Progress on the New Station
In the year 1826 things settled down, and some steady progress was made in the work of laying-out the station. The Hottentots who had come from Bethelsdorp to assist in public manual labour were, however, so disgusted with the country, the continual war alarms, and the scarcity of supplies — for war had brought famine in its train — that they returned to the Colony; and as the Bechwanas knew little about work, the missionaries, with their assistant Mr. Millen, had to depend mainly upon themselves. Though their days were thus spent in hard labour, they yet managed to give attention to the language, and to religious services — which were held as usual, but with little result as yet. Such of the Batlaping as had not moved away to the eastward had settled down about the Kuruman valley; and did not oppose, though they made no response to, the efforts which were directed to impress upon them the gospel message. In April Mary Moffat writes:
“By an especial providence a very young child was committed to my care. One Sabbath morning while preparing for church, some of our children brought in a report that a child was heard crying among the stones on the side of the hill about a quarter of a mile from the house. We immediately set off to the spot. Moffat and Mr. Millen arrived there before me, and heard its cries but could see nothing. At length they discovered the poor babe literally buried alive and covered with stones. At this moment I arrived, and, as you will easily conceive, was dreadfully shocked. The inhuman mother had pulled out stones to make a hole sufficient for its little body, and then put it in and laid upon it one huge stone, the corner of which rested on its little nose and made a severe wound. Its limbs were sadly bruised with kicking about, and its eyes all bleared with the cold. I took it up and brought it home, fed and washed it and dressed its wounds, to the great astonishment of the natives. They viewed it with indifference; said the mother was a rascal, but wondered much that we should love so poor an object. It was only about five weeks old, but very small, like one new born. It appeared that the monstrous mother, assisted by her own mother, had committed it to its cold tomb about four o’clock the day before, where it remained the whole night till nine o’clock in the morning when we found it. It was amazing that it still lived, as it had rained hard and there was not an inch of covering about it; and still more that the wolf had not got it, as a wolf will tear a dead body out of the grave if not well secured. The mother was an object of charity, and had been in the habit of getting food from us. Only the day before I gave her a piece of beef for a small bundle of firewood merely out of pity, and to her mother the very day on which the crime was committed. She had reported that her child was dead, but when she heard that we had made the discovery both she and her mother fled to another part of the country. Thus you see I have an addition to my cares; and as I knew no one to whom I could entrust it as wet nurse, I began and carried on with the spoon till I was no longer able to do it on account of my late trial, when I engaged a good-natured Hottentot, the wife of one of the men, to take it for a time, for which I pay her liberally, the food and clothing coming regularly from myself. It is coming on very well, and is considered a very pretty child. The remarkable way in which it has been brought into our family led us at once to adopt it as our own, and we have accordingly offered it in baptism a month ago, and named her Sarah Roby. You may tell Mrs. Roby that it was our intention, had our last dear babe been a girl and lived, to have given her name; and as we may never have another, we have given it to this child of Providence. I assure you I have strong inducements (independent of the common feeling of humanity) to pay the strictest attention to the welfare of a little infant whose life has been so singularly spared. I feel habitually as if I had a command from God Himself to nurse the child for Him. And may I be enabled to do it as to glorify His holy name.”
The following quotation from a letter written by Mr. Melville to a friend in England deals with a subject of some importance, so far as it has been made a means of casting a slur upon the disinterestedness of missionaries. Mr. Melville had spent several years at Gricpa Town as Government Commissioner, and was in a good position to speak with authority about matters of this kind.
“As some calumnious reports have been circulated respecting the elephant’s teeth sent to Cape Town by Moffat, I think it necessary to state the facts which gave rise to them, that you may be enabled to counteract any such reports which may reach the ears of the Directors. The truth is this. Moffat sent a few elephants’ teeth with two waggons that went last year to Cape Town. The waggons were, however, chiefly laden with ivory belonging to several persons. Five hundred and eighty pounds, I well know, belonged to a runaway slave who sent the ivory to purchase his freedom; one of the Griquas I know purchased a new waggon for 606 dollars, being the proceeds of what he took to town in the same waggon; and several other individuals also sent ivory by the same conveyance. As Moftat had to manage the business of the sale of the ivory of the slave through his agent, and having sent a small quantity of his own, some person either ignorantly or maliciously spread a report that he had sent two thousand pounds of ivory to town. I don’t think there is a missionary in the country more disinterested than Moffat; and from my knowledge of the circumstances, nothing but necessity induced him to send a little ivory to town to pay his debts.”
