16 SECHELE LEARNS TO READ. Chap. I. 



custom of his nation, when any new subject was brought before 

 them, to put questions on it ; and he begged me to allow him to 

 do the same in this case. On expressing my entire willingness 

 to answer his questions, he inquired if my forefathers knew of 

 a future judgment. I replied in the affirmative, and began to 

 describe the scene of the " great white throne, and Him who shall 

 sit on it, from whose face the heaven and earth shall flee away," 

 &c. He said, " You startle me — these words make all my bones 

 to shake — I have no more strength in me : but my forefathers were 

 living at the same time yours were, and how is it that they did 

 not send them word about these terrible things sooner ? They all 

 passed away into darkness without knowing whither they were 

 going." I got out of the difficulty by explaining the geographical 

 barriers in the North, and the gradual spread of knowledge from 

 the South, to which we first had access by means of ships ; and I 

 expressed my belief that, as Christ had said, the whole world 

 would yet be enlightened by the Gospel. Pointing to the great 

 Kalahari desert, he said, " You never can cross that country to 

 the tribes beyond ; it is utterly impossible even for us black men, 

 except in certain seasons, when more than the usual supply of 

 rain falls, and an extraordinary growth of water-melons follows. 

 Even we who know the country would certainly perish without 

 them." Ee-asserting my belief in the words of Christ, we parted ; 

 and it will be seen further on that Sechele himself assisted me 

 in crossing that desert which had previously proved an insur- 

 mountable barrier to so many adventurers. 



As soon as he had an opportunity of learning, he set himself 

 to read with such close application that, from being compara- 

 tively thin, the effect of having been fond of the chase, he 

 became quite corpulent from want of exercise. Mr. Oswell gave 

 him his first lesson in figures, and he acquired the alphabet on 

 the first day of my residence at Chonuane. He was by no 

 means an ordinary specimen of the people, for I never went into 

 the town but I was pressed to hear him read some chapters of 

 the Bible. Isaiah was a great favourite with liim ; and he was 

 wont to use the same phrase nearly which the professor of 

 Greek at Glasgow, Sir D. K. Sandford, once used respecting the 

 Apostle Paul, when reading his speeches in the Acts : " He was 

 a fine fellow, that Paul !" " He was a fine man, that Isaiah ; 



