(the true pecunia of the Zulu). Practically, it was found, that no polygamist ever became more than an inquirer; the way of life seemed to harden the heart or blind the eyes against conviction; but the difficulty as regarded the younger people was great, since as long as a girl remained the lawful property of the head of her kraal, she was liable to be sold to any polygamist of any age who might pay her value; and thus it became a question whether it were safe to baptize her. Even Christian Zulus marrying Christian women according to the English rite could not be secure of them unless the cows were duly paid over; and as these Kaffirs are a really fine race, with more of the elements of true love in them than is usual in savages, adventures fit for a novel would sometimes occur, when maidens came flying to the mission station to avoid some old husband who had made large offers to their father; and the real lover would arrive entreating protection for the lady of his heart until he could earn the requisite amount of cows to satisfy her father.
Mr. Robertson was always called the umfundisi, or teacher. He held his Sunday Kaffir service in a clearing in the bush, and gained many hearts to himself, and some souls for the Church, while toiling with his hands as well as setting forth the truth with his lips. Mrs. Robertson at the same time worked upon the women by her tenderness to their little ones, offering them little frocks if they would wash them, caressing them with all a woman’s true love for babies, and then training their elder children and girls, teaching them needlework, and whatever could lead to aspirations towards modesty and the other graces of Christian womanhood. Often extremely ill, always fragile, her energy never failed; and there was a grace and dignity about her whole deportment and manner which caused “the Lady” to be the emphatic title always given to her by her husband and his friends. Of these the Mackenzie family were among the warmest, and the Archdeacon gladly gave valuable assistance to Mr. Robertson by supplementing an education which had not been definitely clerical, but rather of that order which seems to render an able Scotsman fit to apply himself to almost anything.
In February 1857 another sister, named Alice, joined the Mackenzie family, when they were on a visit to the Umlazi station. Her quick powers and enthusiastic spirit fitted her in a wonderful manner for missionary labour, and she was at once
in such sympathy with the Kaffirs that it was a playful arrangement among the home party that Anne should be the white and Alice the black sister.
Just after her arrival, it was determined that the Archdeacon should leave Durban, where, indeed, he had been only filling the post of an absent clergyman, and take a district on the Umhlali river, forty miles from Durban, containing a number of English settlements, a camp, and a large amount of Kaffir kraals. Every Sunday he had five services at different places, one of them eighteen miles from the nearest, a space that had to be ridden at speed in the mid-day sun. There was no house, but a couple of rooms with perpendicular sides and a verandah, one for chapel, the other for sitting-room, while Kaffir beehive huts were the bedrooms of all. For a long time blankets and plaids did the part of doors and shutters; and just as the accommodations were improving, the whole grass and wattle structure was burnt down, and it was many months before the tardy labour of colonial workmen enabled the family to take possession of the new house, in a better situation, which they named Seaforth, after the title of the former head of the Mackenzie clan.
All this time the whole party had been working. A school was collected every morning of both boys and girls; not many in number, but from a large area: children of white settlers, varying in rank, gentlemen or farmers, but all alike running wild for want of time and means to instruct them. They came riding on horses or oxen, attended by their Kaffirs, and were generally found exceedingly ignorant of all English learning, but precocious and independent in practical matters: young boys able to shoot, ride, and often entrusted with difficult commissions by their fathers at an age when their cousins at home would scarcely be at a public school, and little girls accustomed to superintend the Kaffirs in all household business; both far excelling their parents in familiarity with the language, but accustomed to tyrannize over the black servants, and in danger of imbibing unsuspected evil from their heathen converse. It was a task of no small importance to endeavour to raise the tone, improve the manners, and instruct the minds of these young colonists, and it could only be attempted by teaching them as friends upon an equality.
With the Kaffirs, at the same time, the treatment was
moulded on that of Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, who at one time paid the Umhlali a visit, bringing with them their whole train of converts, servants, orphans, and adopted children, who could be easily accommodated by putting up fresh grass huts, to which even the Europeans of the party had become so accustomed, that they viewed a chameleon tumbling down on the dinner-table with rather more indifference than we do the intrusion of an earwig, quite acquiesced in periodically remaking the clay floor when the white ants were coming up through it, scorpions being found in the Archdeacon’s whiskers, and green snakes, instead of mice, being killed by the cat.
The sight of Christian Kaffirs was very beneficial to the learners, to whom it was a great stumbling block to have no fellows within their ken, but to be totally separated from all of their own race and colour. At Seaforth, the wedding was celebrated of two of Mr. Robertson’s converts, named Benjamin and Louisa, the marriage Psalms being chanted in Kaffir, and the Holy Communion celebrated, when there were seven Kaffir communicants. The bride wore a white checked muslin and a wreath of white natural flowers on her head. This was the first Christian Zulu wedding, and it has been followed by many more, and we believe that in no case has there been a relapse into heathenism or polygamy.
The Mackenzies continued at Seaforth until the early part of the year 1859. The work was peaceful and cheerful. There were no such remarkable successes in conversion as the Robertsons met with, probably because in the further and wilder district the work was more pioneering, and the Robertsons had never been without a nucleus of Christians, besides which the gifts of both appear to have been surpassing in their power of dealing with natives, and producing thorough conversions. Moreover, they had no cure but of the Kaffirs, whereas Archdeacon Mackenzie was the pastor of a widely scattered population, and his time and strength on Sundays employed to their very uttermost. Church affairs weighed heavily upon him; and another heavy sorrow fell on him in the death of the guardian elder sister, Mrs. Dundas. Her illness, typhus fever, left time for the preparation of knowing of her danger, and a letter written to her by her brother during the suspense breathes his resigned hope:—“Dear Lizzie, you may now be among the members of the Church in heaven, who