This is a matter which has been much spoken about in South Africa, and wherever there are people disposed to cast a stone at the missionary enterprise. In the early days missionaries were expected to prove their devotion by leaving home and friends and going to live among repulsive barbarians on stipends utterly unequal to their needs. The sums which were then paid to missionaries were such that the contemplation of them now raises a smile. It was no laughing matter, however, for them.
When, therefore, a missionary could, by rendering a service, by dint of his medical knowledge or mechanical skill, he could not be blamed for being willing to accept in return some kind of a thank-offering. This might be a sheep, which would supply his family with meat for a few days, or it might be a tusk of ivory or a kaross. But for assistance of this kind, it is doubtful whether the pittance on which these men were expected to hold their ground, and to fight a heartbreaking battle in a heathen country, would have kept them alive. Some men succumbed to the additional trial to which their constancy was exposed, and there are instances on record of missionaries who became eventually traders or farmers, to the detriment or utter forsaking of their spiritual work.
These, however, were the exceptions. Most men added to their many missionary cares and labours the duty of eking out a livelihood for themselves and their families, and did so without their love and zeal waxing cold. That their efficiency was decreased by this additional weight on their hands there is no room to doubt, but they did what they could, and what was necessary, with no thought of laying by for their children or even for their own old age; — though, as all the world knows, there is no more conspicuous example of the meanness and want of right feeling which may be displayed by a board or committee, even when composed of kind-hearted and Christian men individually, than that which we see in the dealings of missionary boards with superannuated missionaries or their widows. The Editor can speak with the more freedom about this matter, because his father met with an exceptional lot and is entirely out of the case. With reference to the working stipends of missionaries, in most cases these matters are better understood than they used to be, and the effort is now made to put matters on a right footing, and so to sustain men that they may have nothing to think of but the work they have to do: but as to aged missionaries and their widows, the Church has still its duty to learn.
Mary Moffat writes to her father in September, 1826:
“As regards the present, I must add that I never enjoyed an equal share of health in similar circumstances. It appears that I am really improving, and could I regain my strength should be as well as in my native land; but the Lord knows best what is good for me. Through His blessing Robert has enjoyed excellent health, but has been terribly harassed with hard manual labour. Our Bethelsdorp Hottentots having left us, it falls heavily on Hamilton and Moffat, especially as our house has been building. It is, however, within a few days of being finished, when he intends leaving the public work entirely — the smith’s excepted, because nobody else can do it — and applying closely to study. Mr. IMillen, not being able to go on for want of labourers with the masonry, has made a journey to the Molopo and bartered for ivory, with which he is gone to Algoa Bay, and will return immediately to finish his work. We have at present only one effective man, a Hottentot, all the rest being Bechwanas, with whom it may easily be conceived it is difficult to get on. One of our Hottentots was, three months ago, severely wounded by a buffalo, and it remains doubtful if he will ever recover so as to be able to work.
“You may form some idea of what missionaries have to put their hands to when I tell you that Robert was a fortnight every day up to the middle in water cutting thatch for the house. We promise ourselves the pleasure of writing to all the friends to whom we are indebted when we get settled in our new house, which is a very comfortable one, and will be a treasure to the Society in this barbarous land. The design is to build another good house and a chapel, when I think every one will be heartily tired of building; but they will be permanent, and not require rebuilding every few years like our reed houses, as well as more conducive to the health of Europeans.
“As to the Bechwanas, I am sorry to say that they are much as usual, equally careless about spiritual’ things, and evidently as much attached to their old superstitions. They have built large villages along the valley, and are very busy cultivating their ground; but a temptation has lately fallen in their way which was too powerful for them to resist; a rainmaker from a distant country to the south-east, has made his appearance and offered his services, which they have accepted; and he is now exerting himself to the utmost. We have had two showers since he came, and this has of course strengthened their faith. He says our houses will be washed away before the season is past. They keep him away from us as much as possible, evidently ashamed of having turned again to this folly. We sometimes think he is a Mantatee spy, as he very much resembles those people. “Mr. Wright, whom you know, has at length arrived at Griqua Town, and is actively engaged. He appears to be making a stir among the people, and especially in the school. It is now three months since he came, and we trust the interest excited will continue and increase. We ardently long to hear of good doing somewhere in South Africa, for wherever we turn our attention in this miserable country we hear of no spiritual work.”
