Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone (interesting books to read for teens TXT) 📖

During that time no winter passed without one or two tribes in the East country being plundered of both cattle and children by the Boers.

The plan pursued is the following: one or two friendly tribes are forced to accompany a party of mounted Boers, and these expeditions can be got up only in the winter, when horses may be used without danger of being lost by disease. When they reach the tribe to be attacked, the friendly natives are ranged in front, to form, as they say, "a shield"; the Boers then coolly fire over their heads till the devoted people flee and leave cattle, wives, and children to the captors. This was done in nine cases during my residence in the interior, and on no occasion was a drop of Boer's blood shed.

News of these deeds spread quickly among the Bakwains, and letters were repeatedly sent by the Boers to Sechele, ordering him to come and surrender himself as their vassal, and stop English traders from proceeding into the country with fire-arms for sale.

But the discovery of Lake Ngami, hereafter to be described, made the traders come in five-fold greater numbers, and Sechele replied, "I was made an independent chief and placed here by God, and not by you.

I was never conquered by Mosilikatze, as those tribes whom you rule over; and the English are my friends. I get every thing I wish from them.

I can not hinder them from going where they like." Those who are old enough to remember the threatened invasion of our own island may understand the effect which the constant danger of a Boerish invasion had on the minds of the Bakwains; but no others can conceive how worrying were the messages and threats from the endless self-constituted authorities of the Magaliesberg Boers; and when to all this harassing annoyance was added the scarcity produced by the drought, we could not wonder at, though we felt sorry for, their indisposition to receive instruction.

The myth of the black pot assumed serious proportions.

I attempted to benefit the tribes among the Boers of Magaliesberg by placing native teachers at different points. "You must teach the blacks,"

said Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, the commandant in chief, "that they are not equal to us." Other Boers told me, "I might as well teach the baboons on the rocks as the Africans,"

but declined the test which I proposed, namely, to examine whether they or my native attendants could read best. Two of their clergymen came to baptize the children of the Boers; so, supposing these good men would assist me in overcoming the repugnance of their flock to the education of the blacks, I called on them; but my visit ended in a `ruse' practiced by the Boerish commandant, whereby I was led, by professions of the greatest friendship, to retire to Kolobeng, while a letter passed me by another way to the other missionaries in the south, demanding my instant recall "for lending a cannon to their enemies." The colonial government was also gravely informed that the story was true, and I came to be looked upon as a most suspicious character in consequence.

These notices of the Boers are not intended to produce a sneer at their ignorance, but to excite the compassion of their friends.

They are perpetually talking about their laws; but practically theirs is only the law of the strongest. The Bechuanas could never understand the changes which took place in their commandants. "Why, one can never know who is the chief among these Boers. Like the Bushmen, they have no king --

they must be the Bushmen of the English." The idea that any tribe of men could be so senseless as not to have an hereditary chief was so absurd to these people, that, in order not to appear equally stupid, I was obliged to tell them that we English were so anxious to preserve the royal blood, that we had made a young lady our chief.

This seemed to them a most convincing proof of our sound sense.

We shall see farther on the confidence my account of our queen inspired.

The Boers, encouraged by the accession of Mr. Pretorius, determined at last to put a stop to English traders going past Kolobeng, by dispersing the tribe of Bakwains, and expelling all the missionaries.

Sir George Cathcart proclaimed the independence of the Boers, the best thing that could have been done had they been between us and the Caffres.

A treaty was entered into with these Boers; an article for the free passage of Englishmen to the country beyond, and also another, that no slavery should be allowed in the independent territory, were duly inserted, as expressive of the views of her majesty's government at home. "But what about the missionaries?" inquired the Boers.

"YOU MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE WITH THEM," is said to have been the answer of the "Commissioner". This remark, if uttered at all, was probably made in joke: designing men, however, circulated it, and caused the general belief in its accuracy which now prevails all over the country, and doubtless led to the destruction of three mission stations immediately after. The Boers, four hundred in number, were sent by the late Mr. Pretorius to attack the Bakwains in 1852.

Boasting that the English had given up all the blacks into their power, and had agreed to aid them in their subjugation by preventing all supplies of ammunition from coming into the Bechuana country, they assaulted the Bakwains, and, besides killing a considerable number of adults, carried off two hundred of our school children into slavery.

The natives under Sechele defended themselves till the approach of night enabled them to flee to the mountains; and having in that defense killed a number of the enemy, the very first ever slain in this country by Bechuanas, I received the credit of having taught the tribe to kill Boers!

My house, which had stood perfectly secure for years under the protection of the natives, was plundered in revenge.

English gentlemen, who had come in the footsteps of Mr. Cumming to hunt in the country beyond, and had deposited large quantities of stores in the same keeping, and upward of eighty head of cattle as relays for the return journeys, were robbed of all, and, when they came back to Kolobeng, found the skeletons of the guardians strewed all over the place.

The books of a good library -- my solace in our solitude --

were not taken away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out and scattered over the place. My stock of medicines was smashed; and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at public auction to pay the expenses of the foray.

I do not mention these things by way of making a pitiful wail over my losses, nor in order to excite commiseration; for, though I do feel sorry for the loss of lexicons, dictionaries, &c., which had been the companions of my boyhood, yet, after all, the plundering only set me entirely free for my expedition to the north, and I have never since had a moment's concern for any thing I left behind. The Boers resolved to shut up the interior, and I determined to open the country, and we shall see who have been most successful in resolution, they or I.

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