Ctiap. VI. 
TKANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 
115 
that he could in his own tongue have expressed it without study 
all over again in three or four different ways. The interpreter 
could scarcely have done as much in English. 
Tliis language both rich and poor speak correctly; there is no 
vulgar style; but children have a patois of theu own^ using many 
words in their play which men would scorn to repeat. The 
Bamapela have adopted a click into their dialect, and a large 
infusion of the ringing il, which seems to have been for the pur¬ 
pose of ]3reventing others from understanding them. 
The fact of the complete translation of the Bible at a station 
seven hundred miles inland from the Cape naturally suggests the 
question, whether it is likely to be permanently useful, and 
v/hether Cluistianity, as planted by modern missions, is likely to 
retain its vitality without constant supplies of foreign teacliing? 
It would certainly be no cause for congTatulation if the Bechuana 
Bible seemed at all likely to meet the fate of Elhot’s Choctaw 
version, a specimen of wliich may be seen in the library of one ' 
of the American colleges—^as God's word in a language wliich no 
living tongue can articulate, nor living mortal understand; but 
a better destiny seems in ’ store for this, for the Sichuana lan¬ 
guage has been introduced mto the new country beyond Lake 
Ngami. There it is the court language, and will take a stranger 
anywhere through a district larger than France. The Bechuanas, 
moreover, in all probabihty possess that imperishability which 
forms so remarkable a feature in the enthe African race. 
When converts are made from heathenism by modern mission¬ 
aries, it becomes an uiteresting question whether their faith 
possesses the elements of permanence, or is only an exotic too 
tender for self-propagation when the fostering care of the foreign 
cultivators is withdrawn. If neither habits of self-reliance are 
cultivated, nor opportunities given for the exercise of that wtue, 
the most promising converts are apt to become hke spoiled 
children. In Madagascar a few Christians were left with nothing 
but the Bible in them hands ; and though exposed to persecution, 
and even death itself, as the penalty of adherence to them profes¬ 
sion, they increased tenfold in numbers, and are, if possible, more 
decided behevers now than they were when, by an edict of the 
queen of that island, the missionaries ceased them teaching. 
In South Africa such an experiment could not be made, for 
1 2 
