PASSION FOR WAR.

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feet for instruction." This was seasonable; for my mind had just been occupied in contemplating the miseries of the savage state. I spoke much on man's ruin, and man's redemption. "Why," he asked, are you so earnest that I abandon all war, and not kill men ?" "Look on the human bones which lie scattered over your dominions," was my re. ply. "They speak in awful language, and to me they say, Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man also will his blood be shed.'" This was fearful language in the ears of such a murderer. "You say," he added, "that the dead will rise again." My remarks on this subject, were startling in the ears of a savage, and he interrupted by hastily assuring me that he would not go to war. While we were yet speaking, a body of Machaha soldiers advanced, and bowed behind their shields at a distance, to wait his awful nod. The Entoto (married man) their leader, then addressed him in language and attitude the most suppliant. The burden of the petition was, " Permit us, O king of heavens, to obtain new shields:" in other words, "Allow us to go and attack some distant town, to acquire new spoils and fresh glory." This was an inauspicious moment for these ambitious Turning to me, the monarch said, "You see it is my people who wish to make war," and instantly dismissed them from his presence.

men.

As he was rather profuse in his honorary titles, especially in calling me a king, I requested him rather to call me teacher, or anything but a king. "Then," he said, "shall I call you my father?" "Yes," I rejoined, "but only on condition that you be an obedient son.' This drew from him and his nobles a hearty laugh. When I recommended a system which would secure not only safety, but plenty to his people, without the unnatural one of keeping up a force of many thousands of unmarried warriors; he tried to convince me that his people were happy, and to a stranger they might appear so, for, alas, they dared not let any murmur reach his ear, but I knew more than he was aware of. I knew many a couch was steeped with silent tears, and many an acre stained with human blood. About ten minutes after the conversation, a lovely boy, the son of one of his many wives, sat smiling on my knee, caressing me as if I were his own father. As some of the king's harem was seated near, I asked the boy which was his mother. He shook his little head and sighed. I asked no more, but learned soon after that the mother, who was the daughter of a captive chief, was a superior woman, and took the liberty of remonstrating

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A MONSTROUS ACTION.

Iwith her lord on the multitude of his concubines. In the morning she was dragged out of her house, and her head severed from her body.

The happiness of the king and his subjects appeared to be entirely derived from their success in war, and the reward of a wife was a stimulus to his men to multiply their victims Days of feasting were held, when they glutted themselves with flesh. The bloody bowl was the portion of those who could count the tens they had slain in the day of battle. One evening two men bore towards me an enormous basket It was the royal dish sent from the presence of his majesty The contents smoking blood, apparently as liquid as if it had just come from the arteries of the ox, and mixed with sausages of suet. I acknowledged the honour he wished to confer, but begged to be excused partaking of so lordly a dish, as I never ate blood when I could get any thing else. This refusal gave perfect satisfaction, when the whole breast of an ox well stewed, was immediately sent in its place. As no thing can be returned, the bearers of the smoking present and others who were standing round it, had scarcely heard that they might do what they pleased with it, when they rushed upon it, scooping it up with their hands, making a noise equal to a dozen hungry hogs around a well filled trough.

On my journey to and from this polite, and, I might truly add, grateful barbarian, I received great attention, and was exposed to no annoyance. Having to pass through a coun try full of lions, a number of warriors constantly attended the wagons, whom I supplied with food out of the numberless presents of milk, grain, and slaughter oxen which I had re ceived from their munificent master. On more than one occasion as many as fifty dishes were brought from a village and placed before me; but the Matabele escort could not conceal their strong passion for meat; and when I gave them the leg or shoulder of an ox, they immediately kindled a fire, into the centre of which the whole leg would be thrown, and occasionally turned with a long pole. After being burned and roasted some inches deep, it was dragged forth, and as soon as it was sufficiently cool to allow of its being seized with their hands, they squatted on the ground around it, and raising it to a level with their mouths, each tore off a piece, and the mass might be seen moving to and fro, according to the success of the teeth in seizing a firm hold. When they had penetrated to what was too raw, it was thrown again into the fire for a second course. I never

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saw them eat raw flesh, as some have affirmed to be their practice.

To these facts, extracted from a voluminous journal, my limits will only permit me to add one picture more of heathenism, calculated to awaken all the sympathies of an enlightened mind. I am persuaded no one of my readers would thank me for a minute description of manners and dress, which could only excite disgust, and details of revenge and the punishment of capital crimes, in which there is a combination of all that is ferocious, horrid, and cruel. The following description of their mode of warfare and treatment of captives, cannot but excite the deepest sympathy for the millions of our fellow men, who are perishing thus awfully for lack of knowledge in the dark regions of this benighted world.

