16 BAPTISM OF SECHELE. Cklv. L 



three years. Perceiving the difficulties of his case, and feel- 

 ing compassion for the poor women, who were by far the best 

 of our scholars, I had no desire that he should be in a hurry 

 to make a full profession by baptism, and put away all his 

 wives but one. His principal wife, too, was the most unlikely 

 person in the tribe to partake his views. I have seen him 

 again and again send her out of church to put on her gown, 

 and she walked away with her lips shot out, the very picture 

 of unutterable disgust at his new-fangled notions. 



When he at last applied for baptism, I asked him how, 

 being acquainted with the Bible, he thought he ought to act. 

 He went home, and gave each of his supernumerary wives 

 new clothing, together with all the goods they had been ac- 

 customed to keep in their huts for him. He then sent them 

 to their parents with an intimation that he had no fault to 

 find with them, but that he wished to follow the will of God. 

 When he and his children were baptized, great numbers came 

 to see the ceremony. Some thought, from a stupid story 

 which had been circulated by the enemies to Christianity in 

 the south, that the converts would be made to drink an 

 infusion of " dead men's brains," and were astonished to find 

 that only water was used. Seeing several old men in tears 

 during the service, I afterwards asked them the cause of their 

 weeping. They were crying to see their father, as the Scotch 

 remark of a case of suicide, " so far left to himself" They 

 seemed to think that I had thrown the glamour over him and 

 that he had become mine. All the friends of the divorced 

 wives now became the opponents of our religion. The attend- 

 ance at school and church dwindled down to very few 

 besides the family of the chief. They all continued to treat 

 us with respectful kindness, but to Sechele himself they 

 uttered things which, had they ventured on in former times, 

 would, as he often remarked, have cost them their lives. 



T pass from the chief to give a rapid sketch of our dealing 

 with his people, the Bakuena, or Bakwains. When first we 

 went to reside at Chonuane about bl. worth of goods were given 

 for a small piece of land sufficient for a garden. This purchase 

 seemed strange to a tribe with whom the idea of buying 

 land was entirely new ; but we explained to them that we 

 wished to avoid any cause of future dispute when ground ha<? 



