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wretched outcasts of the human family. Mr. Shaw, who ministered chiefly among the Namaquas far to the North of the Cape Colony, says, upon arriving among them, "Being now in the midst of a fallen race where the Saviour had not been preached, and believing that he by the grace of God tasted death for every man, I set up my banner on the mountain top, and cried, Behold the 'Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." And when many years after he visited his native land, and repaired to the cottage where he was born, and embraced his aged parents, he writes, in contemplating his return to Africa : "Some of the strongest bonds of affection must be torn asunder. The aged pair frequently kissed their grandchildren as they prattled around them, having no hope of again seeing them in this vale of tears. The shades of evening came on; the vehicle which was to bear us away approached; we prayed and parted, to see each

other's face no more on earth. But Pity poor Africa' had long been my motto, and is so still; yet it required some fortitude for Mrs. Shaw and myself to bear up under these trying circumstances." Mr. Moffat also says:

"He makes his present appearance before the British public less in the

capacity of an author than of a witness, who most earnestly desires to establish and to enforce the claims of perishing, and helpless, and all but friendless millions, for whom he has hitherto lived and laboured-whom he ardently loves,

and with whom all black, barbarous, and benighted as they are he hopes to live, labour, and die !"

"Of those who began at the same period with himself the career of missionary toil, the greater number have sunk into the grave; and not a few of those who followed long after, have also been gathered to their fathers. He is especially reminded of one, much honoured and endeared, whose tragical death, of all others, has most affected him. John Williams and he were accepted by the

directors at the same time, and designated to the work of God, at Surrey Cha

pel, on the same occasion. The fields of their service were both arduous, although of a widely different character. After much trial and many dangers, both have been permitted to return to their native land, and to publish narratives of their respective labours. Thus far they run parallel ; but here they part company. 'The Martyr of Erromanga

has finished his course and rests from his labours; while his early friend still lives amidst the conflict. The writer now feels that his work in England is done, and that the spirit of the stranger and the pilgrim is stealing powerfully over him. He longs once more to brave the mighty ocean; and eagerly anticipates the hour when he shall again reach the shores of his adopted country, and appear in the midst of the children of the wilderness."

The Aborigines of the Peninsula of South Africa, so far as at present known to Europeans, consist of ten or twelve tribes; and these

may be classed under two great families; the Hottentot and the Kaffir. The Hottentot family comprises the original Hottentots, the Little Namaquas, the

Great Namaquas, the Bushmen, and the Corannah Tribes. The Kaffir family comprises the Kaffirs proper, the Bechuanas, the Mantatees, the Zoolus, and the Damaras. These various tribes differ in their persons and habits ; some are more rude, others more civilized; some more gentle, others more warlike; some more stolid, others more intelligent; but all, except so far as the introduction of the Gospel among them has meliorated their condition, are in a deplorably debased state, both moral and physical; and to the reproach of those who ought to have been their friends and protectors, their teachers and benefactors, it must be added, that till recently the settlement of Europeans in their vicinity has only augmented their degradation and wretchedness. The Dutch colonists grievously op

*

pressed them ; the frontier Boors regarded them only as human cattle, to be pillaged, reduced

* The Dutch East India Company took possession of the Cape in the year 1652. Jan Van Riebeek was appointed Superintendent of the Colony, and we find his Council on the arrival of the expedition at Table Bay resolving as follows:

"Having by the grace of God, whose name be praised, safely arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, for the purpose of establishing a general rendezvous, according to the orders received from our superiors; to take possession of such lands as may be best suited for cultivation, &c., for the refreshment of the Company's vessels, and for such other purposes as the interest of the Company may require the Council being assembled, have ordered and directed that Jan Van Riebeek, accompanied by the commanders of the ships at anchor, shall land, with some armed soldiers, to inspect and measure a place fitted for the erection of a fort and having fixed upon the same, shall immediately mark out a plan, so that no time may be lost."