The Matabele were not satisfied with simply capturing cattle, nothing less than the entire subjugation, or destruction of the vanquished, could quench their insatiable thirst for power. Thus when they conquered a town, the terrified inhabitants were driven in a mass to the outskirts, when the parents and all the married women were slaughtered on the spot. Such as have dared to be brave in the defence of their town, their wives, and their children, are reserved for a still more terrible death; dry grass, saturated with fat, is tied round their naked bodies and then set on fire. The youths and girls are loaded as beasts of burden with the spoils of the town, to be marched to the homes of their victors. If the town be in an isolated position, the helpless infants are left to perish either with hunger, or to be devoured by beasts of prey. On such an event, the lions scent the slain and leave their lair. The hyenas and jackals emerge from their lurking places in broad day, and revel in the carnage, while a cloud of vultures may be seen descending on the living and the dead, and holding a carnival on human flesh. Should a suspicion arise in the savage bosom that these helpless innocents may fall into the hands of friends, they will prevent this by collecting them into a fold, and after raising over them a pile of brushwood, apply the flarning torch to it, when the town, but lately the scene of mirth, becomes a heap of ashes. Oh! Christians of England, can you as subjects of divine love, as possessing the blessed Gospel of the Son of God, and as holding his last commission from the mount of Olives to publish it to the ends of the earth,-can you gaze on these fields of human blood, these regions of unutterable woe, without emotion? Ah! brethren, could you behold the

scenes your missionaries witness, you would wake up with a power of pity which would impel you to deeds of Christian compassion, compared with which your past exertions would appear as nothing.

Having resolved on returning, Moselekatse accompanied me in my wagon a long day's journey to one of his principal towns. He soon became accustomed to the jolting of an African wagon, and found it convenient to lay his well lubri cated body down on my bed, to take a nap. On awaking he invited me to lie down beside him; but I begged to be excused, preferring to enjoy the scenery around me. Two more days we spent together, during which I renewed my entreaties that he would abstain from war, promising that one day he should be favoured with missionaries, which he professed to desire. Having obtained from me my telescope, for the purpose, he said, of seeing on the other side of the mountains if Dingaan, the king of the Zoolus, whom he justly dreaded, was approaching, I bade him farewell, with scarcely a hope that the Gospel could be successful among the Matabele, until there should be a revolution in the government of a monarch, who demanded that homage which pertains to God alone. A few moments before I left him, I remarked that it was the duty of a wise father to instruct his son, and as he called me Machobane, I thought it right again to warn him, that if he did not cease from war, and restrain his lintuna (nobles) from perpetrating their secret and dreadful cruelties on the aborigines, he might expect that the eternal God would frown upon him, when the might of his power would soon be broken, and the bones of his warriors would mingle with those they had themselves scattered over his desolate dominions. To this solemn exhortation he only replied, "Pray to your God to keep me from the power of Dingaan." After a journey through the country already described, preserved amid many dangers from beasts of prey, I arrived safely at home after an absence of two months, and found Mrs. M. and our family with Mr. Hamilton well, and cheered with the continued display of the Divine blessing on the Kuruman mission.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE country had been blessed with such plentiful rains that fields and gardens teemed with plenty, such as had not been experienced for several years. The ancient ramparts of superstition had been broken through by our converts, and many others, who could see no reason why the productions of their field and garden labour should be confined to the varieties of their native grain (Holcus sorghum) pumpkins, kidney beans, and water melons, the only vegetables cultivated by their forefathers. Instead of purchasing a very inferior tobacco from the Bahurutsi, who were no longer able to supply the market, having imitated our example of leading out water, they began to plant it themselves, and it soon became a profitable article of traffic, as it had formerly been to those who lived in a better watered country. They also thankfully accepted the seeds and plants of grain and vegetables we had introduced, of maize, wheat, barley, peas, potatoes, carrots, onions, and they also planted fruit trees. As the course of our water ditch along the side of a hill appeared as if the stream ascended, several of the natives set to work in good earnest, and cut courses leading directly up hill, hoping the water would one day follow. Ploughs, harrows, spades, and mattocks were no longer viewed as the implements of a certain caste, but as the indispensable auxiliaries to existence and comfort. The man who before would have disdained to be seen engaged in such an occupation and with such a tool, was now thankful to have it in his power to buy a spade.

The spiritual affairs of the station kept pace with external improvements. The house of God continued to be well filled, and though the strong excitement which prevailed in the early part of 1829 had subsided, knowledge was on the increase, a growing seriousness was observable, and there was every reason for encouragement. Progress was made in reading, which increased my anxiety to make a revision of

* Maize I found abundant among the Matabele, where it does not require irrigation; also a fine large species of kidney bean, the pods of which grow under ground, and are earthed up like potatoes.