FOOTNOTES:
[1] Within the last few years the competition between the “Union Steamship Co.” and “Donald Currie and Co.” has reduced the length of the voyage from Southampton to Cape Town, viâ Madeira, to eighteen or twenty days.
[2] The Dutch spoken by most of the South African farmers is not pure, as in Europe; it is a mixture of English, Low-German, French, &c. That, however, which is spoken by the more educated Dutchmen in Cape Town, Bloemfontein, and other towns, is for the most part very good.
[3] I use the term “murderous propensity” advisedly, as the cobra is quite unable to devour what it has thus destroyed.
[4] “Bas,” a lord, a master: “Morena” ruler.
[5] “Look, uncle!”
[6] “The fellows are making off!”
[7] Molapo = river.
[8] Montsua has subsequently done this, and has offered the English Government the jurisdiction of his territory.
[9] I consider that there are three distinct mountain-groups in Central South Africa; the Magaliesbergen in the east; the Marico heights in the west; and the hills in Matabele-land in the north.
[10] According to Mr. Mackenzie, the bathu ba lehuku are “the people of the word;” the people who receive God’s word.
[11] It was by the Wesleyan Missionary Society that Christianity was introduced among the Barolongs. At the time of my visit, in 1873, Moshaneng was the most northerly station; but now that Montsua has settled in Lo thlakane, there is no station further north than Molema’s Town. Molema himself is still a preacher. Mr. Webb has left. Mr. Harris is the present missionary in Lothlakane. The work of the Society has borne good fruit, inasmuch as it has refined many of the habits of the Barolongs, induced the rulers to adopt more considerate measures, and by the introduction of agriculture has done much to raise the social condition of the natives.
[12] “Master! master! take care, something is running at you!”
[13] Digging forms a conspicuous element in all the Bechuana ceremonies.
[14] In my opinion it is only a strong Government measure and the free provision of sulphuric acid, to be used diluted, that will be of any avail to check this disorder, which annually costs a large sum of money that ought to be saved.
[15] See also Rose Library.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.
2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.
3. Where appropriate, the original spelling has been retained.