52 REVIEW OF BUSHMEN MISSIONS. ferred 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 their villages and cattle out-posts, and thus, by kind endeavours, bring them within the benign and transforming 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 * For a more particular account of the Toornberg and Hephzibah missions, see Dr. Philip's Researches in South Africa, vol. ii. p. 23. STRATAGEM IN HUNTING. 3533 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. They 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 distant 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 windward, or throw off his saddle, to avoid a stroke from a wing, which would lay him prostrate. 5* 52 REVIEW OF BUSHMEN MISSIONS. ferred 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 their villages and cattle out-posts, and thus, by kind endeavours, bring them within the benign and transforming 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 * For a more particular account of the Toornberg and Hephzibah missions, see Dr. Philip's Researches in South Africa, vol. ii. p. 23 TOPOGRAPHY OF NAMAQUA-LAND. 55 the depth of twenty feet, from which they draw water, generally of a very inferior quality. They place branches of trees in the excavation, and, with great labour, under a hot sun, hand up the water in a wooden vessel, and pour it into an artificial trough; to which the panting, lowing herds approach, partially to satiate their thirst. Thunder storms are eagerly anticipated, for by these only rain falls; and frequently these storms will pass over with tremendous violence, striking the inhabitants with awe, while not a single drop of rain descends to cool and fructify the parched waste. When the heavens do let down their watery treasures, it is generally in a partial strip of country, which the electric cloud has traversed; so that the traveller will frequently pass, almost instantaneously, from ground on which there is not a blade of grass, into tracts of luxuriant green, sprung up after a passing storm. Fountains are indeed few and far between, the best very inconsiderable, frequently very salt, and some of them hot springs; while the soil contiguous is generally so impregnated with saltpetre, as to crackle under the feet, like hoar-frost, and it is with great difficulty that any kind of vegetable can be made to grow. Much of the country is hard and stony, interspersed with plains of deep sand. There is much granite; and quartz is so abundantly scattered, reflecting such a glare of light from the rays of the sun, that the traveller, if exposed at noon-day, can scarcely allow his eyelids to be sufficiently open to enable him to keep the course he wishes to pursue. The inhabitants are a tribe or tribes of Hottentots, distinguished by all the singular characteristics of that nation, which includes Hottentots, Corannas, Namaquas, and Bushmen. Their peculiar clicking language is so similar, that it is with little difficulty they converse with the two former. In their native state the aborigines, though deeply sunk in ignorance, and disgusting in their manners and mien, were neither very warlike nor bloody in their dispositions. The enervating influence of climate, and scanty sustenance, seem to have deprived them of that bold martial spirit which distinguishes the tribes who live in other parts of the interior, which, in comparison with Namaqua-land, may be said to "flow with milk and honey." With the exception of the solitary traveller, whose objects were entirely of a scientific character, those who ventured into the interior carried on a system of cupidity, and perpetrated deeds, calculated to make the worst impression upon the minds of the natives, and influence them to view white men, and others descended from 56 PRIVATIONS OF THE FIRST MISSIONARIES. them, as an "angry" race of human beings, only fit to be classed with the lions, which roar for their prey in their native wilds. Intercourse with such visitors in the southern districts, and disgraceful acts of deceit and oppression, committed by sailors from ships which visited Angra Piquena, and other places on the western coast, had, as may easily be conceived, the most baneful influence on the native tribes, and nurtured in their heathen minds (naturally suspicious) a savage disgust for all intercourse with white men, alas! professedly Christian. Having little to talk about, when they met, these subjects became their general theme. Such was the long, and deep-rooted impression made on their minds, as a people, that on one of the branches of the Fish River, far east of Mr. Schmelen's station at Bethany, when I asked a native why he had never visited the missionary station; his reply was, "I have been taught from my infancy to look upon Hat men (hat-wearers) as the robbers and murderers of the Namaquas. Our friends and parents have been robbed of their cattle, and shot by the hat-wearers." Many runaways, and characters reckless of law, abandoning the service of the farmers in the colony, fled to Great Namaqualand, and their influence went far in stirring up the native mind against all compromise on the part of their civilized neighbours. It was to such a people, and to such a country, that the missionaries directed their course, to lead a life of the greatest self-denial and privation. From a variety of untoward circumstances, their experience on the journey from Cape Town to the place of their destination, seemed a precursor, and preparation for future trials, and to them the journey must have formed a striking contrast to European travelling, and the endeared home of the friends they had left never again to behold in the flesh. In their journal they detail numerous difficulties with which they had to contend in their progress. They had a weak and imperfect supply of oxen to draw their wagons, some fainting, and others incapable of being yoked. Their wagons stuck fast in the sand, then in the river. They were compelled to leave oxen behind, and they suffered excessively from thirst, as the water was scarce and nauseous. They were unable to obtain, from their poverty and the locality, a sufficiency of food to supply the calls of hunger. Their spirits drooped, and though their courage did not fail, the following letter shows that they were alive to the nature of their situation, |