What I Saw in Kaffir-Land

by Stephen Lakeman

ARRIVAL AT THE CAPE—OPINIONS ON THE WAR THERE—THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN—BAPTISM OF A RECENT CONVERT—CONVERTED JEWS IN BUCHAREST—THE METROPOLITAN OF THE GREEK CHURCH AND AN ENGLISH BISHOP—THE VOYAGE HOME—THE ARETHUSA—NOZIAH VISITS CAPE TOWN TO BID ME GOOD-BYE—AFRICAN TROPHIES—REFLECTIONS ON THE ACTUAL STATE OF THE CAPE.

On landing at Cape Town, I soon found that quite a different feeling existed regarding my dealings with the Kaffirs from the views taken of them in the eastern portion of the colony.

Here there were no burnt homesteads, despoiled farms, or murdered occupants to bring the horrors of war in a vivid manner before people. Merchants, who were enriching themselves by the money poured into the colony from Old England, considered, no doubt, the stagnation likely to ensue from the cessation of this golden stream.

Then, again, a pious class of Christians who had been devoutly praying for the Lord’s mercy upon all men, both for those who were cutting, and those who were having their throats cut, could hardly conceive how I had had the courage to hang, as report said, Hottentot deserters.

Had they been Englishmen, taken red-handed in the deed, as the Hottentots were, it might have been right; but that I should have hung these missionary converts, whose only conception of brotherhood was to perform the part of Cain, seemed beyond their understanding of what was due to benighted niggers.

It is strange to remark the emulation that exists among Christian sects in their attempts to convert heathens to Christianity. The object is pursued with much zeal, but with no adequate knowledge of the work, or how it ought to be carried on. I feel convinced that it is promoted, like a good deal of home charity, not from any purer motives than may be found in self or sect ostentation. Some people who would sell their own souls over the counter if any one would buy them, will often give their gold freely for buying over to Christianity that of a nigger. The clergy and other high dignitaries of the Church, instead of attending to their starving flocks at home, look “to fresh fields and pastures new,” to try and tempt straggling black sheep to the fold. So lately as a month ago—I write in November 1879—a learned chief of the Protestant faith was engaged on a long voyage of several hundred miles to confirm a sinner. As I was a party to the pious ceremony in question, perhaps I may be allowed to relate how it took place. This stray sheep, brought back to the fold on the back of a shepherd that had once belonged to the unbelieving community, had but the merest notion of the language of the religion to which he had been so happily converted. As this innocent lamb knelt before the attentive observers, he looked like an old bearded goat of quite a different flock. The proceedings were carried on in a most mysterious manner: the bishop put the questions through the convert’s spiritual prompter, the Rev. Mr H——, who in his turn gave the cue to the principal actor. But this complicated by-play brought on a crisis; the prompter himself got confused, and hallooed out loud enough for the spectators to hear, “But who was your godfather?” to which query the repentant sinner murmured “De Devil!” This was almost too much for the bishop himself, and several times he was evidently in doubts as to whether or not he ought to give his spiritual blessing to such a child of the flesh. However, the ceremony was finally gone through, to everybody’s satisfaction and relief.

In former years, conversions were carried on far more rapidly, and on a much larger scale. The British consulates in the East used to give a certificate of baptism and a certificate of British nationality at the same time, for a moderate sum. I remember when, in the year 1854, I was commandant of the town of Bucharest, a deputation of Jewish converts to Christianity waited upon me for help. They complained that their pastor, the Rev. Mr M——s, had abandoned his sheep at home, and gone to sell sheepskin jackets to the British army in the Crimea. These poor forlorn wanderers added, that if I could not help them with pecuniary assistance, they would strike and knock off work as Christians, returning to their old faith. On considering the price asked, and the value of what was proffered, I advised them strongly to do as they said, not feeling justified in spending a shilling upon them.

The East is a difficult labyrinth for a man to find his way through, there are so many finger-posts having political meanings, so many cross-paths of various denominations leading to heaven knows where!—lovely by-lanes, with all the delights of the world on their flowery banks, that men, bewildered and in despair, put up too often at the half-way houses on the road, making themselves as happy as they can with all the worldly joys around them; it is often the devil to pay—but, alas! many thousand freethinkers do not hesitate to do it. The only result of such a competition for converts is to separate men more widely than ever. This is not my opinion alone. I had, in the presence of the English bishop above mentioned, a conversation with the Metropolitan of the Greek Church of the East. I was alluding, in the name of the Protestant divine, to the regret experienced as to the divisions existing in the Church of our Lord. The exact words of the Metropolitan, and which I am authorised to state, were as follows:—

“Tell his eminence of the Anglican Church that it is not the flock of Christ which is so wayward; it is we shepherds who drive them about in different directions for our own profit. What would become of me, Metropolitan of a Greek Church, if his eminence could convert them to Protestantism? What would become of him if I could convert his sheep to orthodoxy? And it is so with all Churches: they, the congregations, could be brought easily to assemble and be thankful to God in one mode of faith, but it cannot take place because we shepherds have an interest in dividing them.”

This fearless expounder of the truth afterwards added, in reply to the bishop’s desire that a prayer should be offered up by the clergy for the union of the Christian Churches in one: “God would not listen to our prayers: our kingdom, the kingdom of the priests, has been in all times a worldly kingdom; that to come will, I believe, belong to the poor. If these latter were to ask, God would listen to them, but not to us who cannot sincerely pray for such an end that would be the destruction of priestly power. “I will,” he added, “give you an instance of the intricacies of the question. I who hold in my own hand some of the threads, cannot surmise a real clue to the solution, but would, as a curiosity, like to explain what I know of them.”