and dale, mimosa grove and tangled thicket, craggy gorge and hanging wood, diversified the scene. All was, however, in the state of nature. No plough had ever turned the sod. No cottage had ever stood amidst farm-enclosures by its brook-side. And the contrast to England, with her far spread waving corn-fields, and her flocks grazing in quiet security, was heightened by the laugh of the hyæna and the roar of the tiger by night, and the howl of the wild dog by day. Herds of wild elephants crossed and re-crossed from river to river, and the buffalo and rhinoceros inhabited the thickets and forests. Over this region of primeval wildness the white tents of the settlers studded the spots most eligible for abode and cultivation; and the new race, with newly-awakened energies, set themselves to replenish and subdue it.

Here Mr. Shepstone's missionary labours may be said to have begun. There was no "sound of church-going bell" throughout the settlement. Neither town nor village, chapel nor school, as yet existed among the settlers. There was great danger of their practically forgetting the Christianity of old England in this African wilderness. The danger was averted by the plan of itinerant visitation originated and carried out by the Rev. William Shaw, the Wesleyan minister of the Salem Party." In this plan were combined the evangelizing energies of a number of pious men, whom Mr. Shaw found and united in a course of systematic action. They went forth on the Sabbath, two and two, from location to location, gathering their little congregations at tent doors, or under spreading trees, or "the shadow of a great rock;" and they not only conserved the Christianity of their fellow settlers, but awakened also in their minds a missionary spirit which has never died.

Mr. Shepstone was one of the first to embark in these labours of Christian love. Mr. Shaw, on his first tour of observation through the settlement, met him, very much as Elijah found Elisha, and engaged him for the Lord's service on the spot. Then commenced a friendship between the two men who were to be sharers in the toils and dangers of the first Wesleyan mission to the Kaffir tribes, and whose mutual attachment grew closer and warmer to their dying day.

Mr. Shepstone's first essay in strictly missionary work was made at Theopolis, a Station of the London Missionary Society, formed within the colony for the benefit of the straggling Hottentots, who were numerous in the country, and whose social position among the "Dutch farmers"-the descendants of the first Dutch colonizers of South Africa-was a very degraded one. Being engaged in the erection of extensive mission-buildings on that

Station, his missionary zeal was fanned amidst the religious services in which he mingled while thus employed.

At this time Mr. Shaw was making preparations for the Kaffir Mission, of which it may be said, that the "little one" has "become a thousand." It was quite natural that the various qualifications of Mr. Shepstone should suggest him to his friend, as the most efficient" Assistant " he would be likely to meet with. It was just what Mr. Shepstone had come to Africa for; and he entered into the arrangement heartily. His other engagements were soon closed. His prospects of temporal advantage (for he had such prospects) were relinquished: he gave himself to the work which involved a life-long residence among barbarous tribes; and he steadily persevered in it till the day of his death.

The relations of the colony with the Kaffirs in those days were very unsatisfactory. The remembrance was still fresh of the attempt made in 1819 to storm Graham's Town, when a body of ten thousand of the warlike Slambi tribes had nearly succeeded in surprising and overpowering the feeble garrison. Defeated there, they had devastated the whole line of the frontier with fire and assagay. The charred timbers and roofless walls of the burnt houses from which the Dutch farmers had been driven, still met the eye in many directions. The Kaffirs were regarded as incorrigibly hostile and treacherous: and the penalty of death was attached to any attempt to hold intercourse with them.

Under these discouraging circumstances, Mr. Shaw persevered in soliciting leave from the Colonial Government to attempt the introduction of Christianity among the most dreaded of the hostile tribes. His perseverance was at length crowned with success; and now the trial was to be made, what the effect of the Gospel of peace would be on heathen barbarians, whom all the appliances of war had failed to subdue.

It is hardly to be wondered at that many regarded this missionary enterprise as rash and perilous; and that the friends of the pioneers used all their powers of dissuasion to prevent its being carried out. Humanly speaking, it was perilous. Kaffirland had been entered before, but only by bodies of troops, to make reprisals for stolen cattle carried over the border by Kaffir marauders. For unarmed, defenceless families to attempt to thread the widely-extended thickets of the Fish River, and travel through the defiles of the Kieskama, beyond the reach of help, was a thing unheard of in the land. The Kaffirs (so the dissuaders argued) would be only too glad to seize upon them as an easy prey, and destroy them in revenge for their own losses by the Colonial forces.

But none of these things moved" Mr. Shaw, Mr. Shepstone, or their likeminded and devoted wives. They had set out in the name of Him who had said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature ;" and they were willing to test His promise, "Lo! I am with you alway."

The five hundred square miles of Fish River jungle, which lay directly between the starting point of the missionary party and the place of their destination near the Kaffirland sea-coast, was at that time traversed only by elephants, that made their own paths through thicket and defile, plucking up and tossing aside such trees as stood in their way. No wagons could as yet travel in that direction. The only practicable route was a very circuitous one, entering Kaffirland at the foot of its mountain range, and following the course of its rivers seawards. This route was taken. The turbid flood of the Fish River, but just subsiding from the effects of the October rains, was crossed with difficulty and danger. The Koonah, a formidable tributary in the rainy season, and flowing through almost impracticable defiles, gave them as much trouble as the Fish River. Rising, however, out of the basin of these joint streams to the high watershed beyond, the grand mountain scenery of Upper Kaffraria opened upon their view; and as they crossed the Kat River, and neared the dark forest-clad ranges, they found the country grow richer and more picturesque all the way to the Chumie Station. Here a mission had been established by Government authority, with a kind of ecclesiasticopolitical object. Here, too, the missionary travellers received the affectionate hospitalities of men and women likeminded with themselves, and joined them in mutual consultation, and intercession for Divine protection and guidance. After resting a few days in the neighbourhood of the glorious mountain region, they set out afresh, turning their faces coastwards, and followed by the prayers and blessings of their Christian brethren, one of whom* still survives,

"In age and feebleness extreme,"

and talks with joy of what God has wrought since those days.

