The biography we next have to turn to is not that of a founder, scarcely
that of a pioneer, but rather of a brave guerilla, whose efforts were
little availing because wanting in combination, and undirected, but who,
nevertheless, has left behind him a heart-thrilling name won by
unflinching self-devotion even unto death.
Allen Francis Gardiner, the fifth son of a Berkshire squire, was born in
1794. He was a born sailor, and became a midshipman before the end of
the great war of the French revolution; but the only naval action in
which he was engaged was against the American vessel _Essex_, which was
captured by his ship, the _Phoebe_, off Valparaiso. Allen Gardiner had
been carefully brought up by a good mother, but her death in his early
youth cast him loose and left him without any influence to keep up
serious impressions. He drifted into carelessness and godlessness,
though at times some old remembrance, roused by danger or by a comrade's
death, would sting him sharply. Once, feeling ashamed of having
forgotten the very words of Scripture, he made up his mind to buy a
Bible, and then was so full of false shame that he waited about in the
street till the shop should be empty, and then only thought how odd his
demand must seem to the bookseller.
Most likely this was at Portsmouth, for he had there met a lady who had
been with his mother at her death, and had given him a narrative of her
last days, which his father had written, but from some sense of want of
sympathy had withheld from the son. The friend judged him better. The
copy in his own handwriting bears the date, "Portsmouth, November 18,
1818," and therewith was a little Bible with the same date written in it.
For two years, however, this produced no effect; but in 1820, when at
Penang, as a lieutenant in the _Dauntless_, Allen received a letter of
grave reproof from his father, and one of warm kindness and expostulation
from the same lady, his mother's friend, together with some books.
Nothing would have seemed more hopeless than the chance that a letter
from a religious old lady would make an impression on a dashing young
naval officer, and yet Allen Gardiner always considered this as the
turning-point of his life, and connected it with his mother's prayers.
It was when his thoughts were directed to religious subjects, and his
intelligence freshly excited, that he visited the coasts of South
America, the region above all others where the Roman Catholic Church is
seen to the most disadvantage. Two things most especially struck him,
the remnants of the Inquisition at Lima, and the discovery that the poor
were buried without prayer or mass. Such scenes as these gave him an
extreme horror of Romanism and all that he supposed to be connected
therewith, and his next station at Tahiti, in all the freshness of the
newly established mission, full of devout people, filled him with strong
enthusiasm for the good men who were carrying out the work. Shortly
after he was invalided home, and as soon as he was fit for employment he
offered himself to the London Missionary Society, begging them to send
him to the neglected Indians of South America; but this did not suit
their plans, and his ardour was slackened by the more common affairs of
life. He fell in love and married a young lady named Julia Reade, and
his only voyage was in his naval, not his missionary capacity. But his
wife's health was exceedingly frail, and after eleven years of marriage
she died, leaving four children, a fifth having preceded her to the
grave. Beside her death-bed Allen Gardiner made a solemn dedication of
himself to act as a pioneer in one or other of the most neglected parts
of the earth, not so much to establish missions himself as to reconnoitre
the ground and prepare the way for their establishment.
Africa was the country to which his attention was first called. His wife
died in May 1834, and the 24th of August was the last Sunday he spent in
England, at Calbourne, the native parish of Charles Simeon. He sailed at
once for Cape Colony, where the English, who had in the course of the
Revolutionary war obtained possession of the ground from the original
settlers, the Dutch, were making progress in every direction, and coming
into collision, not with the spiritless Hottentots of the Cape of Good
Hope itself, but with that far more spirited and intellectual race, the
Kaffirs--unbelievers, as the name meant--they being in fact of Arab
descent, though Africanized by their transition through tropical
latitudes, and not Mahometans. Such traditional religion as they
possessed seemed to be vanishing, since only a few of the elders retained
a curious legend of a supreme Deity who sent another Divine being to
"publish the news," and divide the sexes. A message was sent to him from
the Power in heaven to announce that man should not die, but this was
committed to that tardy reptile the chameleon; then another message that
man should die was given to the lizard, who outran the chameleon, and
thus brought death into the world.
Sir Benjamin D'Urban had just been appointed Governor, and it was
apprehended that a war must take place, since the settlers were
continually liable to sudden attacks by these wild Kaffirs, who burnt,
slew, and robbed any homestead they fell upon. Captain Gardiner thought,
and justly, that it would be better to begin by proclaiming the glad
tidings of peace to these wild and ignorant people rather than to meet
them with the strong hand of war. The colony was lamentably deficient in
clergy, and the missions that existed were chiefly to the Hottentots and
Bushmen. The Moravians, whose work we have not mentioned because it is a
history in itself, had some excellent establishments, but no one had yet
attempted to penetrate into the home of the Kaffirs themselves, the Zulu
country, to endeavour to deal with their chieftains. This was Allen
Gardiner's intention, and on his outward voyage he met with a Polish
refugee named Berken, who had intended to settle in Australia, but was
induced to become his companion in his explorations in South Africa.
They rode together from Capetown to Grahamstown, where they obtained an
interpreter named George Cyrus, and began to travel in the regular South
African fashion, namely, with waggons fitted for sleeping in, and drawn
by huge teams of oxen, and taking seven horses with them. Their first
adventure during a halt at the Buffalo river was the loss of all their
oxen, who were driven off by some natives. They applied to the chief of
the tribe, named Tzatzoe, who recovered the cattle for them, but showed
himself an insatiable beggar, even asking why, as Mr. Berken had two
shoes, he could not spare him one of them. However, he was honest
enough, when Mr. Berken chanced to leave his umbrella behind him, to send
after him to ask whether he knew that he had left his _house_.
The next anxiety was at a spot called the Yellow-wood River, where the
mid-day halt was disturbed by an assembly of natives with a hostile
appearance. Captain Gardiner sent orders to collect the oxen, and in-
span (_i.e._ harness) them as soon as possible, but without appearance of
alarm, and in the meantime he tried to keep the natives occupied. To one
he lent his penknife, and after the man had vainly tried to cut off his
own beard with it, he offered to shave him, lathered him well, and
performed the operation like a true barber, then showed him his face in a
glass. His only disappointment was that the moustache had not been
removed, and as by this time the razor was past work, Captain Gardiner
had to pacify him by assuring him that such was the appearance of many
English warriors (for these were the days when moustaches were confined
to the cavalry). The amusement this excited occupied them nearly long
enough, but hostile murmurs then began to be heard--"One of our chiefs
has been killed by the white men, no more shall enter our country!"
Fearing that an angry word would be fatal, Captain Gardiner asked for a
war-song, promising some tobacco at the conclusion. Accordingly they
danced madly, and shouted at the top of their voices,
"No white man shall drink our milk,
No white man shall eat our children's bread.
Ho-how! ho-how! ho-how!"
But this couplet often repeated seemed to work off their rage; they
accepted the tobacco, and sullenly said the travellers might pass, but
they were the last who should. This was in the Amakosa country, lying
between the Grahamstown settlement and Port Natal, and to the present day
unannexed, though even then there were traders' stations at intervals, so
filthy and wretched as to be little above the huts of the natives. These
Amakosa tribes were such thieves that great vigilance was needed to
prevent property being stolen; but the next tribes, the Amapondas, were
scrupulously honest and friendly to the English. Their chief was found
by Gardiner and Berken dressed in a leopard's skin, sitting in state
under a canopy of shields, trying a rain-maker, who had failed to bring
showers in consequence of not having his dues of cattle delivered to him!
