208 PRESENTS AND TRADING. 



become rich by barter, they might remember me or my children. 

 When Lake Ngami was discovered I might have refused per- 

 mission to a trader who accompanied tis ; but when he applied 

 for leave to form part of our company, knowing that Mr. Oswell 

 would no more trade than myself, and that the people of the lake 

 would be disappointed if they could not dispose of their ivory, I 

 willingly granted a sanction, without which his people would not 

 at that time have ventured so far. This was surely preferring 

 the interest of another to my own. The return I got for this 

 was a notice in one of the Cape papers that this " man was the 

 true discoverer of the lake!" 



The conclusion I had come to was, that it is quite lawful, 

 though perhaps not expedient, for missionaries to trade ; but bar- 

 ter is the only means by which a missionary in the interior can 

 pay his way, as money has no value. In all the journeys I had 

 previously undertaken for wider diffusion of the Gospel, the extra 

 expenses were defrayed from my salary of £100 per annum. 

 This sum is sufficient to enable a missionary to live in the interior 

 of South Africa, supposing he has a garden capable of yielding 

 corn and vegetables ; but should he not, and still consider that 

 six or eight months can not lawfully be spent simply in getting 

 goods at a lower price than they can be had from itinerant traders, 

 the sum mentioned is barely sufficient for the poorest fare and 

 plainest apparel. As we never felt ourselves justified in making 

 journeys to the colony for the sake of securing bargains, the most 

 frugal living was necessary to enable us to be a little charitable 

 to others ; but when to this were added extra traveling ex- 

 penses, the wants of an increasing family, and liberal gifts to 

 chiefs, it was difficult to make both ends meet. The pleasure 

 of missionary labor would be enhanced if one could devote his 

 life to the heathen, without drawing a salary from a society at 

 all. The luxury of doing good from one's own private resources, 

 without appearing to either natives or Europeans to be making a 

 gain of it, is far preferable, and an object worthy the ambition 

 of the rich. But few men of fortune, however, now devote 

 themselves to Christian missions, as of old. Presents were al- 

 ways given to the chiefs whom we visited, and nothing accepted 

 in return ; but when Sebituane (in 1851) offered some ivory, I 

 took it, and was able by its sale to present his son with a number 

 of really useful articles of a higher value than I had ever been 



