Photo by] [Neville Jones.
The New Kuruman Waggon, with Mr. and Mrs. J. Tom Brown.
The oxen are outspanned about three times a day at places where there is water, or where they are likely to find some grass. No reins are used in driving, but the oxen are controlled by a very long whip which is used with great dexterity either by the driver from the front of the waggon or by his assistant walking alongside the oxen. These two men also act as cooks. A Christmas Day spent in these conditions will live in the memory.
The stay at Kuruman was a delightful experience. This place is a veritable oasis in the desert with a perennial water supply from the Kuruman river, which issues from a place called “The Fountain” in the Kuruman township three miles away from the Mission station. Thence in summer and winter, in flood and in drought, flows 4,000,000 gallons of water a day. By means of water-furrows, constructed by the early missionaries, the dry and thirsty land is converted into a paradise of green. The trees in the garden are a constant delight.
I stayed in the Mission House built by Robert Moffat and Robert Hamilton eighty years ago. The whole place is rich with associations. It was here that David Livingstone courted Mary Moffat. The almond tree in the garden under which he proposed to her is still flourishing. Close by is the great Church, built by Moffat, and rich with many a memory. Next to it is the house where William Ashton lived for many years, which is now occupied by Mrs. Bevan Wookey, who is in charge of the excellent Mission School at Kuruman. Behind is the school and the old printing office. The garden is most fertile; oranges, lemons, quinces, mulberries, pears, apples, plums, apricots, peaches, pomegranates, walnuts, melons and richly-laden vines, abounding. For more than a quarter of a century the Rev. J. Tom Brown has carried on Missionary work at this station.
The great fact of the growing Christian Church in South Africa was abundantly emphasised on the Sunday of my stay at Kuruman. From outstations far and near the Christians came in for the Communion Service on the last Sunday of the year and for the New Year’s meetings. In the morning some 1,500 gathered together for public worship, and three services were carried on simultaneously. Moffat’s long, and somewhat dark Church, with its great wooden beams, was filled with a Sechuana-speaking congregation. The dimness of the Church was relieved by the orange, yellow, pink and blue of the dresses of the women. In the spacious school there was a crowded service for the Dutch-speaking natives and coloured people. In the yard of Mrs. Wookey’s house there was a service, conducted by an evangelist, for the Damaras, a stalwart tribe of blackest hue. These people are refugees from German South-West Africa. In the afternoon all the Church members gathered together in the Church at a solemn Communion Service. A stranger will not soon forget the impressive quietness and reverence of the service as the bare-footed deacons moved noiselessly along the serried ranks of the great black crowd that was present.
The meetings on the following day were further evidence of the growing Church. A large gathering of Church members was held at which discussions took place on several subjects quite familiar to the Home Churches, many Natives joining in with great intelligence and earnestness. The Native Pastor at Kuruman, the Rev. Maphakela Lekalaka, an eloquent preacher, a capable minister, and a master of metaphor—known as the “Joseph Parker of Bechuanaland”—superintended the work of the station with ability and success during the absence of the Missionary on furlough.
The journey back to Vryburg was made in an old ox-waggon drawn by fourteen oxen kindly lent by the Church at one of the Kuruman outstations. I travelled back via Motito, which has pathetic associations. In a tiny grave-yard there are buried two or three missionary children. There is also a grave which recalls a grim tragedy,—that of Jean Fredoux, a son-in-law of Dr. Moffat, and a missionary of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, which was formerly at work there. It was in 1865 that he met his death. A “depraved European” (to quote from the inscription on the gravestone) attacked his wife in his absence. The Native Christians defended her and made him prisoner, intending to send him to Kuruman for trial. Next day they were afraid they might get into trouble for arresting a white man and they let him go. He escaped in his waggon to the place where Mr. Fredoux was, and the Natives followed and told the latter what had happened. Mr. Fredoux went to speak to the man, who retreated inside his waggon. Then followed an explosion of gunpowder, which blew the waggon, the “depraved European,” Mr. Fredoux and all the Natives to pieces.
At the conclusion of the journey from Kuruman I paid a short visit to Tiger Kloof and then proceeded north to visit the Matebeleland stations, in what is now known as Southern Rhodesia, taking three days’ holiday to see the wonderful Victoria Falls and places of interest in Bulawayo and the neighbourhood. Every Britisher naturally associates Rhodesia with the name and work of Cecil Rhodes. His statue stands in a commanding position in Bulawayo. His grave in the rocky fastness of the Matopo Hills is an impressive monument to his memory. All round are immense blocks of granite piled up in fantastic shapes. Four groups of these granite boulders almost completely enclose a rocky surface about 30 yards square, in the centre of which there is a large untrimmed block of granite lying on the ground. On the top of this is a sheet of bronze about 10 feet by 4 feet and 2 inches thick, on which are deeply cut these words:—
“HERE LIE THE
REMAINS OF
CECIL JOHN RHODES.”