The Mr. Millen thus mentioned was not in the regular service of the Society, but had been engaged as a good mason for a certain time, and for special work.
When the year 1827 opened it appeared as though the mission had really entered on a peaceful and steady course. The first permanent dwelling-house had been finished and occupied — a substantial stone building, instead of the wooden frame filled in with wattle and daub with which the missionaries had hitherto been contented. The water had been led out, and smiling gardens gladdened the slopes of the valley. Hamilton and Hughes took m hand what remained of public manual labour, which it was arranged that Moffat should lay aside at least for a time, and devote himself to the literature of the Sechwana language.
Rumours of war still came from the interior at intervals, but from a great distance. The marauding vagabonds along the Orange River seemed also to have ceased from further movements in the direction of Bechwanaland. The time had come for Moffat to carry out a plan he had long kept in view. Hitherto, although living among Bechwanas, he had been so much in contact with Dutch-speaking people on the station, that it was not easy to gather up the language, which as yet was nowhere to be found in a written form. He determined, if only for a short time, to go right away, so as to be perfectly alone with Bechwanas, taking with him no one who spoke Dutch or English.
In the month of January a son was born. He was called Robert after his grandfather. As soon after this event as it was fit for him to leave, Moffat started on his journey. He directed his course to the Barolong tribe, who were at this time scattered in several spots along the margin of the Kalahari Desert, to which they had been driven by the Mantatee invasion, and from which they had not yet seen their way clear to return to the part of the country more suitable for settled residence. They were living in a state of utter degradation and wretchedness, in mere temporary booths rather than huts, in a dry and thirsty land, depending mainly upon the milk of what cattle they had saved, and the meat of such game as they could kill.
He took up his quarters at the encampment of Bogacho, one of the chiefs of the Barolong, and spent the greater part of two months there, visiting also some of the other places. Day by day his waggon was surrounded by the idlers of the camp, whose noisy clatter would continue without intermission for hours. Their conversation was such as no civilized person could take any pleasure in; their habits were dirty, as might well be imagined when it is remembered that the water was four miles from the village, and that what was brought, carried by the women, would be used only for drinking and cooking. The intense dryness of the country, the high winds, carrying clouds of fine sand and dust, the imperfect shelter of a waggon, with not a vestige of a tree available for shade, and the swarms of hungry flies from the heaps of rubbish around, formed a sum total which imagination would fail to grasp, except that of one who has seen the like.
The headmen were, in their way, hospitable enough. A good supply of milk was always given, and this with the flesh of the rhinoceros, the camelopard, and the quagga, or zebra, all of which were plentiful in the neighbourhood, supplied sufficient if not very delicate food. But the soul of the missionary craved other sustenance. If he could have found one patient or attentive listener to the message which lay like a burden upon his heart, it would have sufficed. This was not to be. The hearts of these people, even after their manifold chastisements, were utterly brutish, and his message fell upon deaf ears.
The chief object of his journey he fully gained. He had already so far a knowledge of the Sechwana language that a few weeks of the life he led in this desert, physical and moral, were sufficient to place him at one bound in a position to do without interpreters, end to speak freely to the people in their own tongue. He set off to return home with this satisfaction, and on his arrival astonished Mothibi and his councillors by preaching to them a sermon in such Sechwana, that the only growling criticism the chief could find to make was that it smacked too much of the Serolong dialect. He found all well in his now beautiful home; but his chief joy was that he could settle down with some feeling of ability to the work of translation.
The time for this had not yet come. He had not been long home before trouble again began by the movements of the banditti from the westward. The hands of these miscreants were strengthened by dissensions among the Griquas themselves, some of whom had joined the enemy. An attack was made upon
Griqua Town itself, and repelled, but Waterboer with his people were unable to follow up the advantage in consequence of the capture of most of their horses, and the exhaustion of their ammunition. The marauders having failed at Griqua Town, now turned their attention to Kuruman; and so threatening did the aspect of affairs become that the missionaries there, in response to the urgent representations of their friends at Griqua Town, felt it their duty to retire for a time to that station, not for the first time an ark of refuge to them.
