OCR Rendition - approximate

Relations between Civilized and Savage Life. 345 domestic, there can be no doubt of the great moral as well as intellectual and physical improvement effected by the contact of natives with Europeans. Let any one contrast any account of any native community in South Africa as it was before European colonists arrived, with what it is now, as he may find it by personal inspection and experience. Let us take, for instance, the Hottentots, as described by travellers, from Van Riebeek and Kolben, down to Barrow and Burchell, and contrast them with such communities as he will now find at Mamre and Gnadendhal. He will hear now, no doubt, lamentations of humane and benevolent neighbours over the idleness, untruthfulness, and depravity of many of the coloured people. "The settlements are not what they might be. The people prefer working for themselves in their own garden patches, to working for wages for farmers, who sorely need their labour, and who are justly entitled to have it. The labour, when given, is often uncertain and dishonest-not always a fair day's work for a fair day's wage. The people are often idle, and fonder of drink than of honest hard work," &c. That much of the same kind might be said of labourers in almost any part of Europe is obvious ; but contrast the least favourable account which can now be given with the most favourable accounts of earlier travellers. In the style of their habitations and dress the change has been from barbarism to civilization, from the almost indiscriminate herding of naked or half-naked savages to decent houses, habits, and dress. Life and property are as secure as in Europe, and if untruthful or dishonest persons are frequently found, how great is the change from the time when truth and honesty were so rare as to enable many harsh judges to say they were unknown Let me here quote the testimony I received from a railway engineer, who had many years experience as an employer of unskilled labour out of England,-in Europe, Asia, and America, as well as in Africa. Giving the first place to the English navvy, with no other reservation than that he must be habitually sober, he said he could generally, in a few weeks, train " raw " or fresh Kaffirs to do as much work for the same amount of money as the English workman-not that any one Kaffir would do as much work, or as well as an English navvy, but that receiving lower wages, the Kaffir could be taught to do as much for the money as an Englishman would. But the best of all his African workmen, he said, were the men from Mamre or Gnadendhal Moravian Mission stations, "off-coloured boys," of Hottentot stock ; they were well-trained, sober, steady, and intelligent, quite as able to understand, and as trustworthy to execute work as any but good English navvys.