"These gentlemen had made me wait a long time, perhaps because they found it more difficult and dangerous to put down on paper orders which it was much easier to give vocally. This note was only a reproduction of the accusations they had made against us from the beginning. They declared to us that we were driven from the country because we had introduced guns, ammunition, and a great quantity of merchandise, and because we had entered the Transvaal without a passport, in spite of the Government itself having recently proclaimed a passport unnecessary for evangelists going through the country. In this document they systematically misrepresented and violated the right which every white man had had until then of travelling without permission. From the beginning to the end of this document it was open to criticism, which the feeblest jurist could have made; but in the Transvaal, as elsewhere, might dominates right, and we have to suffer the consequences of this odious principle.
"We sorrowfully retraced the route towards the Vaal; this time no more joyous singing around our fire at night, no more cheerful projects, no more the hope of being the first to announce the glad Evangel among pagan populations. The veldt we traversed seemed to have lost its poetry and to have become desolate. To add to our misfortunes the epidemic seized our oxen. We lost first one and then a second,—altogether eight. Those which were left, tired and lean, dragged slowly and with pain the waggons which before they had drawn along with such vigour. At last we were in sight of Mabolela, and arrived at our destination, sorrowful, yet not unhappy, determined not to be discouraged by this first check. And now we were again at Lessouto, waiting for God to open to us a new door."
FOOTNOTES:
[12] The extract commences at chapter II, page 29.
[13] Near Pretoria.
[14] Livingstone had given to the Chief, Sechele, a large iron pot for cooking purposes, and the form of it excited the suspicions of the Boers, who reported that it was a cannon. That pot is now in the Museum, at Cape Town.
IV.
INTERVIEW WITH DR. JAMES STEWART, MODERATOR (1899) OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. LETTER OF MR. BELLOWS TO SENATOR HOAR, U.S.A. THE REV. C. PHILLIPS. EXTRACTS FROM THE "CHRISTIAN AGE," AND FROM M. ELISÉE RECLUS, GEOGRAPHER. RETROCESSION OF THE TRANSVAAL. MR. GLADSTONE'S ACTION. ITS EFFECT ON THE TRANSVAAL LEADERS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NATIVE SUBJECTS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
The Rev. Dr. James Stewart, of Lovedale Mission Institute, South Africa, who, in May, 1899, was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Scotch Free Church, imparted his views with regard to the Transvaal question to a representative of the New York Tribune on the occasion of his visit to Washington in the autumn of 1899, to attend the Pan-Presbyterian Council as a delegate from the Free Church of Scotland.