Some time passed with no further movement on the part of the banditti, and the Kuruman missionaries returned home. But the loss of time was great, and there was also the inevitable loss of property; though, upon the whole, they found their houses and what they had left behind in good order — a proof of the influence they were gaining over the minds of the Bechwanas, whom they found on their first arrival a set of inveterate thieves. Robert Moffat
writes as follows:
“Lattakoo, Feb. 18, 1828.
*’ Liv DEAR Father, — We wrote to Mr Roby and to John about two months ago, but as Mr. Hamilton will leave this to-morrow for Algoa Bay, and there being little probability of another opportunity for some months, I cannot let the present slip without writing a few hasty lines. If the above communications have come to hand, you will be apprised of our temporary removal to Griqua Town and subsequent return to this station. Since then we have been thrown into much perplexity from a circumstance which led us to fear that the worst of events was yet to happen to this our afflicted Mission. Nearly a month ago a strong party of the mountaineers, headed by the Blooms, sons of the famous robber of that name, came unexpectedly on the Batlaro cattle outposts, a little way below this station, where they made an easy prey of all within their reach. They came no further; but we were soon informed on good authority that it was the intention of the Blooms to return from the Orange River with the sole purpose of rooting out this Mission, which all along has been an eyesore to such marauding expeditions. In consequence of this well-authenticated report, many of the natives in our immediate vicinity sent off all their families and cattle to a distance. After mature deliberation and prayer for Divine assistance, we resolved to remain on the station, and to abide the consequences. From a sense of duty we acquainted Andries Waterboer with what had transpired, and he soon informed us that his adverse circumstances precluded every possibility of his rendering any assistance. This was what we wished and expected, as it was more congenial to our sentiments to remain unconnected with either party; for if Andries had, agreeable to his first intention, sent a small party to defend the station, we should have become more than ever the butt of indignation to the enemy.
“In this state of suspense we continued near three weeks, when it pleased our Heavenly Father to disperse in some degree the gloom loo CONCOURSE OF TRIBES AT THE STATION.
which rested on our prospects, Jan Karse, a respectable Griqua, brother-in-law to the Blooms, hearing of our situation, came with his family to the station, not to defend by the force of arms, but to endeavour to convince his relations by soft argument of the error of their ways, and influence them to abandon their murderous courses. Nothing could be more agreeable to our wishes than the motives of Jan Karse, and through the Divine blessing they may have the most salutary effects. It is also likely that he will remain some time on the station, being anxious that his children and domestics should enjoy the advantages of the school.
“Affairs are wearing a more pleasing aspect. Mothibi and his people are still wandering in the I3ushman country, and will not likely return till public affairs become more settled. Although things are so unpropitious, we are, blessed be God, far from being discouraged. The Lord has hitherto preserved us, and done great things for us, and He continues able to deliver.
“There are also some things calculated to cheer and encourage, and we have no doubt but ultimate success will crown our labours. At a small distance are two Batlaro villages, and on the station there are at least fifty families. AH these from time to time have the gospel of salvation preached in their own language; and though we as yet see no immediate fruit of the Spirit, yet it is a consolation to know that their knowledge in Divine things is increasing, and there are several who have becun to pray.
“By Mr. Miles the long-looked-for books arrived, and about two weeks after he left I commenced the school in the Sechwana language. Notwithstanding the unpleasant circumstances of the station, the number attending exceeded our expectations. There are already four Bechwanas who can read in their own language the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, and I trust to be able very soon to put six or eight more into that class. I have also begun an evening school, which promises well. The attendance, chiefly adult, has risen to forty, while that of the day school is about fifty. We have also begun to sing hymns composed in theianguage, which has a very enlivening effect. The scholars are at present exclusively from the families who live on the station, and these consist chiefly of strangers. There are here Batlaping, Batlaro, Barolong, Bashuto, Bakuena, Bakalahari, and Matebele. At present they are chiefly poor, but industrious, and, with the assistance of fruitful gardens, are better off than the more affluent natives whose dependence is entirely on their flocks. We have found them very serviceable in carrying on building, they being always ready to work, for which they are duly rewarded. We are entirely dependent on them for such assistance.
“Attending school twice in the day, with the different services in the church and other cares connected with the welfare of the station, will for some time keep me very busy, and prevent me devoting all that time to study which I could wish. It is my object now to get something translated to put into the hands of those who learn to read.”