Six Months at the Cape

by R. M. Ballantyne

Some time after this there came a rumour that a large and powerful band of slavers was approaching the settlement with many slaves in possession, and with the intention of attacking the tribe among whom the missionaries were located. What was now to be done? To have remained inactive until the slavers marched up to their huts would have been equivalent to suicide. It would have been worse, for it would have insured the putting to flight of the few men of the tribe—who it seems were not celebrated for courage—and the result would have been the overthrow of the mission and the recapture of the women and children who had already been delivered.

In these trying circumstances Bishop Mackenzie and his people came to the conclusion that self-defence called for vigorous action, and, with musket and rifle, sallied forth to meet the men-stealers, with the Bishop at their head.

On reaching the position of the enemy they paused at a distance of above six hundred yards. A group of Arab slavers were standing on a hill together. One of the mission party kneeled, and with an Enfield rifle sent a bullet over their heads. The effect was powerful! The slavers, accustomed to the smooth-bore musket, had thought themselves quite safe at such a distance. They were panic-stricken: perhaps the unexpected sight of white men aided the effect. At all events, when another bullet was dropped into the midst of them, they took to flight. The missionaries, like good generals, seized their opportunity, charged home, and chased the scoundrels into the woods. Thus, with little fighting, they gained an important victory, and became possessed of a second large band of slaves—chiefly women and children—who had been forsaken by their terrified captors.

These the Bishop resolved to add to his settlement. Indeed, as in the previous case, he had no alternative. They were at once liberated and conducted to the station, and one of the poor black children—a little girl named Dauma—was carried home by Mackenzie on his own shoulders.

Soon afterwards the mission failed in that quarter. Among other misfortunes disease attacked and carried off several of the chief Europeans of the party. The earnest enthusiastic Bishop himself died there in his Master’s cause, and left his bones in the swamps of the Shire River.

All this, and a great deal more, had I read with profound interest, many years before my visit to the Cape, and the whole subject had made a deep impression on my memory—especially the figure of the gallant Bishop returning from his raid on the men-stealers with the little wearied Dauma on his shoulders!

Well, one day I went to visit the “Saint George’s Orphanage for Girls,” in Capetown. I was conducted over the dormitories and schools, etcetera, and at last came to a class-room in which were assembled some hundred or so of black orphans—infants almost, most of them, and irresistibly comic in their little looks and actions.

It was here that I received the agreeable surprise before referred to. The teacher of this class was as black as her pupils.

“She is herself an orphan, one of the best girls in our school,” said Miss Arthur, referring to her. “She was saved from the slavers in Central Africa many years ago.”

“What!” I exclaimed, “the little girl who was saved by the missionaries of the Shire River?”