The chief advised them not to proceed, as he said the Zulus were angry
people who would kill them; but they pushed on, though finding that the
journey occupied much longer than they expected, so that provisions
became a difficulty.
A full month had passed since leaving Grahamstown, and Gardiner decided
on pressing on upon horseback, leaving Mr. Berken to bring up the
waggons, and taking with him the interpreter and two natives. The
distance was 180 miles, and a terrible journey it was. A few waggon
tracks had made a sort of road, but this was not always to be
distinguished from hippopotamus paths, which led into horrible morasses,
where the horses almost entirely disappeared, and had to be scooped out
as it were by the hands; moreover, scarcely any food was to be had. In
crossing one river one of the horses was so irretrievably stuck in a
quicksand that humanity required it to be shot, and at the next, the
Umkamas, the stream was so swollen that the Captain had to devise a canoe
by sewing two cowskins together with sinews and stretching it upon
branches, in which, as no one save himself had any notion of boating, he
shoved off alone. The stream was too strong for him, and he had to
return and obtain the help of the only good swimmer among his party. With
him he crossed, but with no food save a canister of sugar! However, the
native swam back and fetched a loaf of bread, while Captain Gardiner
waited among the reeds, hearing the snorting and grunting of hippopotami
all round. The transit of the natives was secured by the holding a sort
of float made of a bundle of reeds, and in the morning, as the river was
too high for the rest of the party to cross, he brought over a few
necessaries, and a horse, with which the Captain was able to proceed to
Port Natal, where he found English traders, and sent back supplies to
those in the rear.
The Zulus, on whom his attention was fixed, inhabit a fine country to the
north of the Tugela, which is considered as the boundary of the British
territory. The nation is full of intelligence and spirit, and by no
means incapable of improvement, and their princes have been for
generations past men of considerable natural ability, and of iron will,
but often savagely cruel. The first known to Englishmen was named
Charka, a great warrior, who kept his armies in a rude but thorough
discipline, and had made considerable conquests. About the year 1829,
Charka had been murdered by his brother Dingarn, who had reigned ever
since, and was the terror of the English settlers, who were beginning to
immigrate into the fertile terraced country of Natal. His forays might
at any time sweep away farms and homesteads; and his subjects were
continually fleeing from his violence across the Tugela, and thus might
bring him down as a pursuer.
Allen Gardiner's plan was to go to the fountain head and endeavour to
deal with the chief himself, so as to make him a Christian instead of an
enemy. With this end he set out absolutely unaccompanied, except by
Cyrus the interpreter, and a Zulu servant whom he had hired named
Umpondombeni, and this with the knowledge that an English officer had
shortly before been treacherously murdered, and that Dingarn was a blood-
stained savage.
The king had been informed of his coming, and had pronounced that he was
_his_ white man, and should make haste to Umkingoglove, his present
abode. The first view of this place, with a double circular fence around
it, resembled a race-course, the huts being ranged along the ring of the
enclosure so as to leave the centre free for the reviews and war dances
of the Kaffirs. Gardiner was very near entering by the wrong gate, in
which case all his escort would have been put to death. A hut was
assigned to him, a sort of beehive of grass and mud, with a hole to enter
by. His own lines, strung together in his many unoccupied moments for
his children's benefit, are so good a description of the Kaffir huts that
form a kraal or village, as to be worth inserting:--
"I see them now, those four low props
That held the haystack o'er my head,
The dusky framework from their tops
Like a large mouse-trap round me spread.
To stand erect I never tried,
For reasons you may guess:
Full fourteen feet my hut was wide,
Its height was nine feet less.
My furniture, a scanty store,
On saddle-bags beside me laid,
A hurdle, used to close the door,
Raised upon stones, my table made."
There he received a bundle of the native sugar-cane, a bowl of maize beer
from Dingarn, and was invited to his palace.
This was surrounded by a fence, outside which the Captain was desired to
sit down. Presently a black head and very stout pair of shoulders
appeared above it, and a keen sable visage eyed the visitor fixedly for
some time, in silence, which was only broken by these words, while
indicating an ox, "There is the beast I give you to slaughter." His
black majesty then vanished, but presently to reappear from beneath the
gateway dressed in a long blue cloak, with a white collar, and devices at
the back. After directing the distribution of some heaps of freshly
slain oxen that lay around, he stood like a statue till a seat was
brought him, and then entered into conversation. Captain Gardiner made
him understand that trade was not the object of the visit; but the real
purpose was quite beyond him; he seemed to regard what was proposed to
him as an impossibility, and began to inquire after the presents, which,
unfortunately, were still on the road.
The delay exposed the Captain to some inconvenience and danger, and two
_indunas_, or chiefs, a sort of prime ministers, who were offended with
him for not having applied to the king through them, treated him with
increasing insolence. At last he persuaded them that he had better send
a note to hasten the coming of the presents, and he also managed to write
a letter for England, on his last half-sheet of paper, by the light of a
lamp made of a rag wick floating in native butter in a calabash. From
time to time he was called upon to witness the wonderful evolutions,
manoeuvres, and mock fights in the camp. The men were solely soldiers;
the women did all the work, planting maize, weeding corn, and herding
cattle, and thus the more wives a man had the more slaves he could
employ. Every wife had a value, and could only be obtained from her
father for a certain price in cattle, varying according to his rank. If
the full rate were not paid, she remained, as well as her children, the
property of her father or the head of her family. The king, having the
power to help himself, had an establishment of ninety women, who on gala-
days, or when his army was going to take the field, were drawn up in a
regiment, all wearing two long feathers on the top of their heads, a veil
of strings of coloured beads over their faces, bead skirts, and brass
rings over their throats and arms; these beads being the current coin of
the traders. They approached and retreated in files, flourishing their
arms like bell-ringers, while they sang:--
"Arise, vulture,
Thou art the bird that eateth other birds."
These were, however, not wives, only female slaves. Either from jealousy
of possible sons growing up, or from the desire not to be considered as
in the ranks of the _umpagati_--elders or married men--neither Charka nor
Dingarn would marry, and no man could take a wife without the king's
permission. Dingarn wore his head closely shaven, whereas the married
trained their woolly hair to fasten over a circle of reed, so as to look
much as if they had an inverted saucepan on their heads. Besides this
they wore nothing but a sort of apron of skin before and behind, except
when gaily arrayed in beads, or ornaments of leopard's fur and teeth, for
dancing or for battle. Their wealth was their cattle, and their mealie
or maize grounds; their food, beef, mealies, and curdled milk; their
drink, beer, made of maize; their great luxury, snuff, made of dried
dacca and burnt aloes, and taken from an ivory spoon. Though sometimes
acting with great cruelty, and wholly ignorant, they were by no means a
dull or indolent people; they were full of courage and spirit, excellent
walkers and runners, capable of learning and of thinking, and with much
readiness to receive new ideas.
The presents arrived, and the red cloak, made of the long scarlet nap
often used in linings, was presented, and gave infinite satisfaction; the
king tried it on first himself, then judged of the effect upon the back
of one of his servants, caused it to be carried flowing through the air,
and finally hung it up outside his palace for the admiration of his
subjects, then laid it by for the great national festival at the feast of
first-fruits.
Captain Gardiner's object was to obtain a house and piece of land and
protection for a Christian missionary, and with this object he remained
at the kraal, trying to make some impression on Dingarn, and the two
indunas, who assured him that they were the king's eyes and ears. Thus
he became witness to much horrible barbarity. One of the least shocking
of Dingarn's acts was the exhibiting the powers of a burning-glass that
had been given him, by burning a hole in the wrist of one of his
servants; and his indifference to the pain and death of others was
frightful. His own brother, the next in succession, was, with his two
servants, put to death through some jealousy; and, more horrible still,
every living creature in thirty villages belonging to him was massacred
as a matter of course.