We see no reason to suppose that the devout preamble of this resolution was hypocritical; itical; for though the resolution sounds aggressively ely and in a warlike spirit, the settlers might consider that they were only justly and usefully occupying what was no man's land, but that amidst barbarous tribes military

precautions were necessary in self-defence. The Superintendent appears to have constantly implored the Divine blessing and guidance upon their undertakings; and the following beautiful and appropriate prayer occurs in the very first page of the Records of the

Council :

"O merciful and gracious God, our heavenly Father! since it has pleased thee to call us to the government of the affairs of the East India Company, at the Cape of Good Hope; and as we have assembled in council, to advise and adopt such measures as may best tend to promote the interests of the Company, to maintain justice, and if possible, to plant and propagate the true Reformed Christian Doctrine, amongst those wild and savage people, for the praise and honour of thy holy name, and for the benefit of our employers: but being, without thy gracious assistance, unable to effect these purposes; we pray, O most merciful Father! that it may please thee to preside at this assembly, and with thy heavenly wisdom to so

to slavery, or exterminated; and though since the capture of the Cape of Good Hope by Great Britain, the progress of justice, humanity, and sound policy in regard to them is becoming at length triumphant, it was at first very slow, so that till within the last few years they were subjected to the most shameful outrages and wrongs. They owe whatever of protection they enjoyed, during a long period, almost wholly to the influence of the missionaries, both locally, and also with the Cape authorities and the Home government; for the intelligence and the suggestions which reached the British authorities from the frontier settlers were almost invariably adverse to them; and hence were generated or fomented those grievous wars which during many years destroyed vast numbers of them, and drove the vanquished survivors far into the deserts. It is true that half-starved savages were often troublesome depredators; but in general they were grateful for kindness, and nothing is more certain than that the

White population were almost invariably the aggressors; and also took a fearful vengeance when quarrels arose. The frequent and bloody expeditions sent against them, called commandoes,

enlighten our hearts; that all perverse passions may be removed from amongst us, our hearts cleansed from all human weakness, and our minds so composed, that we, in all our deliberations, may not propose or resolve anything which will not tend to the praise and glory of thy most holy name, and to the service of our masters; without considering, in the least, our own personal advantage or profit. These, and such other blessings as may be necessary to promote the service en trusted to us, and for our eternal salvation, we most humbly pray and entreat, in the name of thy beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who hath taught and commanded us to say: 'Our Father, which art in heaven,' &c."

present some of the blackest pages of English as well as Dutch colonial history.

The exact geographical limits of the Bechuana tribes cannot be defined; but the following statements respecting them and some of their neighbours, will suffice for the purpose of the present narrative:

"North of Kafirland, between the Winterberg mountains and the higher branches of the Yellow River, lies the country inhabited by the Basutos, a tribe of Bechuanas. Since the days of Chaka, the tyrant of the Zoolus, who oppressed them from the east, while the Bergenaars on the west were exercising dreadful barbarities, and reduced most of the tribes to extreme poverty; they have risen again in a fertile country, to comparative affluence. The commencement of missions among them, by the brethren of the Evangelical Missionary Society at Paris, and subsequently by the Wesleyans, is the cause of this improvement in their circumstances.

Beyond the Basutos, to the north of the Orange River, lie the other Be chuana tribes, whose numbers and extent we have not yet been able to learn. There is some reason for supposing that they formerly extended much farther to the southward than their present limits, the 28° south latitude, for the places as far as the Orange River have Bechuana names; and even the Lokualo of the Bechuana is to be found on stones near the present boundaries of the colony; but this may have been done by herdsmen taken or escaped from those tribes. Few, except Balala, lie farther west than the 23o east longitude. Between 23° and 19°, lies what Mr. Campbell calls the southern Zahara, which, from what I have seen on the east, south, and western boundaries of it, is a fearful expanse of sand, though undulating, and in many places covered with acacias and other trees of gigantic size. The eastern parts are inhabited by the Balala of the Bechuana; the southern, near Orange River, by Bushmen; and the western, by Namaqua Bushmen, but none of them are able to keep cattle. They subsist on game, water-melons, and roots.

the

"The country from the limits of the desert to the west coast is called Great

Namaqualand, containing a thin populanorth of the Namaquas lie the Damara tribes, of whom comparatively little is

tion of the Hottentot race.

known, except that from their physical appearance and black colour, they approximate to the negroes and natives of Congo on the west coast. These tribes inhabit a country extending from the tropic of Capricorn to the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Atlantic to the shore

of the Indian Ocean. The climate varies from that in which thunder storms and

The

tornadoes shake the mountains, and the scorching rays of an almost vertical sun produce the mirage, to that which is salubrious and mild within the boundaries of the colony along Kafir-land to the fruitful and well watered plains of the Zoolu country in the vicinity of Port Natal, while the more mountainous and elevated regions are visited by keen frosts and heavy falls of snow. colony extends, from west to east, about 600 miles, its average breadth being about 200, containing a variety of climate, the healthiest perhaps to be found in any part of the world. Between the coast and the vast chain of mountains beyond which lie the Karroo, the country is well watered, fertile, and temperate. The other portions of the colony, with few exceptions and without a change in the seasons, appear to be doomed to perpetual sterility and drought.

