102 Dr. Hodgkin on the Importance of Studying and 



With this view I conceive it might be well for us to draw up 

 a collection of queries to be forwarded to the societies in ques- 

 tion, accompanied with a short memorial urging the impor- 

 tance of the subject and soliciting cooperation. The Royal So- 

 ciety, the Geographical, the Zoological, the Linnaean, and per- 

 haps the Society of Antiquaries, might be memorialized for this 

 purpose, and I am inclined to believe that the officers of the 

 Admiralty would be far from unwilling, if properly appealed to, 

 to give most important aid in such an investigation. There 

 are other bodies which I have not yet mentioned, but which 

 in the assistance they may afford us are inferior to none ; I 

 allude to the different Missionary Societies. Some of these 

 have far more extensive relations with some parts of the 

 globe, and the feeble races inhabiting them, than any 

 other bodies or associations. The zeal and devotion of 

 their missionaries, which prompt them not merely to visit 

 but to reside amongst the uncivilized or half-civilized families 

 of the human species, would enable them to collect more ex- 

 tensive and more accurate information than can be collected 

 by the traveller transiently passing through the district, what- 

 ever may be the superiority of his talents and acquirements. 

 We are already indebted to some of those missionaries for 

 most important and valuable information of the very kind 

 which it is so desirable to collect. The name of Ellis, which 

 must be familiar to every one, will sufficiently illustrate this 

 remark. But what missionaries have done in this respect has 

 been rather the fruit of their own good sense and individual 

 interest than the result of a general purpose, or of instructions 

 furnished to them by the Boards which have sent them forth. 



The character of some of their exertions is thus described 

 in an article on Kay's Caffraria, in the North American 

 Quarterly Review. 



" The attempt which the missionaries had made to trans- 

 late special parts of the sacred volume into the Caffer Ian* 

 guage, manifests, in our judgement, more zeal than discretion, 

 According to our author, their plan has been to translate a 

 passage from the English version into ' barbarous Dutch,' and 

 then to express it in the Caffer language as dictated by an 

 ignorant interpreter. Till some better method than this is 

 adopted many persons will distrust the benefit of the transla- 

 tion, since it is probable that error or nonsense will take the 

 place of truth. However this may be, many converts having 

 been made amongst the Caffers, and considerable inquiry ex- 

 cited amongst the people generally, the period is probably not 

 far distant when Christianity, in some shape or other, will be 

 openly professed by the whole nation. A translation of the 