Captain Gardiner, though often horrified and sickened by the sights he
was obliged to witness, remained for a month, and then, after
accompanying the king on his march, and seeing some astonishing reviews
and dances of his wild warriors, made another effort; but the king
referred him to the two indunas, and the indunas were positive that they
did not wish to learn, either they or their people. They would never
hear nor understand his book, but if he would instruct them in the use of
the musket he was welcome to stay. Dingarn pronounced, "I will not
overrule the decision of my indunas;" but, probably looking on the white
man as a mine of presents, he politely invited Gardiner to return.
So ended his first attempt, and with no possessions remaining except his
clothes, his saddle, a spoon, and a Testament, he proceeded to the
Tugela, where he met his friend Berken, who had made up his mind to
settle in Natal, and he set out to return to England for the purchase of
stock and implements; but the vessel in which he sailed was never heard
of more.
Captain Gardiner remained at Port Natal, which in 1835 consisted of a
cluster of huts, all of them built Kaffir-fashion, like so many hollow
haycocks, except Mr. Collis's, which was regarded as English because it
had upright sides, with a good garden surrounded by reeds. About thirty
English and a few Hottentots clustered around, and some three thousand
Zulus, refugees from Dingarn's cruelty, who showed themselves ready and
willing to work for hire, but who exposed their masters to the danger of
the king coming after them with fire and assagai. Hitherto on such an
alarm the whole settlement had been wont to take to the woods, but their
numbers were so increasing that they were beginning to erect a stockade
and think of defence.
To this little germ of a colony, Allen Gardiner brought the first
recollection of Christian faith and duty. On Sunday mornings he stood
under a tree, as he had been wont to do on the deck of his ship, and read
the Church Service in English to such as would come round him and be
reminded of their homes; in the afternoon, by the help of his
interpreter, he prayed with and for the Kaffirs, and expounded the truths
of the Gospel; and in the week, he kept school for such Kaffir children
as he could collect, dressing them decently in printed calico. He began
with very few, partly because many parents fancied he would steal and
make slaves of them, and partly because he wished to train a few to be in
advance and act as monitors to the rest. The English were on very good
terms with him, and allotted a piece of land for a missionary settlement,
which he called Berea, and began to build upon it in the fashion of the
country.
Fresh threats from Dingarn led the settlers to try to come to a treaty
with him, by which he was to leave them unmolested with all their
Kaffirs, on their undertaking to harbour no more of his deserters. There
was something hard in this, considering the horrid barbarities from which
the deserters fled, and the impossibility of carrying out the agreement,
as no one could undertake to watch the Tugela; but Captain Gardiner,
always eager and hasty, thinking that he should thus secure safety for
the colony and opportunities for the mission, undertook the embassy, and
set forth in a waggon with two Zulus and Cyrus, falling in on the way
with one of the grotesque parties of European hunters, who were wont to
go on expeditions after the elephant, hippopotamus, and buffalo, with a
hunting train of Hottentots and Kaffirs in their company. On whose
aspect he remarks truly:--
"I've seen the savage in his wildest mood,
And marked him reeked with human blood,
But never so repulsive made.
Something incongruous strikes the mind
Whene'er a barbarous race we find
With shreds of civil life displayed.
There's more of symmetry, however bare,
In what a savage deigns to wear,
In keeping with the scene.
These, each deformed by what he wears,
Like apes that dance at country fairs,
Seemed but a link between."
Dingarn proved to be at Congella, another circular town or kraal, on the
top of a hill. He gave a ready welcome to the Captain, and his
presents--some looking-glasses, a pair of epaulettes, and some coloured
prints, especially full-lengths of George IV. and William IV. The
collection in a place such as Natal then was must have been very hard to
make, but it was very successful, and still more so was the Captain's
presenting himself in his uniform when he went to propose the treaty.
Dingarn said he must look at it before he could do anything else, and
fully appreciated the compliment when the sailor said it was his war
dress, in which he appeared before King William. He agreed to the
treaty, but declared that the English would be the first to break it. The
Captain answered that a true Englishman never broke a treaty, and that
any white man who deceived was not the right sort of Englishman; and the
king responded that "now a great chief was come, to whom he could speak
his heart." Captain Gardiner tried to impress on him that it was the
fear of God that made himself an honourable man, and to persuade him that
the knowledge of the "Book" would make him and his people still greater;
and the next time of meeting set forth an outline of the morality and
promises of Revelation. Dingarn was attentive, and said they were good
words, and that he would hear more of them, but in the meantime Gardiner
must go back to Natal and see that his people kept the treaty. It was a
good deal more than he could do. A Kaffir inkosikase, or female
chieftain, who, with two servants and three children, was fleeing into
Natal at the time of his return, was sent back, with all her companions.
The poor creatures pleaded hard that the Captain would accompany them and
save them, and he returned with them, and interceded for them with all
his might, but soon found they were being starved to death. "Their bonds
must kill them," said Dingarn. A second great effort resulted in a
little food being sent, and a kind of promise that their lives should be
spared; but this was only made to get rid of him, and they all perished
after his departure.
Deserters, as Gardiner called the fugitives to reconcile the surrender to
his loyal English conscience, were hardly such as these: they were the
only ones ever sent back, and the loose wild traders, who he ought to
have known would never be bound by treaties, were at that very time
enticing Kaffirs, who could be useful as herdsmen and labourers, across
the frontier. This led to great indignation from Dingarn, and he
declared that no Englishman save his favourite great chief should come
near him.
Meantime Gardiner was assisting an assembly of traders and hunters who
had decided on building a town--all shaggy, unkempt, bearded men of the
woods, who decided the spot, the name, the arrangements, the spot for
church and magistrate's house, by vote, on the 25th of June, 1835, the
birthday of the town of Durban, so called after Sir Benjamin D'Urban,
Governor of the Cape, while the Portuguese name of Natal passed to the
entire territory.
The dispute with Dingarn continuing, the Captain was again sent to
negotiate. This time he was received in the royal mansion, a magnified
beehive, where the king was lying on a mat with his head on one of the
little stools made to act as pillows, with about fifty women ranged
round. As to the matter in question, Gardiner was able to declare that,
in the white settlement itself, no deserters had found a home since the
treaty, and that none should do so; Dingarn said he considered him the
chief of the whites there, and should look to him to keep them in order.
Gardiner explained that he had no authority. "You must have power," said
Dingarn. "I give you all the country of the white people's ford." This
was a piece of land extending from the Tugela to the Nouzincoolu, from
the Snowy Mountains to the sea--in fact, the present whole colony of
Natal. A smaller portion, including the district about Natal, was to be
his own immediate property. Dingarn was perfectly in earnest, and thus
intended to make him responsible for the conduct of every individual of
the motley population of Natal, declaring that he should receive no
trader who did not bring credentials from him. It was as curious a
situation as ever commander in the navy was placed in. All he could do
was to return to Durban, explain matters to Mr. Collis and the other
traders, and then set out for the Cape to consult Sir Benjamin Durban.
