Perils in the Transvaal and Zululand

difference between our churches, in respect eitherof doctrine or discipline--very little even at home, none at all, it maybe said, out here. Are you to be one of Mr Rogers' schoolmasters?"

  "Yes," said George; "one of his schoolmasters for some time, andafterwards one of his chaplains."

  "You will be doing a good work. He has several at Umvalosa, and atPieter's Kop, and Spielman's Vley, and Landman's Drift, and severalother places. Mr Rogers is one of those who make a good use of themeans entrusted to them. I wish we had many like him."

  "I wish so too," said George. "But we have got away from what we weretalking of, the Hottentots. I had heard that they are as a ruleuntruthful and sensual, but also that they are kind-hearted andaffectionate. What is your experience on this point, I should like toknow?"

  "In all countries, so far as my experience extends," answered MrBilderjik,--"in all countries of the world, I believe, parents areaffectionate to their children, unless where some strong motiveinfluences them to be otherwise. It is little more, in fact, than anatural instinct that prompts their affection. But where there is thisstrong motive, the parental instinct is soon disregarded. In countries,for instance, where boys are a source of profit, and girls a burden anda cost, as in China, female child-murder becomes a common practice. Inlands, again, where food is with difficulty obtained, and everyadditional mouth deprives others of their full supply of sustenance,infants are killed without scruple. The Hottentots are no exception tothis. This is the case even where the natural affection of parentsmight have influenced them to make sacrifices for their own children.Where the children of others are concerned, there is the most absoluteindifference to suffering. That Hottentot groom of mine, Haxo, is anevidence in his own person of it."

  "Your Hottentot groom yonder? What of him?"

  "I have had him ever since he was a baby," said the Swede. "This is theway in which I came by him. While we were on our way to the upper partof Namaqualand, and were a mile or two from the Hottentot village wherewe meant to pass the Sunday, we fell in with a tribe of Hottentots, whowere emigrating to a different part of the country. We sat down to restat the spring at which the Hottentots had been drinking. We soon gotvery friendly with them, making them presents of a few toys which we hadbrought with us, to their great delight. They listened very attentivelyto all I had to say to them, and we parted with them having formed avery favourable impression of them. There was one family in particularthat took our fancy. It consisted of a fine handsome man, a ratherdelicate wife with an infant, not yet weaned, and two lads almost grownup. They went off in the cool of the evening, taking the same pathwhich we meant to take on the Monday. We passed the Sunday as weintended, and the next day set out. After a journey of an hour or twowe came upon a woman who lay under the shadow of a rock with an infantin her arms, evidently dying of exhaustion and hunger. We gave her somenourishment, but it was plain that she was too far gone to be restored.She appeared to know us, and with some difficulty we recognised her asthe young mother we had so greatly admired. It appeared that after theparty had proceeded some distance, it was reported to them that therewas a lion in an adjoining donga, which would probably attack them if itwas not destroyed. All the men had gone in pursuit of it and killed it.But before this could be done, the woman's husband had been struck by ablow from the lion's paw, and died in a few minutes. There was a debateheld as to what was to be done with the family. The two boys werestrong and active, and would soon become useful as hunters. It wasworth while keeping them, but they could not, or would not, supporttheir mother. No one was willing to take her as a wife, she beingnotoriously weak and sickly. She tried hard, she told us, to induce oneof the women to take her child, and save its life. Her own, she knew,would soon come to an end. But the baby was to all appearance as sicklyas herself. After an hour's talk, the whole party went on, leaving herand her infant to die in the wilderness. I should much doubt whetherher boys ever gave her another thought."

  "Shocking!" said Margetts. "I suppose the poor thing died, did shenot?"

  "Yes, died in a few hours. We gave her what sustenance we had with us,and did what we could for her. But she was dying when we fell in withher, and I do not suppose that the most skilful physician in Europecould have restored her."

  "And you took the baby and brought it up?" suggested George.

