108 
DKESS OP THE NATIVES. 
Chap. Y. 
sphere of missionary influence, and could compare the people 
there with the Christian natives, I came to the conclusion that, 
if the question were examined in the most rigidly severe or 
scientific way, the change effected by the missionary movement 
would be considered unquestionably great. 
We cannot fairly compare these poor people with ourselves, 
who have an atmosphere of Christianity and enlightened pubhc 
oj)inion, the growth of centuries, around us, to influence our 
deportment; but let any one from the natoal and proper point 
of view behold the public morality of Griqua Town, Kuruman, 
Likatlong, and other villages, and remember what even London 
was a century "^go, 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 patch 
of skin, about the size of the crown of one’s hat, which barely 
served for the purposes of decency, and a mantle exactly hke 
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 fine particles of shining mica falling on the body and on 
strings of beads and brass rings were considered as higlily orna¬ 
mental 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 fives, 
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 
