Bushmen Apply for Teachers

Bushmen apply for teachers — Mr. Kicherer goes to Zak River — Difficulties and sacrifices — Liberality of the farmers — The mission abandoned — The condition of the Bushmen — Lichtenstein’s opinion — The Bushmen’s resources and habits — Provoking characteristics — Inhuman practice — Mr, Kicherer’s description — Cruelty to offspring — Bushmen possess amiable qualities — Missions resumed at Toornherg, &c. — Missionaries ordered into the Colony — Mr. Faure’s affecting statement — Review of missions to the Bushmen — Plan recommended — The Bushmen and the goats — Stratagem in hunting.

It is of vast importance to notice the first, though apparently obscure indications of the will of Him who, while he

“Rides upon the stormy sky.

And manages the seas,”

condescends to stoop from his throne amidst unapproachable glory, to render means the most feeble and unthought of, the guide and pole-star of his servants, whom he has commissioned to preach the Gospel to every creature.

While Dr. Vanderkemp and Edmonds proceeded to Kafir-land, Messrs. Kicherer, Kramer, and Edwards bent their course to the Zak River, between 400 and 500 miles north-east of Cape Town.

Who would have supposed for a moment that
ZAK RIVER MISSION.

Kicherer’s course, which was originally towards Kafir-land, would have been diverted by Bushmen-amhassadors, the feeblest, poorest, most degraded and despised of all the sable sons of Ham? It appears that some time previous, while the church at home was engaged in prayer that the great Head of the church would open a door for his servants whom they were sending forth, a treaty had been made between the Bushmen and Florus Fischer, with other farmers, who had suffered terribly in their flocks and herds from these depredators of the desert. The Bushmen seeing Florus Fischer, who was a good man, solemnly appeal to Almighty God to witness the transaction, and observing that he was in the habit of assembling his family for worship, morning and evening, were led to inquire into the Divine character, and to solicit a Christian teacher. Mr. Fiseher cheerfully afforded encouragement; and, though it appeared something like hoping against hope, he, at their request, took some of the principal of them to Cape Town for this purpose.

They arrived there just before our brethren, a circumstance which left the latter no reason to doubt of being called of God to labour in that quarter. The brethren received unbounded kindness and attention from the government, and assistance from the Harmers, who loaded them with things requisite to commence the station; while some accompanied them to the spot they first selected, which they named “Happy Prospect.” Here Messrs. Kicherer and Kramer laboured with primitive zeal and simplicity, to raise the most abject of our species; and had not their faith been strong in the promises of God, they must have sunk under the very thought of making an attempt.

At the present period of advanced knowledge in missionary enterprise, however, it is easy to see that, according to the common course of events, the circumstances under which that mission was commenced were ominous of its short duration. God, in his infinite wisdom, had other, and far more extensive ends to accomplish, than simply a mission to the Bushmen.

Zak River became the finger-post to the Namaquas, Corannas, Griquas, and Bechuanas; for it was by means of that mission that these tribes and their condition became known to the Christian world. Kicherer had great comfort in his intercourse with many good farmers, who exerted themselves with commendable liberality in favour of the object he had in view. He was soon encouraged by the accession of many Hottentots and Bastards to the station, without whose assistance it would not have been possible for him to have lived, as he afterwards found. The Bushmen, with few exceptions, could never appreciate his object; hut, as a people, continued to harass and impoverish those who remained attached to the objects of the missionary. Mr. K.’s life was more than once threatened, hut his unremitting labours, and those of Mr. Kramer, were signally blessed in the conversion of a number of Hottentots and Bastards; and in the details of the mission, the names of individuals are mentioned who afterwards became the pillars of the Griqua mission; and from whose lips the writer has frequently heard with delight the records of by-gone years, when they listened to the