His journey across the mountains was very perilous and difficult, and
took much longer than his sanguine nature had reckoned; but he reached
Grahamstown at last, and explained matters to the Governor, who instantly
sent off a British officer to assume authority over the settlement at
Natal, and try to keep the peace with Dingarn, while Captain Gardiner
embarked for England to lay the state of things before Government and the
Church Missionary Society, at whose disposal he placed all his own
personal grant from Dingarn. When the prospects of the mission were
proclaimed, the Rev. Francis Owen volunteered for it, and Captain
Gardiner collected all that he thought needful for the great work he
hoped to carry out. He married Miss Marsh, of Hampstead, and, with her
and his three children, Mr. Owen and his wife and sister, sailed on the
24th of December, 1836; but the arrival was a sorrowful one, for his
eldest child, a girl, of twelve years old, was slowly declining. She
died just as they entered Durban Bay, and was buried at Berea immediately
on their arrival. As soon as the Kaffirs heard of Captain Gardiner's
landing, they flocked in to express their willingness to live under his
authority. He chose a pleasant spot for his home, and having settled his
family there, went up to see Dingarn. The presents this time were indeed
ecstatically received, and especially a watch and seals, and a huge pair
of gay worsted slippers. "He took my measure before he went," cried
Dingarn, who had tried a pair of boots before, but could not get them on.
The king was made to understand that his gift of land must be not to the
Captain, but to the King of England, and with this he complied. He was
also persuaded to modify his demands; as to the fugitives, Gardiner
undertook not to encourage or employ them, but would not search them out
or return them. Mr. Owen was also favourably received, as the
_umfundisi_ or teacher; a hut was allotted to him, and he was allowed to
preach. He took up his abode at Umkingoglove, the first town where
Captain Gardiner had seen the king, held services and opened a school,
often holding conversations with the king. "Has God commanded kings and
indunas to learn His word?" demanded Dingarn; and he actually did learn
to read the words printed upon a card for the children.
Meantime Captain Gardiner was forming his settlement at a place which he
had named in the Kaffir tongue, Hambanati, "Go with us," in allusion to
Moses' invitation to Hobab: "Go with us, and we will do thee good." It
was half-way between Durban Bay and the Tugela, on a hill-side in the
midst of the beautiful undulating ground and rich wood characteristic of
the country, and with a river in front. There he had raised a thatched
house for himself, and around it Zulu huts were continually multiplying.
The English carpenter and labourers whom he had brought out instructed
the Kaffirs in various kinds of labour, for which they were quite
willing; and as they wore decent garments, they were called the clothed
tribe. School was kept for the children in the week; for the grown-up
people on Sunday; and on every alternate morning some Scripture fact was
read and explained to them, the Captain still being obliged to act as
chaplain, until the arrival of Mr. Hewetson, whom the Church Missionary
Society were sending out.
Never had the generous toil of a devoted man seemed likely to meet with
better success, when a storm came from a most unexpected quarter. The
original colonists of the Cape of Good Hope were Dutch, and the whole
district was peopled with boers or farmers of that nation, stolid,
prosperous, and entirely uncontrolled by public opinion. They had
treated the unfortunate Hottentots as slaves, with all the cruelty of
stupidity, and imported Malays and Negroes to work in the same manner;
and they had shown, even when under their native state, a sort of grim
turbulence that made them very hard to deal with. When in 1834 the
British Government emancipated their slaves, and made cruelty penal and
labour necessarily remunerative, their discontent was immense, and a
great number sold their farms, and moved off into the interior to form an
independent settlement on the Orange River. A large number of them,
however, hearing of Dingarn's liberality to Captain Gardiner, were
determined to extort a similar grant to themselves by a display of power.
First came a letter, which Mr. Owen had to read and interpret to the
chief, and not long after a large deputation arrived, armed and mounted
on strong horses. Dingarn showed them a war-dance, and they in return
said they would show how the boers danced on horseback, and exhibited a
sham-fight, which did indeed alarm the savage, but, so far from daunting
him, only excited his treachery and fierceness. He gave a sort of
general answer, and the messengers retired. But from that time his
interest in Mr. Owen's teaching flagged; he wanted fire-arms instead of
religion, and preachings led to cavillings. Indications of evil
intentions likewise reached Captain Gardiner, who sent to warn Mr. Owen,
and to offer him a refuge at Hambanati in case of need. Still Mr. Owen
could gather nothing; he was called from time to time to read the
Dutchmen's letters, but was never told how they were to be dealt with. In
fact, Dingarn had replied by an offer of the very district he had given
Captain Gardiner, on condition that the new-comers would recover some
cattle which had been carried off by a hostile tribe. This was done, and
the detachment which had been employed on the service arrived at
Umkingoglove, where they were welcomed with war-dances, and exhibited
their own sham-fights; but in the midst of the ensuing meal they were
suddenly surrounded by a huge circle of the Zulus, as if for another war-
dance. The black ring came nearer and nearer still, and finally rushed
in upon the unhappy boers, and slaughtered every man of them.
Mr. Owen had suspected nothing of what was passing, till he received a
message from Dingarn that he need not fear; the boers had been killed for
plotting, but the umfundisi should not be hurt. A time of terrible
anxiety followed, during which the Owen family saw large bodies of the
Kaffir army marching towards the Tugela, and in effect they fell upon the
Dutch camp, and upwards of a hundred and fifty white men, women, and
children were massacred. This horrible act, showing that no reliance
could be placed on Dingarn's promise, made the Owens decide on leaving
Umkingoglove, and they arrived at Hambanati, whence they proceeded to
Durban. The Gardiner family waited for another week; but, finding the
whole of the settlers infuriated, and bent on joining the Dutch in a war
of extermination against Dingarn, they were obliged to retreat to the
coast. First, however, Captain Gardiner assembled his Kaffirs, and
promised to do his utmost to find another tract, where they might settle
in peace, if they would abstain from all share in the coming war. They
promised; but in his absence the promise was not easy to keep; they
joined in the fight, many were killed, and the settlement entirely broken
up. The cause seemed to Gardiner hopeless; and, after waiting for a
short time in Algoa Bay, he decided on leaving the scene of action, where
peaceful teaching could not prevail for some time to come. Whether it
would not have been better to have tarried a little while, and then to
have availed himself of the confidence and affection he had inspired, so
as to gather the remnants of his mission again, we cannot say. At any
rate, he consoled himself for the disastrous failure at Natal by setting
forth on a fresh scheme of Christian knight-errantry on behalf of the
Indians of South America.
Long ago, in Brazil, the Jesuits had done their best to Christianize and
protect the Indians; but the Portuguese settlers had, as usual, savagely
resented any interference with their cruel oppressions, broken up the
Jesuit settlement, and sold their unfortunate converts as slaves. After
this, the Jesuit Fathers had formed excellent establishments in the more
independent country of Paraguay, lying to the south, where they had many
churches, and peaceful, prosperous, happy communities of Christian
Indians around them. South American Indians are essentially childish
beings; and the Jesuits, when providing labour enough to occupy them
wholesomely, found themselves obliged to undertake the disposal of the
produce, thus not merely rendering their mission self-supporting, but so
increasing the wealth of the already powerful Order as to render it a
still greater object of jealousy to the European potentates; and when, in
the eighteenth century, the tide of opposition set strongly against it,
the unecclesiastical traffic of the settlements in Paraguay was one of
the accusations. The result was, that the Jesuit Fathers were banished
from South America in 1767; and whether it was that they had neglected to
train the Indians in self-reliance, or whether it was impossible to do
so, their departure led to an immediate collapse into barbarism; nor had
anything since been done on behalf of the neglected race. Indeed, the
break-up of all Spanish authority had been doubly fatal to the natives,
by removing all protection, and leaving them to the self-interested
violence of the petty republics, unrestrained by any loftier
consideration.
