MR. SCHMELEN'S JOURNAL. 91 neard it "Do "How hear who made the first one?" "No, we never "Did you never hear old people talk about it?" never heard it from them." "Who made the heavens ?" "We do not know what man made them." "Who made the sun?" "We always heard that those people at the sea made it; when she goes down, they cut her in pieces, and fry her in a pot, and then put her together again, and bring her out at the other side. Sometimes the sun is over our head, and at other times she must give place for the moon to pass by. They said the moon had told to mankind that we must die, and not become alive again; that is the reason that when the moon is dark we sometimes become ill." "Is there any difference between man and beast? "We think man has made the beasts." "Did you ever see a man that made beasts?" "No, I only heard so from others." you know have a soul?" "I do not know it." you shall it be with us after death?" "When we are dead, we are dead; when we have died, we go over the sea-water, at that side where the devil is." "What do you mean by the devil?"" "He is not good; all people who die, run to him." "How does the devil behave to them, well or ill?" "You shall see; all our people are there who have died (in the ships.) Those people in the ships are masters over them." In the same Journal, the 7th of July, Mr. S. has the following:"After service I spent some time conversing with some of the aged, but found them extremely ignorant; some of them could not conceive of a being higher than man, and had not the least idea of the immortality of the soul. They intimated that their chief had been to some station to get instructions, and they hoped to hear more on these subjects from him." "I preached," says Mr. S., " from Rom. v. 18" a text admirably adapted for people in such gross darkness. Mr. Campbell, in his little tract of the "Life of Africaner," states, "Being asked what his views of God were before he enjoyed the benefit of Christian instruction, his reply was, that he never thought any thing at all on these subjects; that he thought about nothing but his cattle. He admitted that he had heard of a God, (well might he, being brought up in the colony,) but he at the same time stated that his views of God were so erroneous, that the name suggested no more to his mind than something that might be found in Has not this a reference to men-stealers, who visited that coast? If so, it appears the natives never knew any thing about the devil till they knew slave-dealers, or at least they considered them his emissaries. 92 MISTAKES OF TRAVELLERS. the form of an insect, or in the lid of a snuff-box This was the testimony of one who had passed from darkness to the light of the Gospel, a testimony, the writer more than once heard from his own lips. Ignorant as the Namaquas were, I cannot go to the lengths of a traveller in that country, who, after being anxious to ascertain the extent of knowledge among the tribe with which he then dwelt, a tribe too which had long enjoyed the instructions of missionaries, and among which a missionary is still labouring with success, makes the following remarks:-"I must say they positively know nothing beyond tracking game, and breaking-in pack-oxen. They did not know one year from another; they only knew that at certain times the trees and flowers bloom, and that the rain may be expected. As to their own age they knew no more what it was than idiots. Some even had no names; of numbers, of course, they were quite ignorant; few could count above five; and he was a clever fellow who could tell his fingers. Above all, they had not the least idea of a God or a future state. They were literally like the beasts which perish." The above dismal picture of human degradation is, as is stated, the result of anxious inquiry on the subject; and that too at a missionary station where the best facilities can be had for correct interpretation. I presume the respectable writer would feel not a little offended if his veracity were called in question, or even his want of research in those regions. Be that as it may, I must entirely differ from him on one point, if not in more, in his statement. I have dwelt much with the Namaquas, as well as among the people referred to, but I never knew a man who had not a name; and I have sat, and been taught by many infant lips to count more than ten, even when no missionary had laboured amongst them. It is, however, but just to remark, that it must be to a resident, not a swallow visitor that we must look for correct information on subjects abstract in their nature. I speak from experience when I say, that on some points travellers are very liable to be led astray. For instance, I once, while writing, heard a traveller ask his guide the name of the last halting place they had passed. The guide, not understanding, replied, “Ua reng," which the traveller, with all simplicity, was placing in his log book; when, interrupting him, I said, "What are you writing? that is not a name : he merely asks you what you say." Accidents like the above frequently give rise to wrong names being applied to places; in another instance, " mountains" was the reply, instead of the name of the mountain. And in reference to points of SUPPOSED TRADITION OF DELUGE. 