voice of Kiclierer, Anderson, and Kramer, at the Zak and Orange Rivers. Unhappily the company and countenance of the Bushmen could not be commanded without a daily portion of victuals and to¬ bacco, of which Mr. Kicherer had received an ample supply from the farmers. This practice, however kindly intended, doubtless contributed to the early failure of the mission. The country in which the mission was fixed was sterile in the extreme, and rain so seldom fell, that they were obliged to depend on foreign supplies. Mr. Kicherer having visited Europe, on his return found the mission in a sufiering state. Having little hope of recruiting it, he entered the Dutch church, and was appointed minister at Graaff Reinet. He left the station in charge of Mr. and Mrs. A. Voss; and a Mr. Botma, a farmer, who had sold all he had to aid the mission, and supply the absence of Mr. K. These men not having equal re¬ sources with the founders of the mission, though distinguished by exemplary patience under great privations and hardships, from drought and the plundering Bushmen, were compelled to abandon the station. This event took place in 1806, and Mr. A. Voss, in the following pathetic remark, makes that mission’s requiem: “This day we leave Zak River, the place which has cost us so many sighs, tears, and drops of sweat; that place in which we have laboured so many days and nights, for the salvation of immortal souls: the place which, probably before long, will become a heap of ruins.” Thus terminated the mission to Zak River, on which the directors at home could not help looking with the deepest sympathy, as the people were some of the first-fruits of their labours; but they were consoled by the reilection, that those who followed their teachers to the vicinity of Graatf Reinet, continued to receive instruction, and that the missionaries entered into other fields of successful labour.

When the character and condition of the Bushmen are taken into consideration, it is not to be wondered at, that the Missionaries found it up-hill work to obtain a settlement among them. With the exception of the Troglodytes, a people said by Pliny to exist in the interior of Northern Africa, no tribe or people are surely more brutish, ignorant, and miser¬ able than the Bushmen of the interior of Southern Africa. They have neither house nor shed, neither flocks nor herds. Their most delightful home is “afar in the desert,” the unfrequented mountain pass, or the secluded recesses of a cave or ravine. They remove from place to place, as convenience or necessity requires. The man takes his spear, and suspends his bow and quiver on his shoulder; while the woman, in addition to the burden of a helpless infant, frequently carries a mat, an earthen pot, a number of ostrich egg-shells, and a few ragged skins, bundled on her head or shoulder; and these Saabs, as they have been designated, bearing in their character a striking resemblance to the Sauneys, or Balala, (poor,) among the Bechuanas, have, with few exceptions, as already shown, been from time immemorial the sons of the field. Accustomed to a migra¬ tory life, and entirely dependent on the chase for a precarious subsistence, they have contracted habits wbicli could scarcely be credited of human beings. These habits have by no means been inqiroved by incessant conflict with their superior neighbours, who.

regarding might as identical with right, kill their game, plunder their honey nests, seize upon their fountains, and deprive them of their country. Anomalous as it may appear, this has been the custom of all the more civilized tribes, the colonists not excepted. Dr. Lichtenstein asks, “What had a people like the Bushmen to lose — they who are everywhere at home, who know not the value of any land?” To this I would reply. He loses the means of subsistence; and what more can the richest monarch lose? I recollect having felt grateful to a poor Bushwoman for a meal of the larvae of ants; and had that otherwise intelligent traveller been similarly circumstanced, he, perhaps, would have been tempted to say, “Behold, I am at the point to die, and what profit shall this birthright do to me?” Under such circumstances, the gems of Golconda would not have satisfied the cravings of hunger. Poor Bushman! thy hand has been against every one, and every one’s hand against thee. For generations past they have been hunted like partridges in the mountains. Deprived of what nature had made their own, they became desperate, wild, fierce, and indomitable in their habits. Hunger compels them to feed on every thing edible. Ixias, wild garlic, mysembryanthemums, the core of aloes, gum of acacias, and several other plants and berries, some of which are extremely unwholesome, constitute their fruits of the field; whilst almost every kind of living creature is eagerly devoured, lizards, locusts, and grasshoppers not excepted. The poisonous, as well as innoxious serpents, they roast and eat. They cut off the head of the former, which they dissect, and carefully extract the bags, or reservoirs of poison, which communicate with the fangs of the upper jaw. They mingle it with the milky juice of the euphorbia, or with that of a poisonous bulb. After simmering for ’some time on a slow fire, it acquires the consistency of wax, with which they cover the points of their arrows.

