SOUTHERN AFRICA. 425 
in the plank with crumbs of bread. Having passed the 
hmits of the colony without being detected, or at least mo- 
lested, he came to the establishment of Kicherer on the Sack 
river ; and having made out some plausible story of an ir- 
resistible call of grace, by which he was impelled to preach 
the gospel among the heathen, he was received with open arms 
by this worthy but credulous missionary, who, howe\^er, as 
appears by his own statement, had soon sufficient reason to 
repent of his misplaced hospitality. The Greek, it seems, 
conceived the horrid design of murdering his host, for the 
sake of his little property ; and for this purpose had one 
night stolen into his chamber, and was approaching his bed, 
when the missionary, being fortunately awake and not without 
some suspicion of the ill intentions of his guest, instantly 
sprung upon him in the dark, reproached him for his ino-rati- 
tnde and, with true Christian fortitude and forgiveness, sent 
him away unhurt when, at a single word, his faithful follow- 
ers would have torn him in pieces. He furnished him with 
meat and tobacco for the Journey, a flint and steel to strike a 
fire, a little gunpowder, and a bible, the perusal of which he 
strongly recommended to his serious attention. But the good 
intentions of the missionary were strangely perverted by this 
vagabond, whose character was not less remarkable for its de- 
pravity than ingenuity. He read the bible, it would seem, but 
the information he obtained therein was employed for no good 
purpose. On his arrival among the Koras, he announced him- 
self as a prophet, assuring them that he had been sent many, 
thousand miles expressly to promote their future consolation 
a,nd happiness. He built a temple under the edge of a thick 
3 I 