  "Yes, that was the only thing that gave her any comfort. We promisedthat we would take charge of it, and see that it was cared for. Shedied quite contentedly, when she had seen it go to sleep in MrsBilderjik's arms, and we buried her in the same grave to which theremains of her husband had been committed on the previous day."

  "How has the boy turned out?" asked Margetts.

  "Very well," said the Swede. "He makes a good farm servant, andthoroughly understands the management of horses. But he is better athunting than anything else. He has all the instincts of his race. Ifrequently send him out with his pony into the wild country, and he ispretty sure to come back before long with a springbok or two, or ahartebeest, or eland; what we don't eat we can dispose of to ourneighbours. Mr Baylen spoke in high praise of his Bechuana Matamo.But I think Haxo is pretty nearly his match."

  "Any way, he will be so by the time he reaches Matamo's age," saidGeorge. "He must be a good deal younger."

  "Yes, Haxo is not much more than thirty. By-the-bye, you were speakingof making an expedition to Zeerust, when this miserable war is over. Idid not hear clearly what was passing, but I thought I understood that."

  "Yes," said George. "They tell me that my mother has removed there; andmy first object in life is to find her."

  "Ah, I thought so. Well, I daresay I can lend you the services of Haxo.In fact, it would be as much to my advantage as yours that he shouldaccompany you. There is a message I must send to Kolobeng, and I hadthought of sending Haxo with it. If he travelled across the Transvaalwith your party, it would be an advantage both to him and to you."

  "To us certainly," said Rivers. "And I thank you for the offer. But Ihave not yet done with my inquiries about the natives. You have told meabout the Hottentots, but not about the Kaffirs and Zulus; I want toknow more about them than any other of the natives. I am in no waysurprised that you found it difficult to make any way with the Namaquasand Bosjesmans. They are by all accounts the very lowest types ofhumanity. But from what I have seen of the Kaffirs, the case must bequite different with them. They strike me as being a highly intelligentrace--as intelligent, I should say, as the lower classes in any Europeancountry. The same obstacles that stand in the way of the conversion ofthe Hottentots cannot surely exist in their instance."

  "You are right, Mr Rivers," returned Mr Bilderjik. "There are not thesame obstacles. But, unfortunately, there are as bad, or, as some wouldsay, worse obstacles. The Hottentots have, strictly speaking, noreligious ideas at all. They are simply intelligent animals, and nottoo intelligent either. But the Kaffir has a religion, though one sowholly false as to render him in a great measure incapable of conceivingthe true one. He believes in a God, and even, in a wild, confused way,in a Creator of the universe. But these are in his view only _men_.The dead, according to his ideas, become potent spirits, which must bepropitiated, or they will do the living the most terrible injuries.There is no sense of love or of benefits conferred, but only the powerof working evil. If the seasons are mild and genial, and the cropsproductive, that is the ordinary course of nature, and there is no needto be thankful for it. If there comes tempest, or blight, or wastingdisease, it is because the spirits are angered at neglect shown, orinsult offered them; and sacrifices, often of the most bloody and cruelkind, must be offered, or the vengeance of the angry gods will fallstill more heavily on the people. In short, it is a religion of fearand hate, instead of being what it should be, a religion of love."

  "Are they not thankful, sir, to any one who will deliver them from sucha yoke of bondage?" asked George.

  "One would certainly expect that they would be. But the gospel do
es notmake the progress that might be looked for. It is in direct oppositionto two of their ruling passions, their thirst for revenge and theirsensuality. The preachers of the gospel especially forbid bloodshed andpolygamy; and these are the two things their chiefs live for."

  "Polygamy! Ay, I was going to ask you about that. I can understandthat you would find yourself in a difficulty there. But I do not quiteknow what your practice is. If a Kaffir chief, who has a number ofwives, is converted, would you oblige him to put them all away but one,as a condition on which you will admit him to baptism?"

  "It is a point on which Christian ministers are not fully agreed. I seea difficulty myself. A man has solemnly