Though the natives of South Africa have an aversion to fish, the Bushmen in the neighbourhood of rivers make very ingenious baskets, which they place between stones, in the centre of a current, and thus they sometimes procure a fry of fish, which in their frequent necessity must be acceptable. They ascend the mountain’s brow or peak, and, with an acuteness of sight perhaps superior to our common telescopes, survey the plains beneath, either to discover game or cattle, or to watch the movements of those whose herds they may have stolen. If danger approaches, they ascend almost inaccessible cliffs, from which nothing but the rifle ball could dislodge them. When closely pursued, they will take refuge in dens and caves, in which their enemies have sometimes smothered scores to death, blocking up the entrances with brushwood, and setting it on fire.

One characteristic in their predatory expeditions is exceedingly provoking. When they have taken a troop of cattle, their first object is to escape to a rendezvous, a cave or an overhanging precipice, or some sequestered spot difficult of access to strangers for want of water. As soon as they perceive that any of the cattle are too fatigued to proceed, they stab them; and if the pursuers come within sight, and there is the slightest probability of their being over¬ taken, they will thrust their spears, if time permit.

into every animal in the troop. I have known sixty head levelled in this way. This habit, which obtains universally among that unfortunate people, exasperates their enemies to the last degree, and vengeance falls on men, women, and children, whenever they come within reach of their missiles. Though their poisoned arrows cannot take in one third of the length of a musket shot, they aim with great precision. I have known men shot dead on the spot with poisoned arrows; and others, who did not at first appear to be mortally wounded, I have seen die in convulsive agony in a few hours. It is impossible to look at some of their domiciles, without the inquiry involuntarily rising in the mind. Are these the abodes of human beings? In a bushy country, they will form a hollow in a central position, and bring the branches together over the head. Here the man, his wife, and probably a child or two, lie huddled in a heap, on a little grass, in a hollow spot, not larger than an ostrich’s nest. Where bushes are scarce, they form a hollow under the edge of a rock, covering it partially with reeds or grass, and they are often to be found in fissures and caves of the mountains. When they have abundance of meat, they do nothing but gorge and sleep, dance and sing, till their stock is exhausted. But hunger, that imperious master, soon drives them to the chase. It is astonishing to what a distance they will run in pursuit of the animal which has received the fatal arrow. I have seen them, on the successful return of a hunting party, the merriest of the merry, exhibiting bursts of enthusiastic joy; while their momentary happiness, contrasted with their real condition, produced on my niind the deepest sorrow. Many suffer great distress when the weather is cold and rainy, during which not unfrequently their children perish from hunger. A most inhuman practice also prevails among them, that when a mother dies, whose infant is not able to shift for itself, it is, without any ceremony, buried alive with the corpse of its mother.*

To the above melancholy description, may be added the testimony of Mr. Kicherer, whose circumstances while living among them, afforded abundant opportunities of becoming intimately acquainted with their real condition. “Their manner of life is extremely wretched and disgusting. They delight to besmear their bodies with the fat of animals, mingled with ochre, and sometimes with grime. They are utter stran2:ers to cleanliness, as they never wash their bodies, but suffer the dirt to accumulate, so that it will hang a considerable length from their elbows. Their huts are formed by digging a hole in the earth about three feet deep, and then making a roof of reeds, which is however insufficient to keep off the rains. Here they lie close togetherHike pigs in a sty. They are extremely lazy, so that nothing will rouse them to action but excessive hunger. They will continue several days together without food, rather than be at the pains of procuring it. When compelled to sally forth for prey, they are dexterous at destroying the various beasts which abound in the country; and they can run almost as well as a horse. They are total strangers to domestic happiness. The men have several wives, hut conjugal affection is little known.

* The author had a hoy brought up in his own house, who was tluis rescued from his mother’s grave, when only two years old.

They take no great care of their children, and never correct them except in a fit of rage, when they almost kill them by severe usage. In a quarrel between father and mother, or the several wives of a husband, the defeated party wreaks his or her vengeance on the child of the conqueror, which in general loses its life. Tame Hottentots seldom destroy their children, except in a fit of passion; but the Bushmen will kill their children without remorse, on various occasions; as when they are ill-shaped, when they are in want of food, when the father of a child has forsaken its mother, or when obliged to flee from the farmers or others; in which case they will strangle them smother them, cast them away in the desert, or bury them alive. There are instances of parents throwing their tender offspring to the hungry lion, who stands roaring before their cavern, refusing to depart till some peace-offering be made to him. In general their children cease to be the objects of a mother’s care as soon as they are able to crawl about in the field. In some few instances, however, you meet with a spark of natural affection, which places them on a level with the brute creation.” Oh the miseries to which human nature is heir! Hard is the Bushman’s lot, friendless, forsaken, an outcast from the world, greatly preferring the company of the beasts of prey to that of civilized man. His gorah”^ soothes some solitary hours, although its sounds are often responded to by the

