We made our own butter, a jar serving as a churn; and our own candles by means of moulds; and soap was procured from the ashes of the plant salsola, or from wood-ashes, which in Africa contain so little alkaline matter that the boiling of successive leys has to be continued for a month or six weeks before the fat is saponified. There is not much hardship in being almost entirely dependent on ourselves; there is something of the feeling which must have animated Alexander Selkirk on seeing conveniences springing up before him from his own ingenuity; and married life is all the sweeter when so many comforts emanate directly from the thrifty striving housewife's hands.
To some it may appear quite a romantic mode of life; it is one of active benevolence, such as the good may enjoy at home. Take a single day as a sample of the whole. We rose early, because, however hot the day may have been, the evening, night, and morning at Kolobeng were deliciously refreshing; cool is not the word, where you have neither an increase of cold nor heat to desire, and where you can sit out till midnight with no fear of coughs or rheumatism. After family worship and breakfast between six and seven, we went to keep school for all who would attend—men, women, and children being all invited. School over at eleven o'clock, while the missionary's wife was occupied in domestic matters, the missionary himself had some manual labor as a smith, carpenter, or gardener, according to whatever was needed for ourselves or for the people; if for the latter, they worked for us in the garden, or at some other employment; skilled labor was thus exchanged for the unskilled. After dinner and an hour's rest, the wife attended her infant-school, which the young, who were left by their parents entirely to their own caprice, liked amazingly, and generally mustered a hundred strong; or she varied that with a sewing-school, having classes of girls to learn the art; this, too, was equally well relished. During the day every operation must be superintended, and both husband and wife must labor till the sun declines. After sunset the husband went into the town to converse with any one willing to do so, sometimes on general subjects, at other times on religion. On three nights of the week, as soon as the milking of the cows was over and it had become dark, we had a public religious service, and one of instruction on secular subjects, aided by pictures and specimens. These services were diversified by attending upon the sick and prescribing for them, giving food, and otherwise assisting the poor and wretched. We tried to gain their affections by attending to the wants of the body. The smallest acts of friendship, an obliging word and civil look, are, as St. Xavier thought, no despicable part of the missionary armor. Nor ought the good opinion of the most abject to be uncared for, when politeness may secure it. Their good word in the aggregate forms a reputation which may be well employed in procuring favor for the Gospel. Show kind attention to the reckless opponents of Christianity on the bed of sickness and pain, and they never can become your personal enemies. Here, if any where, love begets love.
When at Kolobeng, during the droughts we were entirely dependent on Kuruman for supplies of corn. Once we were reduced to living on bran, to convert which into fine meal we had to grind it three times over. We were much in want of animal food, which seems to be a greater necessary of life there than vegetarians would imagine. Being alone, we could not divide the butcher-meat of a slaughtered animal with a prospect of getting a return with regularity. Sechele had, by right of chieftainship, the breast of every animal slaughtered either at home or abroad, and he most obligingly sent us a liberal share during the whole period of our sojourn. But these supplies were necessarily so irregular that we were sometimes fain to accept a dish of locusts. These are quite a blessing in the country, so much so that the RAIN-DOCTORS sometimes promised to bring them by their incantations. The locusts are strongly vegetable in taste, the flavor varying with the plants on which they feed. There is a physiological reason why locusts and honey should be eaten together. Some are roasted and pounded into meal, which, eaten with a little salt, is palatable. It will keep thus for months. Boiled, they are disagreeable; but when they are roasted I should much prefer locusts to shrimps, though I would avoid both if possible.
In traveling we sometimes suffered considerably from scarcity of meat, though not from absolute want of food. This was felt more especially by my children; and the natives, to show their sympathy, often gave them a large kind of caterpillar, which they seemed to relish; these insects could not be unwholesome, for the natives devoured them in large quantities themselves.
Another article of which our children partook with eagerness was a very large frog, called "Matlametlo".*
* The Pyxicephalus adspersus of Dr. Smith.
Length of head and body, 5–½ inches;
fore legs, 3 inches;
hind legs, 6 inches.
Width of head posteriorly, 3 inches;
of body, 4–½ inches.
These enormous frogs, which, when cooked, look like chickens, are supposed by the natives to fall down from thunder-clouds, because after a heavy thunder-shower the pools, which are filled and retain water a few days, become instantly alive with this loud-croaking, pugnacious game. This phenomenon takes place in the driest parts of the desert, and in places where, to an ordinary observer, there is not a sign of life. Having been once benighted in a district of the Kalahari where there was no prospect of getting water for our cattle for a day or two, I was surprised to hear in the fine still evening the croaking of frogs. Walking out until I was certain that the musicians were between me and our fire, I found that they could be merry on nothing else but a prospect of rain. From the Bushmen I afterward learned that the matlametlo makes a hole at the root of certain bushes, and there ensconces himself during the months of drought. As he seldom emerges, a large variety of spider takes advantage of the hole, and makes its web across the orifice. He is thus furnished with a window and screen gratis; and no one but a Bushman would think of searching beneath a spider's web for a frog. They completely eluded my search on the occasion referred to; and as they rush forth into the hollows filled by the thunder-shower when the rain is actually falling, and the Bechuanas are cowering under their skin garments, the sudden chorus struck up simultaneously from all sides seems to indicate a descent from the clouds.
The presence of these matlametlo in the desert in a time of drought was rather a disappointment, for I had been accustomed to suppose that the note was always emitted by them when they were chin-deep in water. Their music was always regarded in other spots as the most pleasant sound that met the ear after crossing portions of the thirsty desert; and I could fully appreciate the sympathy for these animals shown by Aesop, himself an African, in his fable of the "Boys and the Frogs".
It is remarkable that attempts have not been made to any extent to domesticate some of the noble and useful creatures of Africa in England. The eland, which is the most magnificent of all antelopes, would grace the parks of our nobility more than deer. This animal, from the excellence of its flesh, would be appropriate to our own country; and as there is also a splendid esculent frog nearly as large as a chicken, it would no doubt tend to perpetuate the present alliance if we made a gift of that to France.
The scavenger beetle is one of the most useful of all insects, as it effectually answers the object indicated by the name. Where they abound, as at Kuruman, the villages are sweet and clean, for no sooner are animal excretions dropped than, attracted by the scent, the scavengers are heard coming booming up the wind. They roll away the droppings of cattle at once, in round pieces often as large as billiard-balls; and when they reach a place proper by its softness for the deposit of their eggs and the safety of their young, they dig the soil out from beneath the ball till they have quite let it down and covered it: they then lay their eggs within the mass. While the larvae are growing, they devour the inside of the ball before coming above ground to begin the world for themselves. The beetles with their gigantic balls look like Atlas with the world on his back; only they go backward, and, with their heads down, push with the hind legs, as if a boy should roll a snow-ball with his legs while standing on his head. As we recommend the eland to John Bull, and the gigantic frog to France, we can confidently recommend this beetle to the dirty Italian towns and our own Sanitary Commissioners.
