Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone (fun to read .txt) 📕

and the value of colonial farms increases year by year.

But the system requires that with the increase of the population there should be an extension of territory. Wide as the country is, and thinly inhabited, the farmers feel it to be too limited, and they are gradually spreading to the north. This movement proves prejudicial to the country behind, for labor, which would be directed to the improvement of the colony, is withdrawn and expended in a mode of life little adapted to the exercise of industrial habits. That, however, does not much concern the rest of mankind. Nor does it seem much of an evil for men who cultivate the soil to claim a right to appropriate lands for tillage which other men only hunt over, provided some compensation for the loss of sustenance be awarded. The original idea of a title seems to have been that "subduing" or cultivating gave that right.

But this rather Chartist principle must be received with limitations, for its recognition in England would lead to the seizure of all our broad ancestral acres by those who are willing to cultivate them.

And, in the case under consideration, the encroachments lead at once to less land being put under the plow than is subjected to the native hoe, for it is a fact that the Basutos and Zulus, or Caffres of Natal, cultivate largely, and undersell our farmers wherever they have a fair field and no favor.

Before we came to the Orange River we saw the last portion of a migration of springbucks (`Gazella euchore', or tsepe).

They come from the great Kalahari Desert, and, when first seen after crossing the colonial boundary, are said often to exceed forty thousand in number.

I can not give an estimate of their numbers, for they appear spread over a vast expanse of country, and make a quivering motion as they feed, and move, and toss their graceful horns. They feed chiefly on grass; and as they come from the north about the time when the grass most abounds, it can not be want of food that prompts the movement.

Nor is it want of water, for this antelope is one of the most abstemious in that respect. Their nature prompts them to seek as their favorite haunts level plains with short grass, where they may be able to watch the approach of an enemy. The Bakalahari take advantage of this feeling, and burn off large patches of grass, not only to attract the game by the new crop when it comes up, but also to form bare spots for the springbuck to range over.

It is not the springbuck alone that manifests this feeling. When oxen are taken into a country of high grass, they are much more ready to be startled; their sense of danger is increased by the increased power of concealment afforded to an enemy by such cover, and they will often start off in terror at the ill-defined outlines of each other. The springbuck, possessing this feeling in an intense degree, and being eminently gregarious, becomes uneasy as the grass of the Kalahari becomes tall.

The vegetation being more sparse in the more arid south, naturally induces the different herds to turn in that direction.

As they advance and increase in numbers, the pasturage becomes more scarce; it is still more so the further they go, until they are at last obliged, in order to obtain the means of subsistence, to cross the Orange River, and become the pest of the sheep-farmer in a country which contains scarcely any of their favorite grassy food. If they light on a field of wheat in their way, an army of locusts could not make a cleaner sweep of the whole than they will do. It is questionable whether they ever return, as they have never been seen as a returning body. Many perish from want of food, the country to which they have migrated being unable to support them; the rest become scattered over the colony; and in such a wide country there is no lack of room for all.

It is probable that, notwithstanding the continued destruction by fire-arms, they will continue long to hold their place.

On crossing the Orange River we come into independent territory inhabited by Griquas and Bechuanas. By Griquas is meant any mixed race sprung from natives and Europeans. Those in question were of Dutch extraction, through association with Hottentot and Bushwomen.

Half-castes of the first generation consider themselves superior to those of the second, and all possess in some degree the characteristics of both parents. They were governed for many years by an elected chief, named Waterboer, who, by treaty, received a small sum per annum from the colonial government for the support of schools in his country, and proved a most efficient guard of our northwest boundary.

Cattle-stealing was totally unknown during the whole period of this able chief's reign; and he actually drove back, single-handed, a formidable force of marauding Mantatees that threatened to invade the colony.* But for that brave Christian man, Waterboer, there is every human probability that the northwest would have given the colonists as much trouble as the eastern frontier; for large numbers among the original Griquas had as little scruple about robbing farmers of cattle as the Caffres are reputed to have.

On the election of Waterboer to the chieftainship, he distinctly declared THAT NO MARAUDING SHOULD BE ALLOWED. As the government of none of these tribes is despotic, some of his principal men, in spite of this declaration, plundered some villages of Corannas living to the south of the Orange River. He immediately seized six of the ringleaders, and, though the step put his own position in jeopardy, he summoned his council, tried, condemned, and publicly executed the whole six. This produced an insurrection, and the insurgents twice attacked his capital, Griqua Town, with the intention of deposing him; but he bravely defeated both attempts, and from that day forth, during his long reign of thirty years, not a single plundering expedition ever left his territory. Having witnessed the deleterious effects of the introduction of ardent spirits among his people, he, with characteristic energy, decreed that any Boer or Griqua bringing brandy into the country should have his property in ardent spirits confiscated and poured out on the ground. The Griqua chiefs living farther east were unable to carry this law into effect as he did, hence the greater facility with which Boers in that direction got the Griquas to part with their farms.

