Eight years in Kaffraria, 1882-1890

Preface

It has seemed to me that a period of enforced rest in England could not be better spent than in putting together some account of a few years^ missionary experiences abroad. My object has not been to attempt any history of the diocese 'where my African home lies — for that I have neither the necessary qualifications nor the needful information ; but to produce, as far as possible, at the risk of a charge of egotism, a picture of missionary life in one of those South African dioceses where the Church of England is most brought face to face with native races, grouping together in that picture all the surroundings which help to make up that life.

“Ex uno disce omnes.’’ The sketch here presented of one particular sphere may serve as a sample of the lives and labours of many missionaries working in connection with the great Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts.

September 1890.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO UMTATA .... I ir. THE DIOCESE OF S. JOHN’S 9

III. LIFE AT UMTATA ........ 21

Chapter I. From Southampton To Umtata

On April 20, 1882, in company with a lad of the name of Eley, I left Southampton for East London, in the Union Company’s mail steamer Durban. The voyage to Africa has often been described ; the first disappointing sight of the Southern Cross, of which so much had been previously heard ; the watching the divers at Madeira ; the concerts and dances on board ; the pleasant two days’ rest at Capetown; and the cordial farewells exchanged with fellowpassengers when the time for parting came — all these are the commonplaces of such voyages, and were among our experiences. To myself individually the journey presented one point of real interest : it first made me cognisant of the strong feeling entertained by many (not all) colonists against missionaries — a feeling which I learnt at the same time was not extended, or at any rate in a very different degree, to those who were working under a bishop.

It was on Ascension Day, May 18, that we landed at East London, early in the morning, the bar, which was in those days a constant terror to travellers, proving on this occasion very lenient to us. Having seen to our luggage, we left again the same afternoon by train for King Williamstown. The line, as far as could be seen, ran through some very pretty country, but it was dark long before the three

A

EIGHT YEARS IN KAFFRARIA.

hours^ very slow journey was concluded, for the season was now nearly midwinter.

From King Williamstown to IJmtata is a journey of about 170 miles, along the main road which bisects Kaffraria Proper, and connects the Old Colony with Natal. How to accomplish this journey was the question. Horses we had none, and could not then afford to buy them ; the weekly post-cart had left just the day before, and we had no wish to remain six days at King Williamstown doing nothing but spending money while we waited for the next. Places could, no doubt, have been procured in open oxwaggons ; but a rate of three miles an hour is not exhilarating, and the prospect of some eight or ten winter nights spent in or under an open waggon, with only Kaffirs for companions, was not peculiarly attractive. We had been fortunate enough to get up our luggage that very day, and to find a waggon half loaded up for IJmtata on which we had actually seen all our heavy “ impedimenta placed, reserving only such things as were needful for the road. We were, then, perfectly free. Why not walk ? The idea occurred to us both independently ; and when, on consulting an IJmtatan who chanced to be in town, we were told that we could not miss the road, and had, in addition, purchased a map (which was of very little use), there seemed no hindrance in the way, and accordingly we set off at a quarter past four on the afternoon of May 19, intending to sleep at a place called Yellow-Woods, some seven miles distant.

All \vent well at first, but we had forgotten how soon it grows dark in South Africa after sunset. The road, marked by no hedges or boundaries, but simply a track across the open veldt, soon grew fainter and fainter, and seemed like to disappear altogether. Not a human creature was in sight, no villages lined the road, and the prospect was far from encouraging, when, to my great relief, I heard what sounded like the distant creaking of waggon wheels. A

FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO UMTATA.

fuller acquaintance with that sound — ^the music of Kaffraria — now very familiar indeed, has revealed it to be, not the noise of wheels creaking, but the harsh cry of frogs ; and yet on this occasion it proved a true and good omen, for encouraged by it we went forward again, and soon descried a light, which we found to be a fire blazing merrily, with a party of travellers sitting round it, whose waggon was outspanned close by. Inquiring here, we learnt that Yellow-Woods was not a village, as we had hitherto supposed, and had been puzzling ourselves in vain looking out for its lights, but only a hotel, and, moreover, which was good news, that we were quite close to it. Our informant seemed to think it doubtful whether we should find accommodation there, and with true colonial hospitality bade us, if all else failed, return to the waggon, where we should find a shakedown and a supper; but Yellow-Woods proved equal to our requirements, and provided us with a bed and a sofa.

