e agreeable to flesh and blood in our customs than
in their own; but who allowed that the missionaries were a wiser and
superior race of beings to themselves; who practised polygamy, and
looked with a very jealous eye on any innovation that was likely to
deprive them of the services of their wives, who built their houses,
gathered firewood for their fires, tilled their fields, and reared their
families; who were suspicious, and keenly scrutinised the actions of the
missionaries; in fact, a people who were thoroughly sensual, and who
could rob, lie, and murder without any compunctions of conscience, as
long as success attended their efforts.

Among such a people did these servants of God labour for years without
any sign of fruit, but with steadfast faith and persevering prayer,
until at last the work of the Holy Spirit was seen, and the strong arm
of the Lord, gathering many into His fold, became apparent.

The Bechwana tribe with whom Robert Moffat was located was called the
Batlaping, or Batlapis.

The patience of the missionaries in these early days was sorely tried,
and the petty annoyances, so irritating to many of us, were neither few
nor infrequent. By dint of immense labour, leading the water to it, the
ground which the chief had given the missionaries for a garden was made
available; then the women, headed by the chief's wife, encroached upon
it, and to save contention the point was conceded. The corn when it
ripened was stolen, and the sheep either taken out of the fold at night
or driven off when grazing in the day time. No tool or household utensil
could be left about for a moment or it would disappear.

One day Mr. Hamilton, who at that time had no mill to grind corn, sat
down and with much labour and perspiration, by means of two stones,
ground sufficient meal in half-a-day to make a loaf that should serve
him, being then alone, for about eight days. He kneaded and baked his
gigantic loaf, put it on his shelf, and went to the chapel. He returned
in the evening with a keen appetite and a pleasant anticipation of
enjoying his coarse home-made bread, but on opening the door of his hut
and casting his eye to the shelf he saw that the loaf had gone. Someone
had forced open the little window of the hut, got in, and stolen the
bread.

On another occasion Mrs. Moffat, with a babe in her arms, begged very
humbly of a woman, just to be kind enough to move out of a temporary
kitchen, that she might shut it as us