In the Republic of Buenos Ayres, under the dictatorship of General Rosas,
the lot of these poor creatures was specially cruel. A war of
extermination was carried on against them, and eighty had at one time
been shot together in the market-place of the capital. Nothing could be
done towards reclaiming them while so savage a warfare lasted; but
Gardiner hoped to push on to the more northerly tribes, on the borders of
Chili, and he took a journey to reconnoitre across the Pampas, with many
strange hardships and adventures; but he found always the same story,--the
Indians regarded as wild beasts, and, acting only too much as such,
falling by night on solitary ranchos, or on lonely travellers, and
murdering them, and, on the other hand, being shot down wherever they
were found.
With great difficulty and perseverance he made his way to the Biobio
river, leaving his family at Concepcion, the nearest comparatively
civilized place. Here he meant to make his way to a village of
independent Indians, with whose chief, Corbalan, he had hopes of entering
into relations.
To cross the rapid stream of the Biobio, he had to use a primitive raft,
formed of four trunks of trees, about eighteen feet long, lashed together
by hide-thongs to two poles, one at each end. A horse was fastened to
it, by knotting his tail to the tow-rope, and on his back was a boy,
holding on by the single lock of the mane that is allowed to remain on
Chilian horses, who guided him across with much entreating, urging, and
coaxing. On the other side appeared Corbalan, the Indian chief on
horseback, and in a dark poncho, a sort of round cloak, with a hole to
admit the head, much worn all over South America. He took Captain
Gardiner to his house, an oval, with wattled side-walls, about five feet
high and thirty-five long, neatly thatched with grass, with a fireplace
in the centre, where a sheep was cooked for supper. Corbalan could speak
Spanish, and seemed to be pleased with the visit, making an agreement
that he should teach Gardiner his Indian tongue, and, in return, be
instructed in the way of God and heaven. He had convened forty-five of
his people, among whom were five chiefs, each of whom made the visitor
the offering of a boiled chicken, while he gave them some coloured cotton
handkerchiefs and some brass buttons. It was a beautiful country, and
reminded the guest so much of some parts of England, that it needed a
glance at the brown skin, flowing hair, and long poncho of Corbalan to
dispel the illusion that he was near home. Things looked so favourable,
that he had even selected a site for the mission-house, when some change
of sentiment came over Corbalan, probably from the remonstrances of his
fellow-chiefs: he declared that a warlike tribe near at hand would not
suffer him to harbour a stranger, and that he must therefore withdraw his
invitation.
So ended this attempt; and the indefatigable Captain turned his attention
to the Indians to the southward, but he found that these were on good
terms with the Chilian Government, and that no one could come among them
without a pass from thence; and, as there was a cautious attempt at
Christianizing then going on, by persuading the cacique to be baptized
and to admit priests to their villages, there was both the less need and
the less opening for him.
So, picking up his wife and children again at Concepcion, he sailed with
them for Valdivia, where, as wandering Europeans were always supposed to
be in search of objects for museums, and perhaps from some confusion
about his name, he was called "El Botanico." Again he plunged among the
Indians; but, wherever he came to a peaceable tribe, they were under the
influence of Spanish clergy, who were, of course, determined to exclude
him, while the warlike and independent Indians could not understand the
difference between him and their Spanish enemies; and thus, after two
years of effort, he found that no opening existed for reaching these wild
people. A proposal was made to him to remain and act as an agent for the
Bible and Tract Societies among the South American Roman Catholics, but
this he rejected. "No," he said; "I have devoted myself to God, to seek
for openings among the heathen, and I cannot go back or modify my vow."
The Malay Archipelago was his next goal. He sailed with his wife and
children from Valparaiso for Sydney on the 29th of May, 1839, but the
vessel got out of her course, and was forced to put in at Tahiti, where
he found things sadly changed by the aggression of Louis Philippe's
Government, which had claimed the protectorate. The troubles of Queen
Pomare's reign were at their height, and the conflict between French and
English, Roman Catholic and Protestant, prevented any efficient struggle
against the corruption introduced by the crews of all nations.
The great savage island of New Guinea seemed to Captain Gardiner a field
calling for labour, and, on his arrival in Australia, he found that the
Roman Catholic Bishop of Sydney was trying to organize a mission. He
left Australia, hoping to obtain permission from the Dutch authorities at
Timor to proceed to Papua, to take steps for being beforehand with the
Australian expedition. He reached the place with great difficulty, and
he himself, and all his family, began to suffer severely from fever. The
Dutch governor told him that he might as well try to teach the monkeys as
the Papuans, and the Dutch clergy gave him very little encouragement. He
remained in these strange and beautiful islands for several months,
trying one Dutch governor after another, and always finding them civil
but impenetrable; for, in fact, they could not believe that an officer in
her Britannic Majesty's Navy could be purely actuated by missionary zeal,
but thought that it concealed some political object. They were not more
gracious even to clergy of other nations. He found an American
missionary at Macassar, whom they had detained, and some Germans, who
were vainly entreating to be allowed to proceed to Borneo; and his
efforts met only with the most baffling, passive, but systematic denial.
It was reserved for the enterprise and prudence of Sir James Brooke to
open a way in this quarter.
The health of the Gardiner family had been much injured by their
residence in those lovely but unwholesome countries, but the voyage to
Capetown restored it; and immediately after they sailed again for South
America, where the Captain had heard of an Indian tribe in the passes of
the Cordilleras, who seemed more possible of access. Here again he was
baffled in his dealings with the local government by the suspicions of
the priests, and never could obtain the means of penetrating beyond the
city of San Carlos, so that he decided at last to repair to the Falkland
Islands, and make an endeavour thence to reach the people of Patagonia
and Tierra del Fuego, where no hostile Church should put stumbling-blocks
in his way.
A doleful region he found those Falkland Isles, covered only with their
peculiar grass and short heather, and without a tree. A little wooden
cottage, brought from Valparaiso, sheltered the much-enduring Mrs.
Gardiner and the two children, while the Captain looked out for a vessel
to take him to Patagonia; but he found that no one ever went there, and
the whalers who made these dismal islands their station did not wish to
go out of their course. Captain Gardiner offered 200_l._, the probable
value of a whole whale, as the price of his passage; but the skippers
told him that, though they would willingly take him anywhere for nothing,
they could not go out of their course.
To seek the most hopeless and uncultivated was always this good man's
object. The Falkland Isles were dreary enough, but they were a paradise
compared to the desolate fag-end of the American world,--a cluster of
barren rocks, intersected by arms of the sea, which divide them into
numerous islets, the larger ones bearing stunted forests of beech and
birch, on the skirts of hills covered with perpetual snow, and sending
down blue glaciers to the water's edge. The narrower channels are very
shallow; the wider, rough and storm-tossed; and scarcely anything edible
grows on the islands. The Fuegians are as degraded a people as any on
the face of the earth, with just intelligence enough to maintain
themselves by hunting and fishing, by the help of dogs, which, it is
said, they prize so much that they would rather, in time of scarcity, eat
up an old mother than a dog; and they are churlishly inhospitable to
strangers, although with an unusual facility for imitating their
language, nor had any one ever attempted their conversion.