It was not a little mortifying to learn the next morning that we might have taken the train from King Williamstown to Kei Koad, and so have saved the best part of twenty miles. We were still able to utilise the railway a little, from Peilton to Kei Koad, after w^hich we were fairly embarked on our walk.

Trying to take a short cut, the usual fate followed, and we were soon lost. And yet after all that was not to be regretted, for it gave us an early proof of the hospitality and kindliness of colonial farmers. For this was a farming district, and we were passed on from one house to another, meeting with entertainment everywhere — lunch, dinner, tea, in succession ; and in one place being provided with a native carrier and guide for three miles. So our way was lightened for us, until about half-past six we reached Draai Bosch, after some twenty-four miles’ walking.

Here we were only seven miles from a church (Komgha), and so made an early start the following morning, which

EIGHT YEARS IN KAFFRARIA.

was Sunday, with the intention of spending the day quietly there. On our road we passed a waggon hopelessly stuck. To the question whether we could be of any assistance, the placid answer was returned that they had sent back for spades, and nothing could be done till these arrived. It appeared to be an everyday incident, only to be encountered with a philosophic calm.

The quiet of Komgha, the excellence of the hotel, the kindliness of the clergyman, and the pleasant services in the little village church, all combined to produce a delightful Sunday, the recollections of which are still fresh after the lapse of eight years. The resident magistrate, on whom the parish priest took me to call, also was most cordial in his welcome, and offered me a horse to take me on ; and on my declining this, placed a mounted policeman at my disposal to act as guide and carry our traps for as long as I cared to retain his services.

Leaving, then, our things for the Kaffir policeman to bring on with him, we started before eight o’clock the following morning, and were soon in the lovely Kei scenery. The road winds down hill amid bush until at last the large river is reached which forms the boundary between British Kaffraria (the Old Colony) on the S.W. and Independent Kaffraria beyond. Now we had crossed the fine bridge that spans the river (the last bridge I was to see for four years, until I crossed the Kei again in 1886), and had passed into the diocese of S. John’s, the country a part of which was still under native rule, the last home of the independent Kaffirs between Capetown and Zululand. The road was beautifully constructed up the side of the hills on the further side of the river, but the drizzle which fell most of the day made it heavy walking; and when, after our guide had overtaken us in the afternoon, we were beguiled by him into taking a short cut, it became advisable after a time to put Eley on the horse, and let the policeman go on foot. We had done a long day’s walk when we

FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO UMTATA.

reached Butterworth in the evening, and I felt so tired that when we came to the last small river which ran between the village and hotel, I walked straight through, regardless of wetting.