* The gorali is an instrument something like the bow of a violin, rather more curved, along which is stretched a cat-gut, to which is attached a small piece of quill. The player takes the quill in his mouth, and by strong inspirations and respirations of breath, produces a few soft notes in the vibrations of the cat-gut. lion’s roar or the hyena’s howl. He knows no God, knows nothing of eternity, yet dreads death; and has no shrine at which he leaves his cares or sorrows. We can scarcely conceive of human beings descending lower in the scale of ignorance and vice; while yet there can he no question that they are children of one common parent with ourselves. If, during a period of 4000 years, they have sunk thus low, what would the world become if left without Divine revelation, to grope in the mazes of heathen darkness? But, degraded as the Bushmen really are, they can be kind, and hospitable too; faithful to their charge, grateful for favours, and susceptible of kindness. I speak from what I know, having seen all these qualities exemplified. It is also habitual with them, on receiving the smallest portion of food, to divide it with their friends; and generally it is observed, the one who first received the boon retained the least for himself; and a hungry mother will not unfrequently give, what she may receive, to her emaciated children, without tasting it herself. In order to get the people to congregate, Mr. Kicherer found it necessary to give them daily a little food, and especially small portions of tobacco, with which he was most liberally supplied by the farmers. “With¬ out that,” he says, “it would have been impossible to bring these poor people to any means of instruction, as they are compelled continually to go from one place to another for food.” While, however, the message of Divine mercy at times made an impression so great, that the missionaries were led to sujipose that they had surmounted every difficulty, they were again humbled and grieved to see, as they expressed it, the natural inconstancy of the Bushmen reverse every promising sign.

The Directors of the London Missionary Society, most anxious to impart to this degraded portion of the human family the means of grace, recommended the establishment of a station for that object at Toornberg, now Colesberg, south of the Great River; and Mr. Erasmus Smith and Mr. Corner repaired thither in 1814, when about 500 Bushmen took up their abode with them. The missionaries were thus cheered by a people waiting to receive them; but their joy was of short duration. A long and mortal enmity had existed between the Bushmen and the farmers; and they soon began to suspect that the missionaries were employed only as instruments to betray them into their hands. Groundless as this suspicion was, it nevertheless so operated for a while as to damp the zeal of the missionaries. They very naturally expected that it would require a long and laborious coarse of culture and tuition before such pupils could be expected even to apprehend the doctrines of Christianity. This, however, was not the case. The light and power of the Gospel at an early period of the mission, accompanied the proclamation of its glad tidings, and a number of these barbarous people, when they heard the word of life, believed. And here a Christian church arose, extensive gardens were laid out, and these cultivated with the Bush¬ men’s own hands.

Another mission was commenced among that people at Hephzibah, where there was a prospect of permanent success. It was however found extremely difficult, from the Bushmen coming into unpleasant contact with the farmers in their vicinity, and the missionaries being brought into collision on their account. These evils, to which their locality exposed them, soon proved the

means of blasting their pleasing hopes among that people. An order was received from the Cape authorities, requiring the missionaries to retire within the Colony. Thus ceased the operations of the Society among the poor wild Bushmen at these stations; and it is impossible to read the following extract of a letter to the Rev. Dr. Philip, from the Rev. A. Faure, then minister of Graaff Reinet, without deeply lamenting, with that enlightened individual, that these stations should have been broken up. “Some of the Bush¬ men whom Mr. Smith baptized, had acquired very rational ideas of the principles of the Christian religion; and appeared to feel its constraining influence on their habitual conduct. They were zealous in try¬ ing to convey the same inestimable blessing to their unhappy countrymen, who live without God and with¬ out hope in the world. It was delightful to hear the children sing the praises of Jehovah, and to witness the progress they had made in spelling and reading. These facts, which have come under my own observation, prove that the conversion of this race of im¬ mortal beings is not impossible.”