"The entire country, extending in some places hundreds of miles on each side of the Orange River, and from where it empties itself into the Atlantic to beyond the 24th degree east longitude, appears to have the curse of Gilboa resting on it. It is rare that rains to any extent or quantity fall in those regions. Extreme droughts continue for years together. The fountains are exceedingly few, precarious, and latterly many of these have been dried up altogether."

Before proceeding to the mis. sions to the Bechuanas, Mr. Moffat gives a brief sketch of preceding Christian labours in other places, with notices of several eminent missionaries and remarkable natives. The names of George Schmidt, Dr. Vanderkemp, and the converted maurauder Africaner, must be familiar to most of our readers; but for this very reason our author's notes respecting them are the more interesting, as they embrace some particulars which may not be within general recollection. Of Schmidt he says:

"In July, 1736, George Schmidt, with something of that zeal which fired the bosom of Egede, the pioneer of the mission to Greenland, left his native country for that of the Hottentots. He was the first who, commissioned by the King of kings, stood in the vale of Grace, (Genadendal,) at that time known by the name of Bavian's Kloof, (the Glen of Baboons,) and directed the degraded, oppressed, ignorant, despised, and, so far as life eternal is concerned, the outcast Hottentots, to the Lamb of God, who tasted death for them. It is impossible to traverse the glen, as the writer has done, or sit under the great pear-tree which that devoted missionary planted with his own hands, without feeling something like a holy envy of so distinguished a person in the missionary band. Though he could only address the Hottentots through an interpreter, his early efforts were crowned with success, and the attendance at the first Hottentot school ever founded rapidly increased. The Hottentots, with all their reputed ignorance and apathy, justly regarded him with sentiments of unfeigned love and admiration; and so evidently was the Gospel made the power of God, that in the course of a few years

he was able to add a number of converts to the church of the first-born.

"In 1743, the lonely missionary was compelled to visit Europe, when the Dutch East India Company, actuated by representations that to instruct the Hottentots would be injurious to the interests of the colony, refused to sanction the return of this messenger of mercy to that unfortunate people. Every effort to resume the mission was fruitless, till the year 1792, when Marsveldt, Schwinn, and Kuchnel sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. They received every attention, and went in search of the spot where, more than half a century before, Schmidt left his little band. Part of the walls of his house was indeed still standing, and in the garden were several fruit-trees planted by his hands; whilst various ruins of walls, at a short distance, marked the site of the lowly cottages which were once inhabited by his affectionate hearers: and, what must have been overpowering to these followers of so good a man, one of the females whom he had baptized, by the name of Magdalena, was also found out, and appeared to have a tolerable recollection of her former teacher, though she was now about seventy years of age. She also produced a New Testament, bearing the marks of constant use, which he had presented to her. This she had preserved as a precious relic, and, although

now bent down with age and feebleness, she expressed great joy on being informed that Marsveldt and his companions were the brethren of her old and beloved pastor.

"The Hottentots who remembered Mr. Schmidt, or had heard of his labours of love, rallied around the standard again erected; and though great and many were the trials and distresses of the missionaries, often threatened with destruction and murder, all recorded in the chronicles of heaven, their labours were blessed: and, through Divine help, the Moravian Missions have prospered, and spread their branches through different parts of the colony, and to the Tambookies beyond it, where they have now a flourishing station. What a remarkable display have we here of the faithfulness and mercy of God, in preserving the seed sown by Schmidt in a most ungenial soil, and left to vegetate in an aspect the most forbidding, for such a length of time! Who can doubt the Divine assurance, 'My word shall not return unto me void!'"

Ofthe devoted Vanderkemp we have the following interesting particulars.

"On the 31st of March, in the year 1799, Dr. Vanderkemp, accompanied by Messrs. Kicherer and Edmonds, landed at Cape Town, then in the possession of the Dutch. Dr. V. selected Kafir-land as the field of his operations, while Mr. Kicherer, accompanied by Mr. Kramer, yielded to a call of Providence, and proceeded to the Bushmen on the Zak River. Vanderkemp, who was a native of Holland, seemed, from his experience, natural firmness of character, and_distinguished talents, prepared for the Herculean task, at once to force his way into the head-quarters of the enemy, and raise the standard of the cross amidst a dense population of barbarians, the most powerful, warlike, and independent of all the tribes within or without the boundaries of the Cape colony, and who, notwithstanding the superior means for human destruction enjoyed by their White neighbours, still maintained their right to their native hills and dales. He might at once, with comparative little trouble or hardship, have fixed his abode among the Hottentots within the colony, to whom he eventually devoted all the energies of his body and mind, in raising that depressed, degraded, helpless, and enslaved race, to freemen in Christ Jesus, and breaking the fetters that a cruel policy had riveted on that hapless people, the aborigines and rightful

owners of a territory now no longer theirs.

