434 Kaffir Promise and Capability. 



pertinacious determination not to speak it, for an explanation 

 of her reason. The young lady informed him that she did not 

 like to speak it because she was sure it would make her tongue 

 crooked ! The difficulty was entirely removed by the author 

 pledging himself that if such a result ensued, he would set 

 the crooked organ straight by a surgical operation, and by 

 his showing the instruments with which he proposed to effect 

 the rectification. It is, of course, very important that mis- 

 sionaries and teachers should themselves so far understand the 

 Kaffir language as to be able to speak it with facility. The 

 facility is needed, indeed, to enable them to teach English to 

 Kaffirs. Their object should, however, be colloquial rather 

 than literary. It is one thing to speak a rude language fami- 

 liarly, according to the custom of, and in the idiom of, the 

 people, and another thing to convert that rude language into 

 a written and printed one, to be perpetuated in a fixed and 

 definite form for special teaching. 



The Kaffir men manifest a very great eagerness to learn to 

 read and write. They look upon the art as a sort of magic 

 which the white man employs in carrying on the wonderful 

 operations of his strange life, and they think it a very desirable 

 thing to qualify themselves for similar performance. This is 

 strikingly, although somewhat ludicrously, illustrated by the 

 way in which youug Kaffir men may be seen striving to effect 

 their purpose in the principal large towns of the colony. 

 Evening after evening gatherings may be seen of young Kaffirs 

 who have been at work all day, and who then assemble round 

 some wall tablet, and repeat simultaneously, with stentorian 

 energy, B-a, ba ; B-e, be ; B-i, Bi, as one of their number 

 points to the printed characters with a wand. It is almost 

 painful to note the patient and resolute way in which these 

 young fellows pursue the exercise hour after hour and night 

 after night, in the faith that they are rapidly becoming adepts 

 in wielding the white man's instruments. If the public income 

 were sufficient for the work, the Government would experience 

 scarcely any difficulty in establishing native schools for English 

 instruction, even among the wildest and most retired natives. 

 It onco occurred to the writer to receive a visit, in a wild 

 part of the country, from a powerful young barbarian chief, 

 who came with a company of his old councillors to offer to 

 build a school hut at his kraal, if the Government would send 

 him a teacher to instruct the children of his people there. He 

 explained that the principal ground of his request was his desire 

 to be able, in case of need, to communicate with the head of 

 the state by means of a messenger carrying his words in a 

 written document. In consequence of the extreme youth of 

 the colonial community, and the great demand that there is 