However, the master of the _Montgomery_, who had brought the Gardiners
out to the Falkland Islands, hearing of the offer, undertook such a
profitable expedition; but his schooner was utterly frail, had to be
caulked and to borrow a sail, and, as he was losing no whales, Captain
Gardiner refused to give more than 100_l._, a sufficiently exorbitant
sum, for the passage of himself and a servant named Johnstone. While the
crazy vessel was refitting a Sunday intervened, during which he offered
to hold a service, but only two men attended it, the rest were all absent
or intoxicated.
The poor little ship put to sea, and struggled into the Straits of
Magelhaen, drifting near the Fuegian coast. Landing, the Captain lighted
a fire to attract the attention of the natives, and some came down and
shouted. The English did not, however, think it safe to go further from
the boat, and presently the Fuegians likewise kindled their fire,
whereupon Gardiner heaped more fuel on his own, and continued his
signals, when two men advanced, descending to the beach. They were clad
in cloaks of the skin of the guanaco, a small kind of llama, and were
about five feet ten in height, with broad shoulders and chests, but lean,
disproportionate legs. Each carried a bow and quiver of arrows; and they
spoke loudly, making evident signs that the strangers were unwelcome.
Presents were offered them; brass buttons, a clasp knife, and worsted
comforter; and they sat down, but apparently with a sullen resolution not
to relax their faces, nor utter another word. A small looking-glass was
handed to one of them, and he was grimly putting it under his cloak when
Captain Gardiner held it up to him, and he laughed at the reflection of
his own face; and his friend then looked at the knife, as if expecting it
to produce the same effect, but, though they seemed to appreciate it,
they made no friendly sign, and appeared unmoved when spoken to either in
Spanish or in the few Patagonian phrases that Captain Gardiner had
managed to pick up; nor did anything seem to afford them any satisfaction
except demonstrations of departure.
Nothing seemed practicable with these uncouth, distrustful beings, and
the Captain therefore went on in search of a tribe of Patagonians, among
which, he was told, was a Creole Spaniard named San Leon, who had
acquired great influence by his reckless courage and daring, and through
whom it might be possible to have some communication with them. The camp
of these people on the main continent, near Cape Gregory, was discovered
newly deserted, with hollow places in the ground where fires had been
made, and many marks of footsteps. This extreme point of the continent
was by no means so dreary as the Land of Fire; it bore thorny bushes ten
feet high, wild celery and clover, and cranberry-bushes covered with red
berries. Indeed, the Patagonians--so called because their big splay
boots made Magelhaen conclude they walked on _patas_ (paws), like
bears--are a superior race to the Fuegians, larger in stature than most
Europeans, great riders, and clever in catching guanacos by means of
bolas, _i.e._ two round stones attached to a string. If the Fuegians are
Antarctic Esquimaux, the Patagonians are Antarctic Tartars, leading a
wandering life under tents made of skins of horses and guanacos, and
hating all settled habits, but not so utterly inhospitable and
impracticable as their neighbours beyond the Strait. In truth, the
division is not clearly marked, for there are Fuegians on the continent
and Patagonians in the islands. Ascending a height, the Captain took a
survey of the country, and, seeing two wreaths of smoke near Oazy
Harbour, sailed in, cast anchor, and in the morning was visited by the
natives of their own accord, after which he returned with them to their
camp, consisting of horse-hide tents, semicircular in form, and entirely
open. They were full of men, women, and children, and among them San
Leon, to whom it was possible to talk in Spanish, and indeed several
natives, from intercourse with ships, knew a few words of English. San
Leon had been with the tribe for twelve years, and said that American
missionaries had visited them, but that they had gone away because the
Fuegians who crossed the Strait were such thieves that they ate up their
provisions and cut up their books. However, no objection was made to
Gardiner's remaining, so he set up a tarred canvas tent, closed at each
end with bullock-hides, and slept on shore, a good deal disturbed by the
dogs, who gnawed at the bullock-hides, till a coat of tar laid over them
prevented them. Not so, however, with another visitor, a huge
Patagonian, who walked in with the words, "I go sleep," and leisurely
coiled himself up for the purpose, unheeding Johnstone's discourse; but
the Captain, pointing with his finger, and emphatically saying "Go,"
produced the desired effect. Then followed the erection of seventeen
skin tents, all in a row, set up by the women. These Patagonians behaved
well and quietly; but, in the meantime, the master of the schooner had
asked San Leon to obtain some guanaco meat for the crew, and the natives
who went in search of the animals insisted on being paid, though they had
caught nothing. These however were Fuegians, and the Patagonians were
very angry with them. Captain Gardiner even ventured to remain alone
with Johnstone among this people, while San Leon went on to Port Famine
in the _Montgomery_, which was in search of wood; but, in the meantime,
he could do nothing but hold a little monosyllabic communication; and
once, when he and his servant both went out at the same time, they lost
their dinner, which, left to simmer over the fire, proved irresistible to
the Patagonians. They, however, differed from the Fuegians in not
ordinarily being thieves.
A chief named Wissale arrived with a body of his tribe with whom he had
been purchasing horses on the Rio Negro, and bringing with him an
American negro named Isaac, who had three years since run away from a
whaler, and who spoke enough English to be a useful interpreter.
Wissale, with Isaac's help, was made to perceive Captain Gardiner's
intentions sufficiently to promise to make him welcome if he should
return, and to declare that he should be glad to learn good things. There
seemed so favourable an opening that the Captain made up his mind to take
up his abode there with his family to prepare the way for a missionary in
Holy Orders, for whom he never deemed himself more than a pioneer.
After distributing presents to the friendly Patagonians, he embarked, and
making a weary passage, reached the Falkland Islands, where he found the
two ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_ anchored, in the course of their voyage
of Antarctic discovery. The presence of the two captains and their
officers was a great pleasure and enlivenment to the Gardiners, who
received from them many comforts very needful in that inclement climate
to people lately come from some of the hottest regions of the southern
hemisphere.
Whalers continually put in, but not one, even though Captain Gardiner's
offers rose to 300_l._, would undertake to go out of his course to
Patagonia to convey him and his family, and he would not trust his wife
and children on board that wretched craft the _Montgomery_, so he waited
on at the Falkland Islands, doing what good he could there, and expecting
the answer of a letter he had despatched to the Church Missionary
Society, begging for the appointment of a clergyman to this field of
labour. After six months' delay, the letter came, and proved to be
unfavourable; there was a falling off in the funds of the Society, and a
new and doubtful mission was thought undesirable. The Captain believed
that nothing but personal representations could prevail, and therefore
decided on going home to plead the cause of his Patagonians. He sailed
with his family for Rio in a small vessel, and the voyage could not have
been one of the least of the dangers, for the skipper was a Guacho who
had been a shoemaker, and knew nothing about seafaring, and there was not
a spare rope in the ship. From Rio Gardiner took a passage home, and
safely arrived, after six years of brave pioneering in three different
quarters of the globe.
He found, however, that the Church Missionary Society could not undertake
the Patagonian Mission, and neither could the London nor Wesleyan
Societies. He declared that every one grew cold when they heard of South
America, and viewed it as the natural inheritance of Giants Pope and
Pagan; and for this very reason he was the more bent upon doing his
utmost. Failing in his attack on Pagan he made an assault on Pope,
obtaining a grant of Bibles, Testaments, and tracts from the Bible
Society, and in 1843 sailed for Rio to distribute them; this time,
however, going alone, as his children were of an age to require an
English education and an English home.
He undertook this mission, in fact, chiefly for the purpose of continuing
his attempts to reach the Indian tribes. His journey was, as usual, wild
and adventurous, and its principal result was an acquaintance with the
English chaplains and congregations at several of the chief South
American ports, from whom he received a promise of 100_l._, per annum for
the support of a mission to Patagonia.
