e ladies to the Cape
Colony, they would be rewarded; but they shook their heads and said,
"When you go among your own people you could not help telling them we
had assagied your people, then an army come here and kill us. No, we
keep quiet." It was useless my assuring them that I would not tell any
of my people that the men had been assagied. The Caffres smiled and
replied, "You don't know yourself. Now you believe you not tell, but
when with your own people you could not help telling. Don't think of
going away--that never be. You will by-and-by be Caffre Chief here."

All these conversations were of course carried on in the Caffre
language, and I have endeavoured to give as nearly as possible the
meaning in English of the various words. In consequence of hearing
nothing but Caffre spoken, and also having to express all my meaning in
the same language, I could now speak it as well as the Caffres
themselves, and so was able to learn all the views that the Caffres had
on various matters. In thinking over in after-life these days of my
early experiences, I have come to the conclusion that these people were
a strange mixture of common sense, very acute perceptions, and also very
childish in many things. As regards what we term science they were of
course completely ignorant, so much so, that, child as I was, I knew
more than they did. For example, a great argument had been going on in
our village once during several evenings. I had heard in my hut some of
the words, and distinguished the word _inyanga_ used very often, this
word being used to signify the moon, and also a month. A Caffre counts
his age as so many moons. Thus a Caffre boy who was one hundred and
twenty moons old would be nearly twelve years of age, and if he lived to
be nine hundred and thirty moons old, he would be about seventy years.
I have since wondered whether this was the way that the people in the
East formerly counted their ages, and were therefore said to live to
nine hundred years of age. For if, as it has been suggested by some
modern explainers, this great age was given to the ancients in order
that they might people the world, it seems that they sadly neglected
their duty. For Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years
before he devoted himself to this duty, and Lamech lived also one
hundred and eighty-two years before he had a son. A Caffre who was one
hundred and eighty-two moons old would be about fourteen years old, a