplicity and purity
than exists either among them or among ourselves. I was not anxious
for a deeper insight in detecting shams than others, but I expected character,
such as we imagine the primitive disciples had - and was disappointed.*
When, however, I passed on to the true heathen in the countries beyond
the sphere of missionary influence, and could compare the people there
with the Christian natives, I came to the conclusion that,
if the question were examined in the most rigidly severe or scientific way,
the change effected by the missionary movement would be considered
unquestionably great.
-
* The popular notion, however, of the primitive Church
is perhaps not very accurate. Those societies especially
which consisted of converted Gentiles - men who had been accustomed
to the vices and immoralities of heathenism - were certainly
any thing but pure. In spite of their conversion, some of them carried
the stains and vestiges of their former state with them when they passed
from the temple to the church. If the instructed and civilized Greek
did not all at once rise out of his former self, and understand and realize
the high ideal of his new faith, we should be careful,
in judging of the work of missionaries among savage tribes,
not to apply to their converts tests and standards of too great severity.
If the scoffing Lucian's account of the impostor Peregrinus may be believed,
we find a church probably planted by the apostles manifesting
less intelligence even than modern missionary churches. Peregrinus,
a notoriously wicked man, was elected to the chief place among them,
while Romish priests, backed by the power of France, could not find
a place at all in the mission churches of Tahiti and Madagascar.
-
We can not fairly compare these poor people with ourselves,
who have an atmosphere of Christianity and enlightened public opinion,
the growth of centuries, around us, to influence our deportment;
but let any one from the natural and proper point of view behold
the public morality of Griqua Town, Kuruman, Likatlong, and other villages,
and remember what even London was a century ago, and he must confess
that the Christian mode of treating aborigines is incomparably the best.
The Griquas and Bechuanas were in former times clad much like the Caffres,
if such a word may be used where there is scarcely any clothing at all.
A bunch of leather strings about eighteen inches long hung
from the lady's waist in front, and a prepared skin of a sheep or antelope
covered the shoulders, leaving the breast and abdomen bare:
the men wore a patch of skin, about the size of the crown of one's hat,
which barely served for the purposes of decency, and a mantle
exactly like that of the women. To assist in protecting the pores of the skin
from the influence of the sun by day and of the cold by night,
all smeared themselves with a mixture of fat and ochre;
the head was anointed with pounded blue mica schist mixed with fat;
and the fine particles of shining mica, falling on the body
and on strings of beads and brass rings, were considered as highly ornamental,
and fit for the most fastidious dandy. Now these same people come to church
in decent though poor clothing, and behave with a decorum certainly superior
to what seems to have been the case in the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys in London.
Sunday is well observed, and, even in localities where no missionary lives,
religious meetings are regularly held, and children and adults taught to read
by the more advanced of their own fellow-countrymen; and no one is allowed
to make a profession of faith by baptism unless he knows how to read,
and understands the nature of the Christian religion.
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.
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