With this beginning he returned home, and while residing at Brighton, his
earnestness so stirred people's minds that a Society was formed with an
income of 500_l._, and Mr. Robert Hunt, giving up the mastership of an
endowed school, offered himself to the Church Missionary Society. A
clergyman could not immediately be found, and it was determined that
these two should go first and prepare the way. In 1844, then, they
landed in Oazy Harbour in Magelhaen's Straits, and set up three tents,
one for stores, one for cooking, and one for sleeping. One Fuegian hut
was near, where the people were inoffensive, and presently there arrived
a Chilian deserter named Mariano, who said that he had run away from the
fort at Port Famine with another man named Cruz, who had remained among
the Patagonians. He reported that Wissale had lost much of his
authority, and that San Leon was now chief of the tribe; also that there
was a Padre Domingo at Port Famine, who was teaching the Patagonians to
become "Catolicos."
To learn the truth as soon as possible, the Captain and Mr. Hunt locked
up two of their huts, leaving the other for Mariano, and set off in
search of the Patagonians; and a severe journey it was, as they had to
carry the heavy clothing required to keep up warmth at night, besides
their food, gun, powder, and shot. The fatigue was too much for Hunt,
who was at one time obliged to lie down exhausted while the Captain went
in search of water; and after four days they were obliged to return to
their huts, where shortly after Wissale arrived, but with a very scanty
following, only ten or twelve horses, and himself and family very hungry;
but though ready to eat whatever Captain Gardiner would give him, his
whole manner was changed by his disasters. He was surly and quarrelsome,
and evidently under the influence of the deserter Cruz, who was resolved
to set him against the new-comers, and so worked upon him that he once
threatened the Captain with his dirk. Moreover, a Chilian vessel
arrived, bringing Padre Mariano himself, a Spanish South American, with a
real zeal for conversion, though he was very courteous to the Englishmen.
An English vessel arrived about the same time, and Gardiner, thinking the
cause for the present hopeless, accepted a homeward passage, writing in
his journal, "We can never do wrong in casting the Gospel net on any side
or in any place. During many a dark and wearisome night we may appear to
have toiled in vain, but it will not be always so. If we will but wait
the appointed time, the promise, though long delayed, will assuredly come
to pass."
But if he was not daunted his supporters were, and nothing but his
intense earnestness, and assurance that he should never abandon South
America, prevented the whole cause from being dropped. His next attempt
was to reach the Indians beyond Bolivia, in the company of Federigo
Gonzales, a Spaniard, who had become a Protestant, and was to have gone
on the Patagonian Mission. Here fever became their enemy, but after much
suffering and opposition Gonzales was settled at Potosi, studying the
Quichuan language, and hoping to work upon the Indians, while the
unwearied Gardiner again returned to England to strain every nerve for
the Fuegian Mission, which lay nearest of all to his heart.
He travelled all over England and Scotland, lecturing and making
collections, speaking with the same energy whether he had few or many
auditors. At one town, when asked what sort of a meeting he had had, he
answered, "Not very good, but better than sometimes."
"How many were present?"
"Not one; but no meeting is better than a bad one."
He could not obtain means enough for a well-appointed expedition such as
he wished for; but he urged that a small experimental one might be sent
out, consisting of himself, four sailors, one carpenter, with three
boats, two huts, and provisions for half a year. He hoped to establish a
station on Staten Island, whence the Fuegians could be visited, and the
stores kept out of their reach.
Having found the men, he embarked on board the barque _Clymene_, which
was bound for Payta, in Peru, and was landed on Picton Island; but before
the vessel had departed the Fuegians had beset the little party, and
shown themselves so obstinately and mischievously thievish, that it was
plainly impossible for so small a party to hold their ground among them.
Before there could be a possibility of convincing them of even the
temporal benefit of the white man's residence among them, they would have
stripped and carried off everything from persons who would refrain from
hurting them. So, once more, the Captain drew up the net which had taken
nothing, decided that the only mission which would suit the Fuegians must
be afloat, and went on to Payta in the _Clymene_.
While in Peru, he met with a Spanish lady, who asked if he knew a friend
of hers who came from Genoa, and then proceeded to inquire which was the
largest city, Genoa or Italy, and if Europe was not a little on this side
of Spain, while a priest asked if London was a part of France. After
spending a little time in distributing Bibles in Peru, he made his way
home by the way of Panama, and on his arrival made an attempt to interest
the Moravians in the cause so near his heart, thinking that what they had
done in Greenland proved their power of dealing with that savage apathy
that springs from inclemency of climate, but the mission was by them
pronounced impracticable.
In the meantime, his former ground, Port Natal, was in a more hopeful
state. Tremendous battles had been fought between Dingarn and the boers;
but, in 1839, Panda, Dingarn's brother, finding his life threatened, went
over to the enemy, carrying 4,000 men with him, and thus turned the
scale. Dingarn was routed, fled, and was murdered by the tribe with whom
he had taken refuge, and Panda became Zulu king, while the boers occupied
Natal, and founded the city of Pieter Maritzburg as the capital of a
Republic; but the disputes between them and the Zulus led to the
interference of the Governor of the Cape, and finally Natal was made a
British colony, with the Tugela for a boundary; and, as Panda's
government was exceedingly violent and bloody, his subjects were
continually flocking across the river to put themselves under British
protection, and were received on condition of paying a small yearly rate
for every hut in each kraal, and conforming themselves to English law, so
far as regarded the suppression of violence and theft. One of the
survivors of Gardiner's old pupils, meeting a gentleman who was going to
England, sent him the following message: "Tell Cappan Garna he promise to
come again if his hair was as white as his shirt, and we are waiting for
him;" and he added a little calabash snuff-box as a token. But the
Captain had made his promise to return contingent upon the Kaffirs of his
settlement taking no part in the war, and they, poor things, had, with
the single exception of his own personal attendant, Umpondombeni, broken
this condition; so that he did not deem himself bound by it. Moreover,
means were being taken for providing a mission for Natal, and Christian
teachers were already there, while he regarded his own personal exertions
as the only hope for the desolate natives of Cape Horn. So he only sent
a letter and a present to the man, urging him to attach himself to a
mission-station, and then turned again to his unwearied labour in the
Patagonian and Fuegian cause. His little Society found it impossible to
raise means for the purchase of a brigantine, and he therefore limited
his plans to the equipment of two launches and two smaller boats. He
would store in these provisions for six months, and take a crew of
Cornish fishermen, used to the stormy Irish Sea. As to the funds, a lady
at Cheltenham gave 700_l._, he himself 300_l._ The boats were purchased,
three Cornishmen, named Pearce, Badcock, and Bryant, all of good
character, volunteered from the same village; Joseph Erwin, the
carpenter, who had been with him before, begged to go with him again,
because, he said, "being with Captain Gardiner was like a heaven upon
earth; he was such a man of prayer." One catechist was Richard Williams,
a surgeon; the other John Maidment, who was pointed out by the secretary
of the Young Men's Association in London; and these seven persons, with
their two launches, the _Pioneer_ and the _Speedwell_, were embarked on
board the _Ocean Queen_, and sailed from Liverpool on the 7th of
September, 1850. They carried with them six months' provisions, and the
committee were to send the same quantity out in due time, but they failed
to find a ship that would undertake to go out of its course to Picton
Island, and therefore could only send the stores to the Falklands, to be
thence despatched by a ship that was reported to go monthly to Tierra del
Fuego for wood.