93 faith, or extent of knowledge, the traveller may be completely duped, as I was in the present journey. At an isolated village, far in the wilds of Namaqua-land, I met an individual, who appeared somewhat more intelligent than the rest; to him I put a number of questions, to ascertain if there were any tradition in the country respecting the deluge, of which vestiges are to be found in almost every part of the known world. I had made many inquiries before, but all to no purpose Discovering that he possessed some knowledge on the subject, and being an utter stranger to any of the party, and to all appearance a child of the desert, I very promptly took my pen and wrote, thinking myself a lucky discoverer. I was perfectly astonished at some of his first sentences, and, afraid lest I should lose one word, I appointed two interpreters: but by the time I reached the end of the story, I began to suspect. It bore the impress of the Bible. On questioning him as to the source of his information, he positively asserted that he had received it from his forefathers, and that he never saw or heard of a missionary. I secretly instituted inquiries into his history, but could elicit nothing. I folded up my paper, and put it into my desk, very much puzzled, and resolving to leave the statement to wiser heads than mine. On our return, this man accompanied us some days southward, towards the Karas mountains, when we halted at a village; and meeting a person who had been at Bethany, Mr. Schmelen's station, lying north west of us, I begged him to guide us thither, as I was anxious to visit the place. He could not, being worn out with the journey; but pointing to the deluge narrator, he said, "There is a man that knows the road to Bethany, for I have seen him there." The mystery of the tradition was in a moment unravelled, and the man decamped, on my seeing that the fore father who told him the story, was our missionary Schmelen. Stories of a similar kind originally obtained at a missionary station, or from some godly traveller, get, in course of time, so mixed up and metamorphosed by heathen ideas, that they look exceedingly like native traditions. Leaving this subject for the present, we will return to the results of the journey. Having reached some of the branches of the Fish River, where we found water by digging like the natives, we were brought to a stand. The wild Namaquas, as they are called, were jealous of the object of our visit. They knew of the fame of Africaner, and were apprized of his object, as well as that of the missionary; but they had in earlier times received such impressions of "hat-wearers,' that they were determined either to oppose our proceeding, or flee. Here we remained some days, and notwithstanding their suspicions, we got the people to listen with great attention to the message of the Gospel. We also met with one of their sorcerers, who, the night before, had made the inhabitants believe that he had entered into a lion that came to the village and killed the cattle, creating an uproar which lasted till the morning dawn. I coaxed him into a conver sation with a piece of tobacco, and inquired about his re ported powers, to which he readily replied; but when I wished to put them to the test, he declined. I then requested him to try his hand on me; this he also declined, adding, that I was a white sorcerer myself, from the strange doctrines I taught. Africaner proposed to return, rather than run the risk of shedding blood; in which he was confirmed by the arrival of a relative from the north, who gave a sorry account of the country. CHAPTER X. On our route homeward we halted at a spot where a novel scene once occurred, and which was described by an individual who witnessed it when a boy. Near a very small fountain, which was shewn to me, stood a camel thorn-tree, (Acacia Giraffe.) It was a stiff tree, about twelve feet high, with a flat, bushy top. Many years ago, the relater, then a boy, was returning to his village, and having turned aside to the fountain for a drink, lay down on the bank, and fell asleep. Being awoke by the piercing rays of the sun, he saw, through the bush behind which he lay, a giraffe browsing at ease on the tender shoots of the tree, and, to his horror, a lion, creeping like a cat, only a dozen yards from him, preparing to pounce on his prey. The lion eyed the giraffe for a few moments, his body gave a shake, and ho bounded into the air, to seize the head of the animal, which instantly turned his stately neck, and the lion, missing his grasp, fell on his back in the centre of the mass of thorns, like spikes, and the giraffe bounded over the plain. The THE LION AND GIRAFFE. 95 boy instantly followed the example, expecting, as a matter of course, that the enraged lion would soon find his way to the earth. Some time afterwards, the people of the village, who seldom visited that spot, saw the eagles hovering in the air; and as it is almost always a certain sign that the lion has killed game, or some animal is lying dead, they went to the place, and sought in vain till, coming under the lee of the tree, their olfactory nerves directed them to where the lion lay dead in his thorny bed. I still found some of his bones under the tree, and hair on its branches, to convince me of what I scarcely could have credited. The lion will sometimes manage to mount the back of a giraffe, and, fixing his sharp claws into each shoulder, gnaw away till he reaches the vertebræ of the neck, when both fall; and ofttimes the lion is lamed for his trouble. If the giraffe happens to be very strong, he succeeds in bringing his rider to the ground. Among those that we shot on our journey, the healed wounds of the lion's claws on the shoulder, and marks of his teeth on the back of the neck, gave us ocular demonstration that two of them had carried the monarch of the forest on their backs, and yet come off triumphant. When I had the pleasure of meeting occasionally with the late Mr. Pringle in Cape Town, and mentioned some of these facts, his poetical genius instantly caught the image, and threw the picture into the following graphic lines, which may not be unacceptable to those who have never seen Pringle's African Poems. "Wouldst thou view the lion's den? Where the reed-encircled rill Oozes from the rocky hill, By its verdure far descried 'Mid the desert brown and wide. Close beside the sedgy brim With clanging sound of desp'rate strife- |