The marches of the two following days (to Idutwya, where we were cordially welcomed by an ex-catechist of Bishop Callaway’s, and Umtentu respectively) were shorter and in every way easier. We were now well in the characteristic Kaffirland scenery : a succession of rolling, undulating plains, covered with the coarse veldt, which in winter assumes a brown hue, looking in the distance like the heather-clad hills of Scotland or Ireland ; every twenty or thirty miles usually a little English hamlet, conspicuous for its roofs of corrugated iron, so unsuitable to the climate ; and between these hamlets, it may be, the solitary houee of a trader, visible a long way off by reason of the trees that surround it — blue gums, red gums, wattles, acacias, black woods, and the like. Where the hills run down to the rivers, the monotony of the scenery is relieved by mimosa trees ; or again, where the hills rise up to the higher ranges which mark the beginning of some fresh plateau, the eye rests upon dark patches of forest filling up the kloofs : otherwise all is veldt, through which runs the road, unmarked by hedge or other boundary, indeed itself in most cases simply a broad -stretching track formed by the constant passage of waggons which have worn away the grass. In every direction may be seen the Kaffir kraals, collections of five or six huts together, made of wattle and daub, and thatched with grass, all clustering round the cattle-kraal of bushes, where the stock are housed at night. Here is a troop of little boys, with sheepskins thrown over their shoulders, herding sheep, or goats, or cows : now we meet a band of women, each with two blankets — one worn as a shawl, one as a petticoat — some of them with pipes in their mouths, returning home with bundles of grass upon their heads : yonder is a cluster of men, their blankets thrown aside for greater freedom, sitting by the cattle-kraal, and hearing the latest news. Heads shaven, heads half shaven, heads with fringes, heads in curl-papers of grass, heads with head-rings on — all these meet the eye, as the traveller passes on. How attention is caught by a few sod enclosures, a few square-built houses : natives pass us dressed : and we are told that this is a mission station by which we are going. Soon the marks of greater refinement and civilisation are lost, and we are back in the midst of heathenism again.

Such was, in the main, the kind of country which we traversed between the Kei and Umtata. How one used to miss in those days, and for many a month afterwards, the songs of English birds, the hedge-rows of England, and the constant sight of trees wherever the eye might turn ! And how, now, after the eight years’ experience abroad, one misses that vast far-stretching expanse of veldt, and feels shut in and imprisoned by trees and hedges !

There was little to chronicle during the walk of those two days, except that Eley slipped as we waded the Bashee, and was nearly carried a little distance down the river; and that, on another occasion, I nearly fell a victim to the very vicious Kafiir dogs, which are to be found at most native kraals, but was rescued by the policeman. It was pleasant to find that my study of grammar and dictionaries on board ship enabled us to interchange a few remarks of very brief character. We reached IJmtentu, only twenty-eight miles from IJmtata, by 4.30 on Wednesday afternoon ; and from here I sent back the policeman.

The hotel at IJmtentu was tolerably full, so that Eley had to sleep on the counter, while the shopman kindly gave up his bedstead to me. Sleeping on the counter seemed a strange thing in those days. As a matter of fact it is very comfortable, the bed and pillow being formed with blankets. The only objections are that some counters are rather high (I recollect one, in Pondoland, on to which I used to climb

FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO UMTATA.

by a little ladder !) and some are rather narrow, so that it is necessary to lie very still, for fear of falling over !

The travellers whom we met at Umtentu had just come from Umtata, and brought news which to me was very exciting : that there had been a rebellion at the native boys’ school there, and the clergy had been roughly handled ! The report, as was afterwards learnt, had been greatly exaggerated, though it was true that there had been an emeute, and that many of the boys had run away ; but, not knowing the full truth then, and having an old college friend occupying a prominent position among the clergy at Umtata, I was all the more anxious to push on to our destination.

The post-cart passed Umtentu that night, and so reached Umtata the same day as we did, only earlier in the day. Had we waited for it at King Williamstown, we should have hardly saved any time, and probably nearly trebled our whole expenses. The cost of our six days’ journey up was, for the two of us, to the best of my recollection, about

Our last day on the road was drizzly throughout, as the Monday had been. It was very amusing to notice the extreme surprise displayed by every one, during the whole walk, at the sight of a clergyman tramping on foot. Such an action was supposed to be entirely m/ra dignitatem. Equally painful was it to reflect that through that long line of road from the Kei to Umtata there was not a single place of worship for the Europeans of our Church ; not, as every one knew well, from want of zeal or care on the part of that noble missionary. Archdeacon Waters, who may be said to have almost made the Church in Kaffraria, but because one man cannot be everywhere or do everything. But better days were in store for that part of his district. He had just arranged to place a clergyman at Butterworth (one who was set free from Umtata by my coming), under whose auspices, living on the spot, Church work was about to receive a great development.

