Seven Years Were Spent At Kolobeng
In Instructing My Friends There; But The Country Being Incapable Of Raising
Materials For Exportation, When The Boers Made Their Murderous Attack
And Scattered The Tribe For A Season, None Sympathized
Except A Few Christian Friends.
Had the people of Kolobeng
been in the habit of raising the raw materials of English commerce,
the outrage
Would have been felt in England; or, what is more likely
to have been the case, the people would have raised themselves in the scale
by barter, and have become, like the Basutos of Moshesh and people of Kuruman,
possessed of fire-arms, and the Boers would never have made the attack at all.
We ought to encourage the Africans to cultivate for our markets,
as the most effectual means, next to the Gospel, of their elevation.
It is in the hope of working out this idea that I propose
the formation of stations on the Zambesi beyond the Portuguese territory,
but having communication through them with the coast. A chain of stations
admitting of easy and speedy intercourse, such as might be formed
along the flank of the eastern ridge, would be in a favorable position
for carrying out the objects in view. The London Missionary Society
has resolved to have a station among the Makololo on the north bank,
and another on the south among the Matebele. The Church
- Wesleyan, Baptist, and that most energetic body, the Free Church -
could each find desirable locations among the Batoka and adjacent tribes.
The country is so extensive there is no fear of clashing.
All classes of Christians find that sectarian rancor soon dies out
when they are working together among and for the real heathen.
Only let the healthy locality be searched for and fixed upon,
and then there will be free scope to work in the same cause
in various directions, without that loss of men which the system of missions
on the unhealthy coasts entails. While respectfully submitting the plan
to these influential societies, I can positively state that,
when fairly in the interior, there is perfect security for life and property
among a people who will at least listen and reason.
Eight of my men begged to be allowed to come as far as Kilimane, and,
thinking that they would there see the ocean, I consented to their coming,
though the food was so scarce in consequence of a dearth that they were
compelled to suffer some hunger. They would fain have come farther; for when
Sekeletu parted with them, his orders were that none of them should turn
until they had reached Ma Robert and brought her back with them.
On my explaining the difficulty of crossing the sea, he said,
"Wherever you lead, they must follow." As I did not know well
how I should get home myself, I advised them to go back to Tete,
where food was abundant, and there await my return. I bought
a quantity of calico and brass wire with ten of the smaller tusks
which we had in our charge, and sent the former back as clothing
to those who remained at Tete.
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