An agreeable surprise is not only interesting to the recipient, but
sometimes to his friends. I received one at Capetown, which is worthy
of record on several grounds.
For the proper explanation of that surprise I must turn aside for a
little.
A mission started in the year 1860 for the Zambesi, where it was met,
and for a time joined, by the great Dr Livingstone. Its leader, Bishop
Mackenzie, who laid down his life in the cause, was a man as well as a
missionary. By that I mean that he was manly,--a quality which is not
sufficiently appreciated, in some quarters, as being a most important
element in the missionary character.
While on his way up to the selected sphere of labour in Central Africa,
the Bishop and his party, with Dr Livingstone, got into the region of
the accursed slave-trade, and one day came unexpectedly on a band of
slaves. They were chiefly women and children, bound together with
sticks and chains, and herded by a few armed slave-dealers, who, having
murdered their male defenders and burned their villages, were driving
them to the coast for shipment to eastern lands--largely, it is said, to
the land of the amiable Turk.
With characteristic zeal and energy Dr Livingstone advanced with a few
men to set these poor wretches free. The slave-catchers did not await
the onset: they bravely fired a shot or two and fled. To set the slaves
free was naturally a most congenial work for the good Bishop who had
gone there to free the black man from the slavery of sin. The sticks
were cut, the bonds were unloosed, and the people were told that they
were free to go back to their homes. Homes! Their homes were in ashes,
and the brave hearts and stout arms that might have reared new homes
were cold and powerless in death, while armed Arab and Portuguese bands
were prowling about the land gathering together more victims. To send
these unfortunates away would have been to insure their death or
recapture. There was no alternative left but to keep and guard them.
Thus the Bishop suddenly found himself in possession of a small flock
with which to begin his mission.
He accepted the charge, conducted them to the region where the mission
was to be established, and finally settled down with them there.
Some time after this there came a rumour that a large and powerful band
of slavers was approaching the settlement with many slaves in
possession, and with the intention of attacking the tribe among whom the
missionaries were located. What was now to be done? To have remained
inactive until the slavers marched up to their huts would have been
equivalent to suicide. It would have been worse, for it would have
insured the putting to flight of the few men of the tribe--who it seems
were not celebrated for courage--and the result would have been the
overthrow of the mission and the recapture of the women and children who
had already been delivered.
In these trying circumstances Bishop Mackenzie and his people came to
the conclusion that self-defence called for vigorous action, and, with
musket and rifle, sallied forth to meet the men-stealers, with the
Bishop at their head.
On reaching the position of the enemy they paused at a distance of above
six hundred yards. A group of Arab slavers were standing on a hill
together. One of the mission party kneeled, and with an Enfield rifle
sent a bullet over their heads. The effect was powerful! The slavers,
accustomed to the smooth-bore musket, had thought themselves quite safe
at such a distance. They were panic-stricken: perhaps the unexpected
sight of white men aided the effect. At all events, when another bullet
was dropped into the midst of them, they took to flight. The
missionaries, like good generals, seized their opportunity, charged
home, and chased the scoundrels into the woods. Thus, with little
fighting, they gained an important victory, and became possessed of a
second large band of slaves--chiefly women and children--who had been
forsaken by their terrified captors.
These the Bishop resolved to add to his settlement. Indeed, as in the
previous case, he had no alternative. They were at once liberated and
conducted to the station, and one of the poor black children--a little
girl named Dauma--was carried home by Mackenzie on his own shoulders.
Soon afterwards the mission failed in that quarter. Among other
misfortunes disease attacked and carried off several of the chief
Europeans of the party. The earnest enthusiastic Bishop himself died
there in his Master's cause, and left his bones in the swamps of the
Shire River.
All this, and a great deal more, had I read with profound interest, many
years before my visit to the Cape, and the whole subject had made a deep
impression on my memory--especially the figure of the gallant Bishop
returning from his raid on the men-stealers with the little wearied
Dauma on his shoulders!
Well, one day I went to visit the "Saint George's Orphanage for Girls,"
in Capetown. I was conducted over the dormitories and schools,
etcetera, and at last came to a class-room in which were assembled some
hundred or so of _black_ orphans--infants almost, most of them, and
irresistibly comic in their little looks and actions.
It was here that I received the agreeable surprise before referred to.
The teacher of this class was as black as her pupils.
"She is herself an orphan, one of the best girls in our school," said
Miss Arthur, referring to her. "She was saved from the slavers in
Central Africa many years ago."
"What!" I exclaimed, "the little girl who was saved by the missionaries
of the Shire River?"
"The same."
"And who was carried home on the shoulders of Bishop Mackenzie?"
"Yes; her name is Dauma."
I shook hands with Dauma immediately, and claimed old acquaintance on
the spot!
Chief among the many interesting visits which I paid while at Capetown
was one to the beautiful towns of Stellenbosch and Wellington. Both are
but a short distance from the capital, and connected with it by rail.
The former is one of the oldest towns of the colony. Many of the French
refugees settled there in 1685.
When, in 1684, Governor Van der Stell founded the lovely town of
Stellenbosch, and led out the sparkling waters of its river to irrigate
trees which afterwards became very giants of the forest, little did he,
or his oppressive and tyrannical son and successor, imagine that they
had sown the seed of that which was destined to become an academic
grove, in the pleasant retirement of which lads and men should study the
universal laws of matter and of mind.
That, however, which made the deepest impression on me during this visit
was the manner in which the work of training the young is conducted.
Everything seemed to be done with an amount of wisdom and vigour which
cannot fail to tell most beneficially and extensively on future
generations.
Well do I remember in days gone by, how, with my juvenile mind addled
and my juvenile fingers tingling after an application of the "tawse," I
have stared at my arithmetic book in despair--hopelessly ignorant of the
meaning of words and terms, utterly incapable of comprehending
explanatory "rules," passionately averse to learning in every form, and
longingly anxious for the period of emancipation to arrive, when I
should be old and big enough to thrash my master! No such feelings,
sentiments, or difficulties can ever find a place in the breasts of
those fortunate pupils whose happy lot has been cast in the Seminaries
of Stellenbosch and Wellington.
Periwinkle, my friend, farewell.