It was quite dark when we reached TJmtataj so that we were unable to see the beauties of the cathedral city of Kaffraria. We made our way through the straggling little town on to the mission ; and seeing lights in a church-like building, soon found ourselves attending cathedral evensong. A native deacon playing the harmonium, and conducting service : a congregation of natives, ourselves the only two white people : surely we realised then that we were in the midst of a missionary work.

CHAPTER II. THE DIOCESE OF S. yOHN^S

This seems, perhaps, the most fitting opportunity for attempting to give some general idea of the diocese of S. John’s, which is co-terminous with the country that used to be known as Independent Kaffraria, and is possibly still so marked on many of our maps, although the title would now be a misnomer, the larger part of the territory having been annexed to the Cape Colony, and only the two Pondolands remaining independent.

The boundaries of the diocese are very distinctly marked : it extends from the river Kei to the IJmzimkulu and Umtamfuna, and from the Drakensberg Mountains on the northern border to the sea : that is to say, that it is surrounded on three sides by the Old Colony, Hatal, and the Orange Free State, while on the fourth side lies the ocean. It is, in fact, a huge native reserve, into which natives are being ever pressed in from three quarters. Colony Kaffirs, Zulus, and Basutos, while on the fourth there is no outlet. Here, then, we are brought face to face with the problems of the ‘^native question.” The question is not merely. What shall be the relations of the native to the white, so that the contiguity and commixture of the two races, instead of being prejudicial to both, as it too often is now, may be mutually beneficial ? but also. How shall provision be made within this limited area for a large and rapidly increasing native population ?

The whole area of the country is given in the Government Blue Books as 17,985 square miles, which supports

EIGHT YEARS IN KAFFRARIA.

a population of about 500,000 Bantu (this term includes Kaffirs, Fingoes, Zulus, Basutos), 10,000 whites, almost all of British extraction, and nearly 5000 Hottentots, Griquas (a mixed race of Dutch and Hottentots), and other bastards. In comparing the population with the area of the country, two facts must be borne in mind : that there are absolutely no towns, and that the Kaffirs — I use the term generically, as almost equivalent to Bantu — are essentially a race of peasant proprietors on a small scale, whether agricultural or pastoral, and depend almost entirely on the land. TJmtata and Kokstad, wffiich are dignified by the name of towns, do not, I suppose, contain a population of more than 600 civilians each, at an outside computation. In the European farming districts the population is very sparse; in some of the native districts the land supports as many people as is possible, under the present conditions of life, when all are dependent upon crops and herds for a bare subsistence.

Of the whole area, which we may term roughly 18,000 square miles, the Pondolands claim 4869 ; while of the whole population of 515,000, the Pondos are believed to number about 120,000; but of these no census has been taken, as has been done where the people are under the rule of the Colonial Government.

The annexed territories are divided into the Transkei, Tembuland, and Griqualand East, and, at the mouth of the IJmzimvubu, the S. J ohn’s territory, 1 6 square miles. Of the three first-named, Griqualand East is larger than the other two put together. These divisions are again subdivided into magistracies, governed by resident magistrates, who, at present, have local superiors in the persons of chief magistrates resident at Ktlambe, IJmtata, and Kokstad respectively, the whole being a department under the Secretary of Native Affairs at Capetown. But it is probable that very shortly the office of chief magistrate will be abolished, and that the resident magistrates will report direct to Capetown.

THE DIOCESE OF S. JOHN’S,

II

At present the relation between the two sets of officials is as follows. An appeal lies from the resident magistrate to the chief magistrate in all cases, if applied for ; and the latter is bound to review all criminal cases which involve any but the smallest penalties. All official communications from and to the resident magistrates pass through the chief magistrates, and the latter have legal power to grant divorce.