"The Doctor, having cast his eye over the condition of the Hottentots, concluded that there was scarcely any possibility of making progress among a people so proscribed by government, and at the mercy of their White neighbours, on whom they could not look without indignation, as any other human beings would have done in similar circumstances; he therefore, very naturally, directed his steps to those who were yet free from these unnatural restrictions.

"Having received every encouragement from the English government, and recommendatory letters to the farmers, he left Cape Town. The country through which he had to pass was thinly, and in many places newly inhabited. The party arrived at Graaff Reinet on June 29, after having, with their attendants and cattle, experienced many narrow escapes from lions, panthers, and other will beasts, as well as from Bushmen and Hottentots, of character still more ferocious. Notwithstanding, wherever they went, they were kindly treated by the farmers, although their fears and alarms must have been many, and nothing but Divine power could have cheered them onward in their desert path.

"In July, 1799, he proceeded to Graaff Reinet, the most distant colonial town, and the nearest to the Kafirs. This was a daring undertaking, when it is remembered that for a long time previous a dire, and often deadly strife had been between them and the farmers, whom they very naturally viewed as intruders, and towards whom they must have looked with a jealous eye, both they and their forefathers having witnessed the reduction of the Hottentots, once their equals in number and power, to a state of slavery, destitution, and sorrow; the mere fragment of a nation being left.

"Some time elapsed before the crafty monarch Gaika would give his consent that they should remain in his dominions; and when this was at length granted, and a suitable spot selected, he adds, in true Gospel simplicity, 'Brother Edmonds and I cut down long grass and rushes for thatching, and felled trees in the wood. I kneeled down on the grass, thanking the Lord Jesus that he had provided me a resting place before the face of our enemies and Satan, praying that from under this roof the seed of the Gospel might spread northwards through all Africa.'

"After Mr. E.'s departure, the Doctor

in his cheerless abode was instant in season and out of season, eagerly embracing every opportunity of recommending the Gospel, and catching each little ray of light that beamed on his devious path. He was a man of exalted genius and learning. He had mingled with courtiers. He had been an inmate of the universities of Leyden and Edinburgh. He had obtained plaudits for his remarkable progress in literature, in philosophy, divinity, physic, and the military art. He was not only a profound student in ancient languages, but in all the modern European tongues, even to that of the Highlanders of Scotland, and had distinguished himself in the armies of his earthly sovereign, in connexion with which he rose to be cap. tain of horse and lieutenant of the dragoon guards. Yet this man, constrained by the love of Christ,' could cheerfully lay aside all his honours, mingle with savages, bear their sneers and contumely, condescend to serve the meanest of his troublesome guests take the axe, the sickle, the spade, and the mattock-lie down on the place where dogs repose, and spend nights with his couch drenched with rain, the cold wind bringing his fragile house about his ears. Though annoyed by the nightly visits of hungry hyenas, sometimes destroying his sheep and travelling appurtenances, and even seizing the leg of beef at his tent door, -though compelled to wander about in quest of lost cattle, and exposed to the perplexing and humbling caprice of those whose characters were stains on human nature-whisperings occasionally reaching his ears that murderous plans were in progress for his destructionhe calmly proceeded with his benevolent efforts, and to secure his object, would stoop with the meekness of wisdom' to please and propitiate the rude and wayward children of the desert whom he sought to bless.

"In 1800 Dr. V. left Kafir-land, for Graaff Reinet, principally to meet the two brethren, Vanderlingen and Read, and remained a considerable time there, during a rebellion among the farmers. He visited Kafir-land again, but, from the unsettled state of the frontier, was compelled to relinquish the mission, and return to Graaff Reinet, where he laboured among the Hottentots. General Dundas offered means of forming a station in the colony, 'to endeavour,' as the governor expressed it, 'to ameliorate the spiritual and temporal condition of that unhappy people, whom, upon every principle of humanity and justice, government is bound to protect.'

"In February, 1801, Dr. Vander

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