Departure for England

Moffat was thus left once more in sole charge of the Kuruman until early in 1868, when he was joined by his son. For two years more he held on his way, but the conviction began to force itself upon him that he was really getting old — a conviction not easily received. He had been so long the central figure, not only of the mission but of all matters in Bechwanaland, and so accustomed to take the lead, that it was difficult to imagine anything different. As long as he remained at Kuruman it was not possible for him to rest, and he was often drawn on to exertion which told upon him afterwards. He suffered during the winter months from a short and constant cough, which during the nights aggravated his natural tendency to sleeplessness. Still he could not be inactive. He visited all the out-stations, and took upon himself work multifarious enough to have taxed the energies of a younger man.

A great care had been thrown upon him by the death of Frddoux. The widow and seven orphan children were practically unprovided for. All this while, and in fact for years, the Directors had not ceased to urge him to come home. In one sense it was not a question of going home, but of leaving it. It was about fifty years since Robert and Mary Moffat had entered upon their work in Bechwanaland. More than forty of these years had been spent in the house where most of their children had been born. The shady street with church and schools, the surrounding villages all full of hearts in which deference and love reigned superior to every other consideration, where Ramary and Mamary were sure of a respectful welcome from all, old and young, and maintained an almost absolute rule, though wielding no other sceptre than that of gratitude and affection, were things which made it hard for them to leave Kuruman. One of the pleasant recollections of those last years at Kuruman was the presence on the station of Mr. and Mrs. Levy. INIr. L. was continuing the business which had been founded by Moffat’s son Robert. The Levys were more than usually considerate neighbours. Their tender reverence for the aged missionary and his wife was shown in a thousand acts of unobtrusive and refined attention. Even when at last the affectionate entreaties of the Directors had been responded to, and they had come to a final determination, it was with slow and faint steps that preparations were made. It was as though they were waiting for something to hinder them.

On Sunday, the twentieth of March, 1870, Robert Moffat preached for the last time in the Kuruman church. In all that great congregation there were few of his own contemporaries. The older people were for the most part children at the time when they had first seen the missionaries. With a pathetic grace peculiarly his own, he pleaded with those who still remained unbelieving amid the gospel privileges they had now enjoyed so many years. With a fatherly benediction he commended to the grace of God those who had been to him a joy and crown. It was an impressive close to an impressive career. Many years must pass before that service can be forgotten in Bechwanaland.

On Friday following the departure took place. For weeks before messages of farewell had been coming from the more distant towns and villages, from those who were unable to come themselves. But the final scene was such as could scarcely be described in words. As the old missionary and his wife came out of their door and walked to their waggon they were beset by the crowds, each longing for one more touch of the hand and one more word; and as the waggon drove away it was followed by all who could walk, and a long and pitiful wail rose, enough to melt the hardest heart. It was characteristic of Mary Moffat that amid these sad scenes she was full of thought for others; and that her last few minutes with her son, who was remaining in charge of the station, were spent in interceding with him on behalf of the unhappy man who had some time before, under the influence of a disordered mind, made an attack upon her husband, and had remained ever since under a sort of ban.

At Backhouse, where they crossed the Vaal River, the Moffats spent a Sunday with Mr. and Mrs. Hughes. Mr. Hughes was a somewhat younger man, and had joined the Bechwana Mission a few years later than the Moffats; but his course was all but run, and not long after this he entered into rest. The journey through the Colony was marked by no special incident, beyond the universal respect and kindness everywhere manifested. In Port Elizabeth Moffat had the pleasure of renewing his intercourse with his old colleague Roger Edwards, with whom he had worked so long at Kuruman before his first visit home.

Both in Port Elizabeth and in Cape Town he received a welcome which was a surprise to him. Most of his older friends who had stood by him when missions had their darker days in South Africa, were gone; but a few still remained, and there had risen up a new generation to whom he was the object of a peculiar interest. On the tenth of June, 1870, he embarked for England, and looked for the last time on the mountains of Africa. It was a few months more than fifty-four years since he had landed there.