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For an account of this, see Moffat's "Scenes and Labors in South Africa".

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Ten years after he was firmly established in power he entered into a treaty with the colonial government, and during the twenty years which followed not a single charge was ever brought against either him or his people; on the contrary, his faithful adherence to the stipulated provisions elicited numerous expressions of approbation from successive governments.

A late governor, however, of whom it is impossible to speak without respect, in a paroxysm of generalship which might have been good, had it not been totally inappropriate to the case, set about conciliating a band of rebellious British subjects (Boers), who murdered the Honorable Captain Murray, by proclaiming their independence while still in open rebellion, and not only abrogated the treaty with the Griquas, but engaged to stop the long-accustomed supplies of gunpowder for the defense of the frontier, and even to prevent them from purchasing it for their own defense by lawful trade.

If it had been necessary to prevent supplies of ammunition from finding their way into the country, as it probably was, one might imagine that the exception should not have been made in favor of either Boers or Caffres, our openly-avowed enemies; but, nevertheless, the exception was made, and is still continued in favor of the Boers, while the Bechuanas and Griquas, our constant friends, are debarred from obtaining a single ounce for either defense or trade; indeed, such was the state of ignorance as to the relation of the border tribes with the English, even at Cape Town, that the magistrates, though willing to aid my researches, were sorely afraid to allow me to purchase more than ten pounds of gunpowder, lest the Bechuanas should take it from me by force. As it turned out, I actually left more than that quantity for upward of two years in an open box in my wagon at Linyanti.

The lamented Sir George Cathcart, apparently unconscious of what he was doing, entered into a treaty with the Transvaal Boers, in which articles were introduced for the free passage of English traders to the north, and for the entire prohibition of slavery in the free state.

Then passed the "gunpowder ordinance", by which the Bechuanas, whom alone the Boers dare attempt to enslave, were rendered quite defenseless.

The Boers never attempt to fight with Caffres, nor to settle in Caffreland.

We still continue to observe the treaty. The Boers never did, and never intended to abide by its provisions; for, immediately on the proclamation of their independence, a slave-hunt was undertaken against the Bechuanas of Sechele by four hundred Boers, under Mr. Peit Scholz, and the plan was adopted which had been cherished in their hearts ever since the emancipation of the Hottentots. Thus, from unfortunate ignorance of the country he had to govern, an able and sagacious governor adopted a policy proper and wise had it been in front of our enemies, but altogether inappropriate for our friends against whom it has been applied. Such an error could not have been committed by a man of local knowledge and experience, such as that noble of colonial birth, Sir Andries Stockenstrom; and such instances of confounding friend and foe, in the innocent belief of thereby promoting colonial interests, will probably lead the Cape community, the chief part of which by no means feels its interest to lie in the degradation of the native tribes, to assert the right of choosing their own governors.

This, with colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament, in addition to the local self-government already so liberally conceded, would undoubtedly secure the perpetual union of the colony to the English crown.

Many hundreds of both Griquas and Bechuanas have become Christians and partially civilized through the teaching of English missionaries.

My first impressions of the progress made were that the accounts of the effects of the Gospel among them had been too highly colored.

I expected a higher degree of Christian simplicity and purity than exists either among them or among ourselves. I was not anxious for a deeper insight in detecting shams than others, but I expected character, such as we imagine the primitive disciples had -- and was disappointed.*

When, however, I passed on to the true heathen in the countries beyond the sphere of missionary influence, and could compare the people there with the Christian natives, I came to the conclusion that, if the question were examined in the most rigidly severe or scientific way, the change effected by the missionary movement would be considered unquestionably great.

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The popular notion, however, of the primitive Church is perhaps not very accurate. Those societies especially which consisted of converted Gentiles -- men who had been accustomed to the vices and immoralities of heathenism -- were certainly any thing but pure. In spite of their conversion, some of them carried the stains and vestiges of their former state with them when they passed from the temple to the church. If the instructed and civilized Greek did not all at once rise out of his former self, and understand and