Chap. VIII. RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF BAKWAINS. 107 



attempted to sing among a wild! tribe of Bechuanas, and the 

 effect on the risible faculties of the audience was such that the 

 tears ran down their cheeks. Nearly all their thoughts are 

 directed to the supply of their bodily wants. If I am asked 

 what effect the preaching of the Gospel has upon them, I can 

 only say that some have confessed long afterwards that they 

 then first begin to pray in secret. When kindly treated in 

 sickness they often utter imploring words to Jesus, and we 

 may hope that they find mercy through His blood, though 

 so little able to appreciate His sacrifice. The existence of a 

 God, and of a future state, has always been admitted by all 

 the Bechuanas. Everything that cannot be accounted for by 

 common causes is ascribed to the Deity, as creation, sudden 

 death, &c. " How curiously God made these things !" " He was 

 not killed by disease, he was killed by God," are common 

 expressions. And, when speaking of the departed, they say, 

 " He has gone to the gods." The Bakwains profess that 

 nothing which appears sin to us ever appeared otherwise to 

 them, except that they did not think wrong to have more than 

 one wife. They declare that they ascribed the rain which 

 was given in answer to prayers of the rain-makers, and the 

 deliverance granted in times of danger, to the power of the 

 Deity, but they show so little consciousness of any religious 

 sentiment that it is not wonderful that they should have been 

 supposed to be totally destitute of it. The want, indeed, 

 of any outward form of worship, makes the Bechuanas 

 appear among the most godless races of mortals. The same (20) 

 may be said of the Caffres, but with Oaffres and Bushmen 

 I have had no intercourse in their own tongue. How much 

 depends upon this for the right comprehension of their ideas 

 may be judged from a trifling incident. At Lotlakani we met 

 an old Bushman who sat by our fire relating his early adven- 

 tures. Among these was the killing five other Bushmen. 

 " Two," said he, counting on his fingers, " were females, one 

 a male, and the other two calves." " \Yhat a villain," I 

 exclaimed, " you are, to boast of killing women and children 

 of your own nation ! what will God say when you appear 

 before Him?" — " He will say," replied he, " that I was a very 

 clever fellow." I at last discovered that, though the word he 

 UNed was the same which the Bakwains employ when speaking 



