Zj6 SEKEI,ETU'S PRESENT. 



As I had declined to name anything as a present from 

 Sekeletu, except a canoe to take me up the river, he brought 

 ten fine elephants' tusks and laid them down beside my 

 waggon. He would take no denial, though I told him I 

 should prefer to see him trading with Fleming, a man of 

 colour from the West Indies, who had come for the purpose. 

 I had during the eleven years of n^ previous course in- 

 variably abstained from taking presents of ivory, from an 

 idea that a religious instructor degraded himself by 

 accepting gifts from those whose spiritual welfare he 

 professed to seek. My precedence of all traders in the 

 line of discovery put me often in the way of very handsome 

 offers, but I always advised the donors to sell their ivory 

 to traders, who would be sure to follow, and when at some 

 future time they had become richer by barter, they might 

 remember me or my children. When Lake Ngami was 

 discovered I might have refused permission to a trader 

 who accompanied us ; but when he applied for leave to 

 form part of our company, knowing that Mr. Oswell would 

 no more trade than myself, and that the people of the 

 lake would be disappointed if they could not dispose of 

 their ivory, I willingly granted a sanction, without which 

 his people would not at that time have ventured so far. 

 This was surely preferring the interest of another to my 

 own. The return I got for this was, a notice in one of the 

 Cape papers, that this " man was the true discoverer of 

 the lake ! " 



The conclusion I had come to was, that it is quite lawful, 

 though perhaps not expedient, for missionaries to trade ; 

 but barter is the only means by which a missionary in the 

 interior can pay his way, as money has no value. In all 

 the journeys I had previously undertaken for wider diffu- 

 sion of the Gospel, the extra expenses were defrayed from 

 my salary of £100 per annum. This sum is sufficient to 

 enable a missionary to live in the interior of South Africa, 

 supposing he has a garden capable of yielding corn 

 and vegetables ; but should he not, and still consider that 

 .six or eight months cannot lawfully be spent, simply in 

 getting goods at a lower price than they can be had from 

 itinerant traders, the sum mentioned is barely sufficient 

 for the poorest fare and plainest apparel. As we never 

 felt ourselves justified in making journeys to the colony 

 for the sake of securing bargains, the most frugal living 

 was necessary to enable us to be a little charitable to 