Meantime, the seven, with their boats and their provisions, were landed
on Picton Island, and the _Ocean Queen_ pursued her way. Time passed on,
and no more was heard of them. The Governor of the Falklands had twice
made arrangements for ships to touch at Picton Island, but the first
master was wrecked, the second disobeyed him; and in great anxiety, on
the discovery of this second failure, he sent, in October 1851, a vessel
on purpose to search for them. At the same time, the _Dido_, Captain
William Morshead, had been commanded by the Admiralty to touch at the
isles of Cape Horn and carry relief to the missionaries.
On the 21st of October, in a lonely little bay called Spaniards' Harbour,
in Picton Island, the Falkland Island vessel found the _Speedwell_ on the
beach, and near it an open grave. In the boat lay one body, near the
grave another. They returned with these tidings, and in the meantime the
_Dido_ having come out, her boats explored the coast, and a mile and a
half beyond the first found the other boat, beside which lay a skeleton,
the dress of which showed it to be the remains of Allen Gardiner. Near
at hand was a cavern, outside which were these words painted, beneath a
hand:--
"My soul, wait thou still upon God, for my hope is in Him.
"He truly is my strength and my salvation; He is my defence, so that I
shall not fall.
"In God is my strength and my glory; the rock of my might, and in God
is my trust."
Within the cave lay another body, that of Maidment. Reverent hands
collected the remains and dug a grave; the funeral service was read by
one of the officers, the ship's colours were hung half-mast high, and
three volleys of musketry fired over the grave--"the only tribute of
respect," says Captain Morshead, "I could pay to this lofty-minded man
and his devoted companions who have perished in the cause of the Gospel."
There was no doubt of the cause and manner of their death, for Captain
Gardiner's diary was found written up to probably the last day of his
life.
It appeared that in their first voyage, on the 20th of December, they had
fallen in with a heavy sea, and a great drift of seaweed, in which the
anchor of the _Speedwell_ and the two lesser boats had been hopelessly
entangled and lost. It was found impossible for such small numbers to
manage the launches in the stormy channels while loaded, and it was
therefore resolved to lighten them by burying the stores at Banner Cove,
and, while this was being done, it was discovered that all the
ammunition, except one flask and a half of powder, had been left behind
in the _Ocean Queen_; so that there was no means of obtaining either
guanacos or birds. Attempts were made at establishing friendly barter
with the natives, but no sooner did these perceive the smallness of the
number of the strangers, than they beset them with obstinate hostility.
Meantime, Gardiner's object was to reach a certain Button Island, where
was a man called Jemmy Button, who had had much intercourse with English
sailors, and who, he hoped, might pave the way for a better understanding
with the natives.
But the _Pioneer_ had been damaged from the first, and could not go so
far. At Banner Cove the natives were hostile and troublesome, and
Spaniards' Harbour was the only refuge, and even there a furious wind, on
the 1st of February, drove the _Pioneer_ ashore against the jagged root
of a tree, so as to damage her past all her crew's power of mending,
though they hauled her higher up on the beach, and, by the help of a
tent, made a lodging for the night of the wreck close to the cave, which
they called after her name.
The question then was, whether to place all the seven in the _Speedwell_
with some of the provisions and make for Button Island, and this might
probably have saved their lives; but they had already experienced the
exceeding difficulty of navigating the launch in the heavy seas. Both
their landing boats were lost, and they therefore decided to remain where
they were until the arrival of the vessel with supplies, which they
confidently expected either from home or from the Falklands. Indeed,
their power of moving away was soon lost, for Williams, the surgeon, and
Badcock, one of the Cornishmen, both fell ill of the scurvy. The cold
was severe, and neither fresh meat nor green food was to be had, and this
in February--the southern August. However, the patients improved enough
to enable the party to make a last expedition to Banner Cove to recover
more of the provisions buried there, and to paint notices upon the rocks
to guide the hoped-for relief to Spaniards' Harbour; but this was not
effected without much molestation from the Fuegians. Then passed six
weary months of patient expectation and hope deferred. There was no
murmuring, no insubordination, while these seven men waited--waited--waited
in vain, through the dismal Antarctic winter for the relief that came too
late. The journals of Williams and Gardiner breathe nothing but hopeful,
resigned trust, and comfort in the heavenly-minded resolution of each of
the devoted band, who may almost be said to have been the Theban legion
of the nineteenth century.
For a month they were able to procure fish, and were not put on short
allowance till April, when Williams and Badcock both became worse, and
Bryant began to fail, though he never took to his bed. They, with Erwin,
were lodged in the _Speedwell_ at Blomfield Harbour, a sheltered inlet,
about a mile and a half from the wreck of the _Pioneer_, where, to leave
the sick more room, Captain Gardiner lodged with Maidment and Pearce.
With the months whose names spoke of English summer, storms and terrible
cold began to set in. The verses that Gardiner wrote in his diary during
this frightful period are inexpressibly touching in the wondrous strength
of their faith and cheerfulness.
"Let that sweet word our spirits cheer
Which quelled the tossed disciples' fear:
'Be not afraid!'
He who could bid the tempest cease
Can keep our souls in perfect peace,
If on Him stayed.
And we shall own 'twas good to wait:
No blessing ever came too late."
This was written on the 4th of June; on the 8th their fishing-net was
torn to pieces by blocks of drifting ice. On the 28th Badcock died,
begging his comrades to sing a hymn to him in his last moments. In
August, Gardiner, hitherto the healthiest, was obliged to take to his bed
in the _Pioneer_, and there heard of the death of Erwin on the 23rd of
August, and of Bryant on the 27th. Maidment buried them both, and came
back to Captain Gardiner, who, as he lay in bed, had continued his
journal, and written his farewell letters to his wife and children.
Hitherto, the stores of food had been eked out by mussels and wild
celery, but there was now no one to search for them. Gardiner, wishing
to save Maidment the journeys to and fro, determined to try to reach the
_Speedwell_, and Maidment cut two forked sticks to serve as crutches, but
the Captain found himself too weak for the walk, and had to return. This
was on the 30th of August. On Sunday, the 31st, there is no record in
the diary, but the markers stand in his Prayer-book at the Psalms for the
day and the Collect for the Sunday. On the 3rd of September, Maidment
was so much exhausted that he could not leave his bed till noon, and
Gardiner never saw him again. He must have died in the _Pioneer_ cavern,
being unable to return. The diary continues five days longer. A little
peppermint-water had been left by the solitary sufferer's bed, and a
little fresh water he also managed to scoop up from the sides of the boat
in an india-rubber shoe. This was all the sustenance he had. On the 6th
of September he wrote--"Yet a little while, and through grace we may join
that blessed throng to sing the praises of Christ throughout eternity. I
neither hunger nor thirst, though five days without food! Marvellous
loving-kindness to me, a sinner. Your affectionate brother in
CHRIST,--ALLEN F. GARDINER."
These last words were in a letter to Williams. He must afterwards have
left the boat, perhaps to catch more water, and have been too weak to
climb back into it, for his remains were on the beach. Williams lost the
power of writing sooner, and no more is known of his end, though probably
he died first, and Pearce must have been trying to prepare his grave when
he, too, sank.
What words can befit this piteous history better than "This is the
patience of the saints"?
The memorial to Allen Gardiner has been a mission-ship bearing his name,
with her head-quarters at the Falkland Isles. We believe that these
isles are to become a Bishop's See. Assuredly a branch of the Church
should spring up where the seed of so patient and devoted a martyrdom has
been sown.