It falls to the lot of few men to have seen such a change in a country, and to have taken so large a personal share in having brought about that change. When he landed in January, 1817, the northern frontier of the Colony was only a short distance from Beaufort West, which was itself little more than a central point in the enormous district, at which lived a clergyman and a Government officer. The only village worthy of the name outside of the Cape district was Graaff Reinett. There was a small military post on the heights overhanging the sandy shores of Algoa Bay. From the northern frontier to the Orange River stretched an immense and desolate region, inhabited, or rather roved over, by hordes of wandering Bushmen. North of the Orange River it was known that there were tribes of Bechwanas, and a party of travellers had actually penetrated that country to some Uttle distance, and missions had been established at Lattakoo and at Griqua Town. Of Bechwanaland proper scarcely anything was known. The tribes, living apart, carried on but little intercourse with each other; when peace prevailed small trading parties would venture to visit their neighbours, but tribal disputes and cattle-lifting frays would interrupt all intercourse, and for months or even for years tribes would be as isolated as though each lived on islands apart.

The country now known as the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Basutoland were utterly unvisited by European travellers, not to mention Natal and the whole region along the coast-line. The South African Missionary Society had commenced work within the Colony, and at one or two points in Namaqualand. The Moravians were at Genadendal. Missions were truly in their infancy, and were regarded with scant toleration by the Government as doubtful and dangerous experiments.

Alongside of the colonizing movement which has absorbed the whole country south of the Orange River has crossed the upper part of that stream and the Vaal beyond, and is now filling up the country between the latter and the Lempopo, Moffat lived to see Kafirland, Basutoland, and Natal occupied by an army, not merely of missionaries, but of missionary societies; while his own Bechwanaland is through its length and breadth feeling the influences of his work and that of his companions, a work which has extended its operations to the very banks of the Zambezi River, upon the upper waters of which Arnot, Coillard, and Jeanmairet are holding the outmost post of advance. The following extracts from a paper in the Leisure Hour for Nov., 1883, are worthy of note in this connection:

The Bechwanas, as Dr. Moffat was careful to point out with his usual sense of justice, were by no means among the lowest of uncivilized races. To some extent they had the use of metals. But the community was largely nomadic, and regular industry was despised. In the work of agriculture and building which he so assiduously followed at the Kuruman mission-station, he describes himself as employed at manual and menial labour the whole day, ‘working under a burning sun, standing in the sawpit, labouring at the anvil, or treading clay.’ It is only incidentally that such glimpses are offered of the course which Moffat pursued for many thankless and weary years, the but of the people for whom he was devoting his life. Enough, however, transpires to show the almost incredible resource and cheeriness of spirit which he brought to bear upon his work. Mere temporal reverses and difficulties, sometimes of a grave kind, he would meet not only with equanimity, but often with bantering humour. In one year he was slaving for months to carry a water-ditch, several miles in length, from the Kuruman River into the kitchen garden of the humble mission-house. The site of the station was a light, sandy soil, where no vegetables would grow without irrigation. Artificial irrigation was to the natives entirely unknown, and fountains and streams had been suffered to run to waste, even where crops of native grain, which support amazing drought, are seldom very abundant, owing to the infrequency of the rainfall. The natives saw the effect of irrigation upon the mission-house garden, and did not scruple to divert the stream in order that it might flood theirs. The result was that Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Moffat were daily compelled to go alternately three miles with a spade about three o’clock in the afternoon, the hottest time of the day, and restore the water-way, so that they might have a little moisture to refresh their burnt-up vegetables during the night. Thus, after working hard all day, they were obliged to irrigate during the precious hours which ought to have been devoted to sleep. Even then the natives stole the crops which had been raised with such difficulty; and after a year’s toil the missionary and his household scarcely reaped anything to reward them for their labour.

