habit of plundering one another, and saw no manner of evil in this, or any of their actions. Violent deaths were common. Their usual manner of living was truly disgusting, and they were void of shame. They were at the most violent enmity with the Bushmen, and treated them on all occasions where they could, with the utmost barbarity. So might these people, wretched victims of European vice and contempt of all laws, human or divine, have remained, had not the missionaries, by incredible labours and patience, won their good will. They have now reduced them to settled and agricultural life; brought them to live in the most perfect harmony with the Bushmen; and in 1819 such was their altered condition that a fair was established at Beaufort for the mutual benefit of them and the colonists, at which business was done to the amount of 27,000 rix dollars; and on the goods sold to the Griquas, the colonists realized a profit of from 200 to 500 per cent!

Let our profound statesmen, who go on from generation to generation fighting and maintaining armies, and issuing commandoes, look at this, and see how infinitely simple men, with but one principle of action to guide them-Christianity-outdo them in their own profession. They are your missionaries, after all the boast and pride of statesmanship, who have ever yet hit upon the only true and sound policy even in a worldly point of view;* who, when the profound statesmen have turned men into miserable and exasperated savages, are obliged to go and again turn them from savages to men,-who, when these wise

* William Penn is the only exception, and he was a preacher and in some degree a missionary.

statesmen have spent their country's money by millions and shed blood by oceans, and find troubles and frontier wars, and frightful and fire-blackened deserts only growing around-go, and by a smile and a shake of the hand, restore peace, replace these deserts by gardens and green fields, and hamlets of cheerful people; and instead of involving you in debt, find you a market with 200 to 500 per cent. profit!

"It was apparent," says Captain Stockenstrom, "to every man, that if it had not been for the influence which the missionaries had gained over the Griquas we should have had the whole nation down upon us." What a humiliation to the pride of political science, to the pride of so many soi-disant statesmen, that with so many ages of experience to refer to, and with such stupendous powers as European statesmen have now in their hands, a few simple preachers should still have to shew them the real philosophy of government, and to rescue them from the blundering and ruinous positions in which they have continually placed themselves with uneducated nations! these Griquas had come down upon us," continues Captain Stockenstrom, "we had no force to arrest them; and I have been informed, that since I left the colony, the government has been able to enter into a sort of treaty with the chief Waterboer, of a most beneficial nature to the Corannas and Griquas themselves, as well as to the safety of the northern frontier."

"If

If noble statesmen wish to hear the true secret of good and prosperous government, they have only to listen to this chief, "who boasts," to use the words of the Parliamentary Report, "no higher ancestry than that of the Hottentot and the Bushman."-" I feel that

I am bound to govern my people by Christian principles. The world knows by experience, and I know in my small way, and I know also from my Bible, that the government which is not founded on the principles of the Bible must come to nothing. When governments lose sight of the principles of the Bible, partiality, injustice, oppression and cruelty prevail, and then suspicion, want of confidence, jealousy, hatred, revolt, and destruction succeed. Therefore I hope it will ever be my study, that the Bible should form the foundation of every principle of my government; then I and my people will have a standard to which we can appeal, which is clear, and comprehensive, and satisfactory, and by which we shall all be tried, and have our condition determined in the day of judgment. The relation in which I stand to my people as their chief, as their leader, binds me, by all that is sacred and dear, to seek their welfare and promote their happiness; and by what means shall I be able to do this? This I shall best be able to do by alluding to the principles of the Bible. Would governors and governments act upon the simple principle by which we are bound to act as individuals, that is, to do as we would be done by, all would be well. I hope, by the principles of the gospel, the morals of my people will continue to improve; and it shall be my endeavour, in humble dependence on the Divine blessing, that those principles shall lose none of their force by my example. Sound education I know will civilize them, make them wise, useful, powerful, and secure amongst their neighbours; and the better they are educated, the more clearly will they see that the principles of the Bible are the best principles for the

government of individuals, of families, of tribes, and of nations."

Not only governors but philosophers may listen to this African chief with advantage. Some splendid reputations have been made in Europe by merely taking up some one great principle of the Christian code and vaunting it as a wonderful discovery. A thousand such principles are scattered through the Bible, and the greatest philosophers of all, as well as the profoundest statesmen, are they who are contented to look for them there, and in simple sincerity to adopt them.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE ENGLISH IN SOUTH AFRICA,-CONTINUED.

THE details of our barbarisms toward the Hottentots, Bushmen, and Griquas, in the last chapter, are surely enough at this late period of the world to make the wise blush and the humane weep, yet what are they compared to our atrocities towards the Caffres? These are, as described by Pringle, a remarkably fine race of people. "They a are tall, athletic, and handsome race of men, with features often approaching to the European, or Asiatic model, and, excepting their woolly hair, exhibiting few of the peculiarities of the negro Their colour is a clear dark brown. Their address is frank, cheerful, and manly. Their govern

race.

ment is patriarchal, and the privileges of rank are carefully maintained by the chieftains. Their principal wealth and means of subsistence consist in their numerous herds of cattle. The females also cultivate pretty extensively maize, millet, water-melons, and a few other esculents; but they are decidedly a nation of herdsmen-war, hunting, barter, and agriculture being only occasional occupations.

"In their customs and traditions there seem to be indications of their having sprung, at some remote period, from a people of much higher civilization than is now exhibited by any of the tribes of Southern Africa; whilst the rite of circumcision, universally practised among them without any vestige of Islamism, and several other traditionary customs greatly resembling the Levitical rules of purification, would seem to indicate some former connexion with a people of Arabian, Hebrew, or perhaps, Abyssinian lineage. Nothing like a regular system of idolatry exists among them; but we find some traces of belief of a Supreme Being, as well as of inferior spirits, and sundry superstitious usages that look like the shattered wrecks of ancient religious institutions."*

One of the first of this race, whom this amiable and excellent man encountered in South Africa, was at Bethelsdorp, the missionary settlement, and under the following circumstances :-"A Caffre woman, accompanied by a little girl of eight or ten years of age, and having an infant strapped on her back above her mantle of tanned bullock's hide. She was in the custody of a black constable, who stated that she was one of a number of female Caffres who had been made prisoners * African Sketches, p. 414.