MISSIONARY TRIALS. 37 



Arrived at the scene of his labours this was the sort of experience which 

 awaited Dr. Moffat, Mrs. Moffat, and his coadjutor, Mr. Hamilton. 



" Our time was incessantly occupied in building, and labouring frequently 

 for the meat that perisheth ; but our exertions were often in vain, for while 

 we sowed, the natives reaped. The site of the station was a light sandy 

 soil, where no kind of vegetables would grow without constant irrigation. 

 Our water ditch, which was some miles in length, had been led out of the 

 Kurunian River, and passed in its course through the gardens of the natives. 

 As irrigation was to them entirely unknown, fountains and streams had been 

 suffered to run to waste, where crops even of native grain, which supports 

 amazing drought, are seldom very abundant from the general scarcity of rain. 

 The native women, seeing the fertilizing effect of the water in our gardens, 

 thought very naturally that they had an equal right to it for their own, and took 

 the liberty of cutting open our water ditch, and allowing it, on some occasions, 

 to flood theirs. This mode of proceeding left us at times without a drop of 

 water, even for culinary purposes. It was in vain that we pleaded, and 

 remonstrated with the chiefs ; the women were the masters in this matter. 

 Mr. Hamilton and I were daily compelled to go alternately three miles with 

 a spade, about three o'clock p.m., the hottest time of the day, and turn in the 

 many outlets into native gardens, that we might have a little moisture to 

 refresh our buxnt-up vegetables during the night, which we were obliged to 

 irrigate when we ought to have rested from the labours of the day. Many 

 night watches were spent in this way ; and after we had raised with great 

 labour vegetables, so necessary to our constitutions, the natives would steal 

 them by day as well as by night, and after a year's toil and care, we scarcely 

 reaped anything to reward us for our labour. The women would watch our 

 return from turning the streams into the water-course, and would immediately 

 go and open the outlets again, thus leaving us on a thirsty plain many days 

 without a drop of water, excepting that which was carried from a distant 

 fountain, under a cloudless sky, when the thermometer at noon would 

 frequently rise to 120° in the shade. 



" When we complained of this, the women, who one would have thought 

 would have been the first to appreciate the principles by which we were 

 actuated, became exasperated, and going to the higher drain, where the water 

 was led out of the river, with their picks completely destroyed it, allowing the 

 stream to flow in its ancient bed. By this means the supply of water was 

 reduced one-half, and that entirely at the mercy of those who loved us only 

 when we could supply them with tobacco, repair their tools, or administer 

 medicine to the afflicted. 



".. . . Our situation might be better conceived than described : not one 

 believed our report among the thousands by whom we were surrounded. 

 Native aid, especially to the wife of the missionary, though not to be 