“At a later period, when the people had become truly evangelized, irrigation, and even the preparation of the soil, were intelligently adopted in the Kuruman district. Writing in the year 1864, Dr. Moffat records the progress made. He tells us: ‘The views of the natives have undergone a material change upon many points of importance, and among others as to the cultivation of their fields and gardens. When they first saw us employ people to convey the contents of our cattle-folds to our gardens, the act was in their judgment too ludicrous to admit of reflection; they laughed boisterously, supposing it to be one of our foolish customs, in order to “charm the ground,” as they were wont to do to their own gardens (their own custom was to chew a certain root and spit on the leaves, to make the plant more fruitful). Thus, from time immemorial, millions of heaps of manure were turned to no useful account. It was very long before they were convinced, but at last they discovered that manured gardens not only did not “get old,” but could be made very young again. To-day, therefore, the veriest heathen among them may be seen carrying manure on their backs, or on the backs of their oxen, to the garden ground. Lately one of them remarked to me on this subject:” I cannot persuade myself that we were once so stupid as not to believe what we saw with our own eyes.’” Writing at a later period with regard to ploughs, Dr. Moffat says: ‘When I went out there was but one plough in the country, now there are thousands. The same may be said of waggons. It was formerly women’s work to plough, but now the men have been induced to take that work upon themselves.

“Instances of Dr. Moffat’s attainments as a true ’ captain of industry ’ would fill a volume. The difficulty of raising a high roof on a newly-built chapel in a country where there were neither blocks nor tackle for the purpose is perhaps only known to those who have tried it. At New Lattakoo Dr. Moffat and his helpers found it an herculean and dangerous task. Few would trust themselves on naked walls whilst engaged in the work. The feat, however, was successfully achieved. Whilst it was proceeding, the natives often remarked that the missionaries must have been brought up in the baboon country, and so have become accustomed to precipices and walls.

“The natural resources of the country and their capacity for development did not escape Dr. Moffat’s observation even during journeys of the most hazardous kind. Even when famine or death by wild beasts stared him in the face his trained eye was involuntarily noting the plants, the minerals, and the geological structure of the tract through which he was passing. He remarks the meteorology as affected locally by mountains and other causes, a problem subsequently worked out in detail by his son-in-law, Dr. Livingstone; and he is struck with the extent to which the climate must have been affected by the natives’ reckless habit of destroying the forests. It must be remembered that fifty years ago the climatic effect of disforesting a country was by no means the familiar topic it has since become, and Dr. Moffat’s observations are among the very earliest made by modern travellers. He says the whole country north of the Orange River and east of the Kalahari Desert presented to the eye of a European something like an old neglected garden or field, and the explanation was not far to seek. ‘The Bechwanas,’ he says, ‘and especially the Batlapis and the neighbouring tribes, are a nation of levellers, not reducing hills to comparative plains for the sake of building their towns, but cutting down every species of timber without regard to scenery or economy.’ Thus, of whole forests, where the giraffe and elephant were wont to seek their daily food, nothing remains. To this system of extermination maybe attributed the long succession of dry seasons. * Missionary Scenes and Labours ’ shows how persistently the author laboured to teach the natives the necessity of preserving the forest.

“Dr. Moffat’s early practice in his native country as a gardener and botanist proved of admirable service in South Africa, where he took every occasion of applying it and enlarging his knowledge, Many of his interesting geological observations were doubtless due to his early habit of noting soils and their constituents. The traveller in South Africa to-day finds it interesting and instructive to compare Dr. Moffat’s earlier notes on the rocks of the country with those of later and more official investigators. Travelling in his route they are struck in Namaqualand as he was with the old volcanic dykes, which have forced themselves up to the surface at a later period than the schistose rocks which figure so frequently in his pages. At Griqua Town, beyond the plateau (now a diamond field), the visitor with an eye for rock scenery will recognize the long parellel range of jaspideous rocks cropping out, and presenting the wonderful group of yellow, brown, chocolate, and red jaspers, with magnetic and other ironstone, and beautiful seams of the blue and yellow mineral known as crocidolite. The blue asbestos at Gamaperi was duly noted by Dr. Moffat, and it was fortunate for him as a traveller on several occasions when taking the compass bearings that he knew the magnetic character of the schistose rocks, on the top of which, as he found, the compass moves at random. He was constantly noticing the way in which the rocks decompose at the surface, and become fitted more or less to support vegetation; and long after he had left Africa he took a keen interest in the progress of the geological survey by the accredited officers from Cape Colony.