The laws administered by the magistrates are — criminal, a special penal code ; civil, Roman Dutch law, or (in purely native districts) native customs, as far as possible. The more important criminal cases are now tried by a circuit court, which comes round every six months, provision being thus made for trial by jury. In the purely native districts many of the smaller cases are settled by the native headmen who have been appointed by Government, some of whom are most efficient, and who (if chiefs by birth) are regarded with great respect by their people.

The magisterial staff consists of the resident magistrate and his assistant or assistants, an interpreter, jailer, and chief constable, and a small body of native police. In addition to the civil authorities, there is the military service of the Cape Mounted Rifles (C.M.R.), a corps recruited almost entirely from home, detachments of which are stationed at various places to act as a deterrent from stock- stealing by constant patrolling, and to be ready to overawe any incipient disaffection, or repress disturbances on the Rondo border. The native police are found very useful, loyal, and trustworthy ; and I hope that future generations, if not the present, may see a native army, properly disciplined and trained, and officered by its own chiefs, which would, one can hardly doubt, prove most serviceable to the country, and perhaps some day to the empire. But the possibility of carrying out such a scheme must depend obviously upon the acceptability of our rule to the natives ; lest the arms placed in their hands, and the training given them, should

EIGHT YEARS IN KAFFRARIA.

be turned by them against the Government from which it received them.

Events now move fast in Kaffraria. Representation in Parliament has been recently given us, Tembuland and the Transkei conjointly, and Griqualand East solely,, returning one member. The right to vote is given to all who, having lived in that electoral district for not less than a year, are in receipt of ^^50 per annum, or ;^2 5 with board and lodging, or who are in possession of house or landed property to the value Many natives, therefore, are among the electors. A year or two more may see not only the abolition of the chief magistrate’s office, of which I have already spoken, but increased representation, and the formation of fiscal divisions.

Into the question of the suitability of our mode of government to the native races in Kaffraria, I do not wish to enter fully. There is no doubt that many advantages accrue to them, as to white people, from the fact of that government : freedom from war, grants for schools, construction and repair of roads, as well as bridging of rivers, which is now at last being taken in hand by the Government. To all this of course they have a fair and just claim, as they surrendered their independence in not a few cases of themselves, and pay taxes to the Government (los. hut-tax for every wife — the total revenue for 1888 exceeded the expenditure by ;^i 1,000). But the great boon conferred by European domination is that the terrible practice of smelling out ” is forbidden. In Independent Pondoland, when a native falls sick, resort is had to the witch-doctors. These smell out (as it is termed) some innocent, unoffending person, perhaps bribed by a third party who has a private grudge to wreak, or influenced by a chief who is covetous of the wealth and cattle that he sees belonging to this man. They declare him to have caused the sickness, and he is put to death often with most painful tortures. For the abolition of this horrible practice, at least, natives owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Colonial Government.

THE DIOCESE OF S, yOHN^S.

Tile Bantu tribes who inhabit Kaffraria are many in number. Almost everywhere are to be found the Fingoes^ whoj driven out of Natal about 1820 by Tshaka, ’were enslaved by the Xosa Kaffir tribes^ and treated by them as dogSj untilj emancipated by the white men^ they have identified themselves with them^ broken loose to a large extent from the tribal system and tribal restraints, and adopted, as no other tribe has done, English ideas and customs, and with these Christianity. Of the Kaffir tribes proper, Caikas and Gcalekas must rank foremost, and after these a host of names occur to the mind— Tembus, Bomwanas, Pondos, Pondomisi, Bacas, Xesibes, and others. All these speak, with only dialectical varieties, the Xosa Kaffir, and the same language will carry the traveller right up to Zululand, Zulu differing in no very great degree from the language spoken by our people.^ In the north of the diocese are to be found Basutos, also a Bantu race, speaking, however, Sesuto, and not Kaffir. In civilisation these must be reckoned as the foremost tribe in the annexed territories. To all these people most emphatically would I deny the term, which I have often heard applied to them in England, of “ savages.’^ IJncivilised they are, but their manners are polite (if allowance be made for their national customs and ideas), and among them I have found gentlemen as polished and refined as I have known in any land. Friendly, pleasant, and good-humoured, they have many of the qualities which go to make a good neighbour ; and in ordinary times the missionary's life is every whit as safe among them as it would be in his own family circle at home in England, You may sleep fearlessly in a Kaffir kraal among entire strangers, or on the open veldt you may travel night and day among them on horseback or on foot ; even in Pondoland, only once did I meet with uncivil treatment, and that

