Robert Moffat | Page 2

work carried on by Robert
Moffat, and the success achieved; also to realise something of the
position of affairs when he first landed in South Africa.
Discovered by the Portuguese in 1486, it was not until the middle of the
seventeenth century that much was done in the way of European
colonisation. In 1652 the bold and mountainous promontory of the
Cape was taken possession of by the Dutch, and a settlement was
founded on the site of the present Cape Town. The earliest colonists
were chiefly Dutch and German farmers; who were joined a little later
on by numbers of French and Piedmontese Huguenots, driven from
their native lands for conscience' sake.
At this early period the whole of what is now designated the Colony,
was inhabited by Hottentots, a people lighter in colour than the Kafirs
and Bechwanas, having pale yellow-brown skins, symmetrical in form
when young, hardy, and having small hands and feet. They have
nomadic tendencies; and, in their uncivilised state, scarcely practise
agriculture. Their system of government is somewhat patriarchal; and
they live in "kraals," or villages, consisting of bee-hive shaped huts,
arranged in circular form. Their ideas of a Deity are extremely faint,
they possess little in the nature of religious ceremonies, but the power
of sorcerers among them is great. According to the locality occupied,
they are known as Hottentots, Namaquas, or Corannas.
As the European colonists increased in numbers, they gradually
advanced northward and eastward, either driving back the natives or
subjugating them as slaves to their service. In 1806 the colony passed
into the hands of the English, and, after a season of conflict, the
Hottentots within the British territory were emancipated. This act of
justice took place on 17th July, 1828.
In the early years of the present century, the natives of South Africa
comprised--besides the Hottentots, who occupied the southern portion
of the country, and were thinly scattered, to the north-west, in Great
Namaqualand--the Kafirs, who dwelt in the south-east, beyond the Fish

River; the Basutos, whose kraals were south of the Orange River; the
Bechwanas and kindred tribes to the north of that river; and far away to
the north-west, beyond Namaqualand, the Damara tribes, of whom but
little was known at that time. Besides these, there were the Bushmen, a
roving people, small in stature, and sunk to the lowest depths of
barbarism, hunted down by the Dutch farmers like wild beasts, who
had their hands turned against every man, and every man's hand turned
against them.
To the Moravians belongs the honour of first seeking to bring the
natives of South Africa under the influences of Christianity. In 1737
George Schmidt, who had been sent forth by the small Moravian
church of Herrnhut, arrived in Cape Colony, and at Genadendal (the
Vale of Grace), then known as Bavian's Kloof (the Glen of Baboons),
established a mission station, where he laboured among the despised
and oppressed Hottentots with much success for seven years. His work
excited considerable opposition and persecution. He gathered a small
Christian community and a school; but the Boers, or Dutch farmers,
becoming jealous of the black population receiving education, he was
summoned to Holland, and not allowed to return.
Fifty years elapsed before the Brethren were able to resume their work;
but in 1792, three humble Christian artisans recommenced labour at
Genadendal. The occupation of the colony by the British Government
gave security to their mission, and it soon grew to be a large settlement,
and a centre of light and civilisation to the surrounding country.
In 1799 the London Missionary Society commenced work in Cape
Colony; at first by four brethren, who were shortly reinforced by Dr.
J.P. Vanderkemp, a native of Holland, a man of rare gifts and dauntless
courage. Successively scholar, cavalry officer, and physician, he was
for some years a sceptic, but being converted through the drowning of
his wife and child, and his own narrow escape from death, he
commenced the earnest study of the Bible and the Eastern languages,
and gained such wonderful proficiency in the latter, that it is stated he
had a fair knowledge of sixteen.
Vanderkemp chose the Kafir tribes for his field of labour, and in 1799

proceeded from Graf Reinet, then the most distant colonial town, and
that nearest to the Kafirs, to the headquarters of that people. Frequently
in danger of his life, among those who considered the murder of a
white man a meritorious deed, he worked and endured great hardship
and privation, that he might make known the truths of the Gospel to the
ignorant around, until the close of the year 1800, when, owing to a
rebellion among the farmers, and the general unsettled state of the
frontier, he was compelled to relinquish his mission.
[Illustration]
Afterwards he laboured among