“It is easy to see how such observations, added to agricultural knowledge acquired in his earlier years, increased Dr. Moffat’s means of usefulness to his African proUges. He introduced into suitable soils, and on levels available for irrigation, both grain and fruit, among the former being wheat, barley, peas, potatoes, carrots, and onions. The improvement in the implements was quite as marked. Instead of the primitive pick used by the women, the plough was introduced and driven by the men. Harrows, spades, and mattocks followed. The man who before would have disdained to be seen in such occupations with the old tools, was now thankful to have it in his power to buy a spade. In their appreciation of irrigation several of the natives set to work one day in good earnest, and in their enthusiasm cut courses leading directly up hill, hoping the water would one day follow.’

“Happily there came a time when affairs at the Kuruman mission-station improved, and the strain of labouring year after year to make the place yield sufficient supplies of food for himself and his family could be relaxed. He was at length able to proceed to his great work of acquiring the Bechwana language. To achieve this object Dr. Moffat spared himself none of the drudgery and self-sacrifice it involved. It required among other measures the temporary abandonment of his own home for some three months, during which he tells us he lived a semi-savage life among heathen dance and song and immeasurable heaps of dirt and filth. In short, this is doubtless one of the experiences which made him remark to friends on his return to England that a missionary to people in the condition of the Bechwanas needed a strong stomach in addition to a warm heart. He, however, succeeded in his object, and was the first to reduce the language of the Bechwanas to a written form. The task of reducing a vernacular to its elements, and then presenting it in a synthetic and grammatical form, was not one for which Dr. Moffat had been equipped when he left England, but he accomplished it, even under the greatest disadvantages. No wonder that after the further task of translating the Bible into the Sechwana language he complained that he felt as if he had shattered his brain. In the interval he went to Cape Town and learned the art of printing. Returning to the mission-station with type and a printing-press, he produced catechism and spelling-books for the schools. He gratefully acknowledges the help he received from the British and Foreign Bible Society during this period.

“Much might be added in illustration of Dr. Moffat’s extreme versatility in acquiring every industry or art which the exigencies of the place might demand of him. His treatment of the bodily ailments of the natives who came to him was almost prophetic of the medical missionaries, of whom so much has happily been heard in later days. Enough, perhaps, has been said to indicate the manifold resource and adaptiveness which helped to establish the memorable mission to Bechwanaland.

“The question of the bearing of civilization in such circumstances upon the work of evangelization is a weighty one, and the testimony of such a veteran missionary as Dr. Moffat would not fail to be of the greatest value. It is one, also, on which he has spoken with no uncertain sound, for the facts were pressed upon him at an early period of his work among the Bechwanas. After twenty-six years of missionary work he writes: ‘Much has been said about civilizing savages before attempting to evangelize them. This is a theory which has obtained an extensive prevalence among the wise men of this world, but we have never yet seen a practical demonstration of its truth. We ourselves are convinced that evangelization must precede civilization. It is very easy in a country of high refinement to speculate on what might be done among rude and savage men, but the Christian missionary, the only experimentalist, has invariably found that to make the fruit good the tree must first be made good. Nothing less than the power of Divine grace can reform the hearts of savages, after which the mind is susceptible of those instructions which teach them to adore the gospel they profess.’

•’ Dr. Moffat here spoke from practical and dearly-bought experience.

and his narrative, to which we have so often referred, supplies an ample explanation of the verdict so explicitly given. It is true that he was for many years occupied in maintaining those civil and social relationships with the Bechwanas that were the base of the spiritual campaign which was the sole object of his presence, and during this period he sought to exemplify in all outward things the blessing of a Christianized civilization. ‘It would appear a strange anomaly,’ he said, ‘to see a Christian professor lying at full length on the ground covered with filth and dirt, and in a state of comparative nudity, talking about Christian diligence, circumspection, purification, and white robes.’ MolTat accordingly did his best for civilization as a matter of course, and always made light of it so far as personal toil was concerned. It is, moreover, a significant commentary on his view of civilization that none of its blessings were really appropriated by the natives until after their evangelization. Then all the past work which had cost him so much became, as it were, fertilized at once. Their habitations, their dress, and all the external hindrances of better habits of life, were reformed, the outward means having been brought within their reach through years of the missionary’s devoted labours. Dr. Moffat’s views of the first principles to be held by all missionaries to uncivilized peoples, as given in the sixteenth chapter of his well-known work, have to-day lost none of their high and almost unique value.”