240 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR 
CHAP. IX. 
which English was taught, and with the general proficiency of 
the scholars. We then held a meeting with the people, and 
afterwards visited some of the Christian families at their own 
habitations. In the course of the afternoon, after taking 
leave of our hospitable friends, we returned to King William’s 
Town; and here bidding farewell to Mrs. Brownlee and her 
family, we crossed the Buffalo river, and commenced our 
homeward course. 
Should peace remain unbroken, and the enlightened policy 
of the governor, its surest guarantee, be continued, there 
would seem to be a happier future in prospect for the Caffre 
nation. If they have the means of sound practical education, 
comprising a knowledge of the useful arts, together with 
faithful religious teaching, there is no sufficient reason to 
doubt the advancement of this interesting people in all that 
belongs to the well-being of men in the present life and their 
hopes of that which is to come. 
On the 4th we crossed the Keiskamma at Line Drift. The 
bottom of the stream was rocky and the waters turbid, but 
we crossed in safety, though the governor’s party, in crossing 
at the same place a few weeks before, lost one of their waggons 
and a team of mules, all being swept down the stream. Con¬ 
tinuing our way, we passed Fort Peddie, and crossed the Fish 
Biver at Trumpeter’s Drift, where another of the governor’s 
waggons had been carried down the stream, and the mules 
only saved by being cut loose and swimming to the shore. 
The waggon was lying among the bushes at some distance 
down the river at the time we passed. The owner of an 
accommodation house on the bank of the river told us that 
accidents were frequent with the natives, who remained in 
the waggons shouting to the oxen; but that white men gene¬ 
rally had persons in the stream to keep the oxen up. Pursu¬ 
ing our journey, and passing the night, which was wet and 
cold, on the high ground beyond Driver’s Hill, we reached 