It was a strange sight to see the wagons threading their way where wheel had never rolled before, preceded by the axe-armed escort which the chiefs had sent to guide and guard them. Their way was literally cut before them, as they wound along the high ridges of the Kieskama, or descended the mimosa-covered slopes. And while they passed slowly by, there came from beehive huts, clustered on hill-sides or in secluded nooks, Kaffir women in their

*The Rev. W. R. Thomson, of Balfour.

heavy oxhide "karosses," naked children, and men nearly in the same condition, swarming down upon the wagons, thronging around in wondering excitement, and chattering incessantly in their as yet unintelligible language,-themselves as strange objects to the wives and children of the missionaries as the long hair, and the white hands and faces, were to them.

But, defenceless as the travellers were, no man laid hostile handson them. They were soon understood to be messengers of peace. They came not to take, but to give; not to seize cattle, but to bring richer blessings than "the cattle upon a thousand hills."

When they reached their destination, they found themselves on a very lovely spot. The Twecu, on the banks of which they pitched their missionary camp, to begin the war with Kaffir heathenism, is a small stream rising in high grounds that overlook the course of the Kieskama, and flowing eastward into the Chalumna. It was beautifully fringed with trees, and its windings through a rich, deep soil, marked out and naturally divided various portions of land suitable for gardens and corn-fields. A dry ridge, running parallel with the general course of the stream, and having a gentle slope towards it, presented a pleasant and convenient site for a mission village. Here, under the shade of some noble "yellow woods," the missionary party received their formal welcome from the three brother chiefs who ruled over the "AmaGunukwebi," the Kaffir name of the tribe. Kaffir chiefs did not dress in European uniforms in those days. Pato, Kama, and Kobe, surrounded by the grey heads of the tribe, and wearing only their loose leopard-skin cloaks, greeted their new teachers with florid Kaffir compliments, and expressions of boundless gratitude and trust. With more of truth than they were themselves aware of, they called them their "eyes," their "ears," their "mouth," and their "shield." And in a very important sense did the missionaries discern what conduced to their best interests, and listen for whatever might concern them; while they were ever ready to speak good words on their behalf to the Colonial authorities; and their counsels, as long as they were followed, were the means of guarding them from many dangers to which they had heretofore been exposed.

When chiefs and councillors had ended their formalities, intercourse of a less official character began. Retainers of lower rank, and women and children in throngs daily renewed, swarmed wonderingly around the tents and wagons, watching employments altogether new to them. Curiosity and acquisitiveness were, however, in close connection, and it was soon found necessary to havea "man in authority" from the "great one's residence" to keep

the ever-renewed companies of visiters at such a distance as the safety of the many too attractive objects of curiosity required.

By degrees, things and places assumed a new appearance. Substantial dwellings were built for the mission families. Rows of square-walled, white-washed cottages formed a mission-village, on the slope of the ridge, which, a little farther on, where it became a rocky bluff, was crowned by the chapel, overlooking the little cemetery below, in which some of the children of the missionaries were ere long to be laid.

Religious instruction went hand in hand with manual labour and civilizing processes. An infant commerce was fostered by a retail shop for useful goods, which a respectable trader opened on the Station. But everything had to be begun from the very first rudiments. Habits of common decency required to be formed. The very foundations of literary and religious knowledge had to be laid; and an acute and determined scepticism had to be encountered, which was strengthened by the law-customs of the country, that made every man his own advocate, and trained a nation of special pleaders.

Besides the week-day and Sabbath Mission-school, and the Sunday congregations in the chapel, little companies of ten or twenty persons were collected, often with difficulty and delay, at the widely-scattered kraals or hamlets, as the missionary itinerated for days together. A Kaffir version of the Lord's Prayer, and translations of answers to the questions in the First Conference Catechism, were taught to the groups of children, while the men and women gathered tardily, and sometimes unwillingly, from the corn-fields and cattle-folds. When a small congregation had been thus assembled,—the men often disturbed from their lounges in the sunshine, and their wives and daughters from their digging or weeding, a very elementary sermon would be preached, and prayer offered. The strangeness of the whole scene was, in the earlier days, often too much for the gravity of the listeners; and the " new doctrines" brought to their ears provoked many a keen controversy with the preacher. It was thus that the seed of eternal life was sown, often "by the way side," and often in stony places;" but the grand foundation-truths of the Gospel were widely and firmly, if slowly, laid in the understanding and memory of the people, and cheering results gladdened the heart of the patient worker, "after many days."

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A "round of the Circuit," made on horseback, lasted nearly a week; during which all sorts of weather had to be braved by day, and lodging sought at night in whatever kraal the missionary might have reached. The "guest chamber" was always a grass