MISSIONARY BENEVOLENCE. 
347 
additional gallop. Alington and Woodcock have 
brought three impalas or roybucks to the wagon, so 
that, so far, our larder has never been empty. 
I sent on two Kaffirs a week ago to Sechele’s, 
to bring the oxen I left in his brother’s charge, and 
expect their return in a couple of days. 
My Hottentots, without giving me a moment’s 
warning of their intention, all left me at night, at 
Massouey, for no reason, that I know of, but that food 
was at an end. It is a little harder work for us 
now, but I do not in the least despair of driving the 
wagons to Merico. I have purchased two oxen 
in place of the dead and done up, and, though 
unbroken, they now trek admirably. This rain will 
be of inestimable benefit to the whole country, and a 
plentiful harvest will, I hope and think, be the result. 
In case of a dry season, the Kaffirs have no resource 
but to seek a precarious existence in the bush, and 
many hundreds die of positive starvation. 
When food was so dreadfully scarce, Mr. Schroeder, 
one of the missionaries at Sechele’s, brought meal 
from Merico and made bread, giving each of the 
baptized Kaffirs a small loaf on Monday morning; 
they then went into the bush, and contrived with 
roots, berries, wild fruits, land tortoises, frogs, &c., 
nothing earthly coming amiss, to eke out a precarious 
existence, with the aid of the loaf, till the following 
Monday, when, if they contrived to exist, they got 
another. There is one poor woman following my 
wagons now from Mosilikatse’s country, saying it is 
