356 Keport S.A.A. Advanckmekt of 8cikxce. 



Batlapin at Lithako at a period when tlie}' were still uncorrupted by- 

 contact with Europeans, viz., 181:^. It is a pity that Mr. Burchell, 

 who was an English gentleman of private means, a skilled botanist 

 and zoologist, should, with a just confidence in his own accuracy as- 

 one who had collected his facts for himself, have permitted himself 

 to have made some caustic and captious remarks on Barrow's earlier 

 work. 



No student of ethnology or philology will feel inclined to under- 

 rate the value of the contributions made to these sciences by mis- 

 sionaries. True though it may be that in many cases data have been 

 collected without scientific method, scrutinised without scientific tests 

 or accepted with unscientific credulity, there are brilliant instances 

 where these disqualifications were replaced by the highest aptitudes. 

 And in any case the fact I'emains that, without the labours of these 

 pioneers of scientific research, we should yet be wanrlering about in 

 abysmal ignorance of the most fundamental facts, which would other- 

 wise by this time have been bej'ond our i-each ; for it must not be for- 

 gotten that the material ac<juired when the natives of this subcontinent 

 were first encountered by Europeans possesses a value which later in- 

 formation, however scientifically acquired and sifted, yet vitiated by 

 intercourse with a higher civilisation, can never claim. 



England, Scotland, France, Germany and Amei'ica are each entitled 

 to a share of the merit of sending these explorers, Bible in hand, to 

 open up the ferrae incoynitae occupied by the barbarous tribes south of 

 the Limpopo. 



In priority of time the Moravian Mission deserves the place of 

 honour ; but it cannot be said that science owes much to the self- 

 denying and simple labours of this communit}'. 



In 1795 the London Missionary Society was instituted, and three 

 years later J. Th. Vanderkemp, a Dutch nobleman and ex-cavalry 

 otticer, designated by the society as a respectable physician of Holland,, 

 and described by a colleague as a scholar and metaphysician versed in 

 sixteen diff"erent languages ranging from Greek to Gaelic and from 

 Hebrew to Hottentot, was conver-ted from a life of dissipation owing 

 to the death by drowning of his wife and child. Despatched by the 

 society as their first emissary to South Africa, together with less 

 picturesque colleagues, this remarkable character, whose eccentric, but 

 imposing, figure made a deep impression on the chief Gaika, carried 

 his missionary zeal so far as to mairy a coloured woman, and was 

 enabled by his proficiency in the Hottentot language to give to his 

 proselytes — and to philologists— a catechism in the Cape Hottentot 

 language, 



A very difi'erent character was the Rev. John Canq»bell, minister 

 of Kingsland chapel, who in his Travels in South Africa (1815) and. 

 J\'ar7-afive of a Secottd Journey, &c. {1822) may be said in liis homel}' 

 un\arnished account to have been the first to introduce to the English 

 people the Bechuana tribes. A simple-minded, earnest, kindly man, 

 his desciiptions of the customs, superstitions, kc, of the Bantu tribes,, 

 though faithful, are as little to be regarded as accui-ate as his pio- 



