CHAP. VIII. SETTLEMENT OF AFRICAN CHRISTIANS. 203 



Next morning, while sitting at our breakfast, of which 

 excellent fruit formed a considerable part, I looked out and 

 saw within a circular fence, at a short distance from the house, 

 eight or ten horses driven round upon a quantity of straw 

 spread over a smooth hard clay floor. This I was informed 

 was their threshing floor, and thus the corn was trodden out, 

 — a process which I afterwards witnessed in many other parts 

 of the colony. During the day we accompanied the missionary 

 and a number of the people to their grazing grovmd, corn 

 lands, gardens, fountains, and different habitations. At the 

 latter we found the goodwife had usually a cup of coffee and 

 cakes, or a dish of grapes or some other refreshment, waiting 

 our arrival. The cottages, though designated by their owners 

 as only temporary dwellings, were many of them neat and 

 comfortable. All contained a separate and partitioned bed- 

 room ; and I was sometimes amused at the accumulation of 

 treasures which the outer room exhibited. Each had a table 

 and chairs, or some ruder kind of seat, frequently the driving 

 box of a waggon. In one cottage, where we took some re- 

 freshment, the end of the room was occupied by two large 

 bins about four feet deep, built up in brick-work from the 

 floor, and filled with excellent wheat, in quantity, I was told, 

 about forty bushels. At one corner of the same room hung 

 the fowling-piece of the master, vdth. powder-horns, and 

 shooting apparatus ; at another corner the adze, the axe, the 

 cross-cut saw ; and in a third the spade and the hoe ; while 

 chisels, augers, and small tools were stuck into different parts 

 of the thatch ; and on a pole above hung long strips of the 

 dried flesh of the antelope, and other beasts. The shelves, in 

 different parts, were occupied with articles of crockery-ware, 

 besides a coffee-pot, and a brass or tin tea-kettle. Beyond 

 these, the skins of kids, or other small animals converted 

 into bags, with the hair inside, but the legs projecting, — some 

 apparently filled with nails or other valuables, — hung from 



