DRESS OF THE NATIVES. 97 



ago, and he must confess that the Christian mode of 

 treating aborigines is incomparably the best. 



The Griquas and Bechuanas were in former times clad 

 much like the Caffres, if such a word may be used where 

 there is scarcely any clothing at all. A bunch of leather 

 strings about eighteen inches long hung from the lady's 

 waist in front, and a prepared skin of a sheep or antelope 

 covered the shoulders, leaving the breast and abdomen 

 bare : the men wore a oaten of skin, about the size of 

 the crown of one's hat, which barely served for the purposes 

 of decency, and a mantle exactly like that of the women. 

 To assist in protecting the pores of the skin from the 

 influence of the sun by day and of the cold by night, all 

 smeared themselves with a mixture of fat and ochre ; the 

 head was anointed with pounded blue mica schist mixed 

 with fat ; and the tine particles of shining mica falling on 

 the body and on strings of beads and brass rings were 

 considered as highly ornamental and fit for the most 

 fastidious dandy. Now, these same people come to 

 church in decent though poor clothing, and behave with 

 a decorum certainly superior to what seems to have been 

 the case in the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys in London. 

 Sunday is well observed, and, even in localities where no 

 missionary lives, religious meetings are regularly held, 

 and children and adults taught to read, by the more 

 advanced of their own fellow-countrymen ; and no one is 

 allowed to make a profession of faith by baptism unless 

 he knows how to read, and understands the nature of 

 the Christian religion. 



The Bechuana Mission has been so far successful that, 

 when coming from the interior, we always felt on reaching 

 Kuruman that we had returned to civilized life. But I 

 would not give any one to understand by this that they 

 are model Christians — we cannot claim to be model 

 Christians ourselves — or even in any degree superior to 

 the members of our own country churches. They are more 

 stingy and greedy than the poor at home ; but in many 

 respects the two are exactly alike. On asking an intelli- 

 gent chief what he thought of them, he replied, " You 

 white men have no idea of how wicked we are ; we know 

 each other better than you ; some feign belief to ingratiate 

 themselves with the missionaries ; some profess Chris- 

 tianity because they like the new system, which gives so 

 much more importance to the poor, and desire that the 



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