352 
FIRST VIEW OF KLAARWATER. 
1,2 Oct. 
way to the Interior, I naturally endeavoured to form, in my own 
mind, some picture of it ; and I know not by what mistake it arose, 
that I should conceive the idea of its being a picturesque spot sur- 
rounded by trees and gardens, with a river running through a neat 
village, where a tall church stood, a distant beacon to mark that 
Christianity had advanced thus far into the wilds of Africa. But 
the first glance now convinced me how false may oftentimes be the 
notions which men form of what they have not seen. The trees 
of my imagination vanished, leaving nothing in reality but a few 
which the missionaries themselves had planted; the church sunk 
to a barn-like building of reeds and mud ; the village was merely 
a row of half a dozen reed cottages ; the river was but a rill ; and 
the situation an open, bare, and exposed place, without any ap- 
pearance of a garden, excepting that of the missionaries. 
It would be very unfair towards those who have devoted them- 
selves to a residence in a country, where they are cut off from 
communication with civilized society, and deprived of all its com- 
forts, to attribute this low state of civ^ilization and outward improve- 
ment, to a want of solicitude on their part. Their continual com- 
plaint, indeed, was of the laziness of the Hottentots, and of the great 
difficulty there had always been in persuading them to work, either 
on the buildings or in the garden ; and in this complaint there was 
too much truth. 
My disappointment at the appearance of the place arose fronj 
expecting, perhaps, too much. Yet, notwithstanding its discourag- 
ing appearance, this colony of Hottentots, and its different outposts, 
is a field in which the seeds of civilization and religion may be sown 
with a probability of success ; but I will not say that this is to he 
accomplished without expense, or without the employment of proper 
and reasonable means, and the adopting of some plan grounded on a 
knowledge of human nature. 
Our whole party being now finally assembled at the termination 
of our long journey, we all, on this occasion, dined together ; and 
the school-room was found to be the only place large enough for the 
purpose. A dinner that would have become a table in Cape Town, 
