Humane Trcaimcnt of Convicts. in 



bronze, all tints and shades were observed, and one of them, 

 called " Ngduba" (Sea-shell), appeared to be even of a reddish 

 yellow. He belonged to the tribe of the Fingoes, and said 

 that both his parents were of the same colour. 



The governor permitted five young Caffrcs to be engaged on 

 board the Novara, with their own consent, as apprentices, and 

 although they were prisoners sentenced for several years, yet the 

 Government took every care to secure their welfare. An agree- 

 ment was signed to provide that their return, should they 

 desire it, might be facilitated in every possible way. Faithful 

 subjects could not be cared for with more anxiety than were 

 these legally-sentenced Caifre prisoners by the colonial Go- 

 vernment. Two of them went one day on shore, during our 

 stay at Auckland, in New Zealand, and never came back ; the 

 other three made the whole vovao^e with the Novara, and are 

 now sailors on board the imperial yacht Fancy. They, of 

 course, understood, at their embarkation, only their own singular 

 mother-tongue ; yet the chaplain of the expedition, the Rev. 

 E. Marochini, after having made himself acquainted with their 

 idiom, succeeded in instructing these black youths, by means 

 of their own language, in the doctrines of Christianity, and, by 

 degrees, imparted some knowledge of the Italian and German 

 languages, the happy results of these endeavours being a 

 complete vocabulary and a small catechism in the Caffre 

 language, which the reverend gentlemen composed during 

 the voyage ; and such progress did his three pupils make, 

 that, on our return to Trieste, they were so far prepared as 



p 2 