The last effort of the Society to establish a mission among that people, was attempted in the vicinity of the Caledon River. Captain A. Kok, the late chief of Philippolis, most munificently presented the Bushmen who congregated at that place, with a good supply of cattle, sheep and goats. This mission, now called Bethulie, was afterwards transferred by Dr. Philip to the missionaries of the Paris Society; and it has since become a Bechuana mission, where the word of God has had free course, and been glorified. The proximity of the place to the gradual encroachments of

those whom the Bushmen dreaded influenced them to leave the spot, so that now few remain, nor is it any longer a Bushman station.

In taking a brief review of the Bushmen missions, we cannot help being struck with the depravity and ignorance of the people, the zeal and perseverance of the missionaries, the power of Gospel truth, and the dreadful guilt of those who have been directly the cause of frustrating the objects of the Missionary Society, which is the only one that has espoused the cause of that afflicted people. Shall not the Lord require it? for the blood of thousands cries from the dust, and the cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Can we wonder that the Bushmen missions, under the circumstances in which they have been placed, should, upon the whole, prove a failure, though not without important results? We must continue to look for success in attracting the scattered fragments to the Missionary settlements, and forming out-stations among them, a method which has already received the Divine blessing. This plan has been carried on at our Griqua mission, from its commencement to the present day; and those established in connexion with the Kat River are promising. This mode of proceeding with that people cannot be too strongly recommended to those who are labouring among their more powerful neighbours. When once a number of these are savingly converted to God, and feel the constraining influence of the love of Christ, they will become valuable auxiliaries to the missionary, in collecting them around

* For a more particular account of the Toornberg and Hephzibah missions, see Dr. Philip’s Researches in South Africa, vol. ii. p. 23. their villages and cattle out-posts, and thus by kind endeavours, bring them within the benign and trans¬ forming influences of the Gospel of love.

“Kindness is the key to the human heart.” I know an individual who was struck with the difficulties the Bushwomen had in rearing their infants after the term of suckling, from the entire absence of any thing in the shape of milk or grain. Dried meat, or Ixia bulbs, is hard fare for a babe. He tried to persuade them to purchase goats, with ostrich feathers, or skins of game procured in the chase. At this proposal they laughed inordinately, asking him if ever their forefathers kept cattle; intimating, that they were not intended to keep, but to eat, as their progenitors had always done. He recommended the plan to all who happened to come in his way, but with no better success. It at last occurred to his mind to present some of the principal individuals among them with a few goats a-piece. This he did, promising that, if they took good care of them for a given time, he would add to their number, and make them their own. This proposal, though to them scarcely to be believed, went to their hearts; and the very looks of the men, and the grateful gesticulations of the women, were felt by the missionary as a rich reward. His anticipations were fully realized. Thev allowed their little flocks to increase, and even took some trouble to make additions by barter; and it was no uncommon thing to see several of these resorting to the house of prayer on sabbath-days, though their homes were many miles distant.

One of the accompanying sketches represents a Bushman and a woman. The man has his bows.

quiver and poisoned arrows; and both he and the female are fair specimens of the general appearance of that people. The other sketch exhibits a stratagem, by which the Bushman approaches to game, in the garb of the ostrich. The method is ingenious, though extremely simple. A kind of flat double cushion is stuffed with straw, and formed something like a saddle. All, except the under part of this, is covered over with feathers attached to small pegs, and made so as to resemble the bird. The neck and head of an ostrich are stuffed, and a small rod introduced. The Bushman intending to attack game, whitens his legs with any substance he can procure. He places the feathered saddle on his shoulders, takes the bottom part of the neck in his right hand, and his bow and poisoned arrows in his left. Such as the writer has seen were the most perfect mimics of the ostrich, and at a few hundred yards’ distance it is not possible for the human eye to detect the fraud. This human bird appears to pick away at the verdure, turning the head as if keeping a sharp look-out, shakes his feathers, now walks, and then trots, till he gets within bow-shot; and when the flock runs, from one receiving an arrow, he runs too. The male ostriches will on some occasions give chase to the strange bird, when he tries to elude them, in a way to prevent their catching his scent; for when once they do, the spell is broken. Should one happen to get too near in pursuit, he has only to run to wind¬ ward, or throw off his saddle, to avoid a stroke from a wing, which would lay him prostrate.