1 At the north-east end of the diocese, e.g., at Clydesdale, and presumably still more in Natal, Zulu is spoken ; but our Xosa Kaffir is still intelligible.

EIGHT YEARS IN KAFFRARIA.

was from a man who was palpably returning from a beer-drink. To lock the door at night is amongst us almost unknown.

Among mission people, as I have already indicated, the standard of civilisation is higher. Their huts have frequently windows as well as doors, in place of the hurdle which generally closes the one aperture that the ordinary hut contains. Among them you will descry square-built houses, gardens of fruit-trees surrounded by a sod wall or wire, crops of wheat and oats (in addition to the maize and millet which all Kaffirs grow) irrigated by water-furrows, and within the houses may be seen bedsteads, tables, and seats, in place of the mats and the logs which form the ordinary furniture of the Kaffir’s home. It is possible to find natives who in all respects, save that of colour, are like the white men — people fit to enter any society, and habituated to its usages. I have seen such an one sit down with a magistrate at his table ; I have often enjoyed the hospitality of a native Wesleyan minister and his wife, when the evening would be spent as it might have been in any European circle ; I know how an indefatigable native priest of our Church, working in Fingoland, is welcomed by the wffiite people into their houses : with such proofs as these, and with the native paper Imvo Zabantsundu (Native Opinion) to point to, the natives may well repudiate the comprehensive name of ‘^savages.”

Of this large native population of some 500,000, about 30,000 are Christians. Of these the Wesleyans, to whom belongs the great honour of having commenced evangelistic work in Kaffraria in 1827, claim the largest number, probably some 12,000. Our own Church, which commenced operations at S. Mark’s about 1856, nearly twenty years before the see was formed, numbers about 8000.^ Of the remainder, most would fall to the Free Church or the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Moravians 1 Vide Appendix.

TEE DIOCESE OF S. yOHN’S.

also have three white missionaries, and the French Protestants one. The Poman Catholics have no native work at present of any size, and the Congregationalists appear to confine themselves almost entirely to the white people and the Dutch-speaking Griquas and Hottentots.

The effect of our “unhappy divisions” in the native mission-field must be candidly owned to be thoroughly had. Consider only the enormous waste of strength ! A little village like IJmtata to have three denominations established there ! And the same at Kokstad ! And that in a country which is absolutely swamped with heathenism. Besides this, it has undoubtedly in the past been most prejudicial to the exercise of discipline, as the native excommunicated by one body would turn to another, or the headman whose school had been stopped by one missionary for the nonpayment of school fees might call in the services of some other communion. Although this is, I trust, less the case now than it was in former years, there is still in places a great deal of bitter rivalry, efforts being devoted to proselytising rather than evangelising, and the rule of charity being utterly forgotten. A feeling is now springing up among ministers of all denominations that much of this clashing is avoidable ; and that, if this be so, steps ought to be taken to put an end to it. It must be remembered that there is such a wide field of entirely heathen work, that it ought to be quite possible to lay down, in mutual conference, some lines of work, which would put a stop to the friction that often now exists, without surrendering or compromising any principle. Clearly we are all bound to look after our own members, to follow up our own sheep wherever they may wander, and not to hand them over to other communions : to do so would be to argue that it matters not what particular form of faith a man holds, that, apart from the question of salvation, there are no special privileges promised, no special blessings conferred i6 in certain ways, no special revelation of God’s will in smaller as well as in larger matters : and to believe this would cut away all ground at once for our separations, and could logically only lead us to reunite.