t.

At this point one of his superiors told him that that was enough, to my
immense relief, and the too-conscientious official allowed me to re-pack
and lock-up my property.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. The Parliament of the Union of South Africa meets at Capetown,
but Pretoria is now the seat of the Union Government.

LETTER FOURTEEN.

STELLENBOSCH, ETCETERA.

An agreeable surprise is not only interesting to the recipient, but
sometimes to his friends. I received one at Capetown, which is worthy
of record on several grounds.

For the proper explanation of that surprise I must turn aside for a
little.

A mission started in the year 1860 for the Zambesi, where it was met,
and for a time joined, by the great Dr Livingstone. Its leader, Bishop
Mackenzie, who laid down his life in the cause, was a man as well as a
missionary. By that I mean that he was manly,--a quality which is not
sufficiently appreciated, in some quarters, as being a most important
element in the missionary character.

While on his way up to the selected sphere of labour in Central Africa,
the Bishop and his party, with Dr Livingstone, got into the region of
the accursed slave-trade, and one day came unexpectedly on a band of
slaves. They were chiefly women and children, bound together with
sticks and chains, and herded by a few armed slave-dealers, who, having
murdered their male defenders and burned their villages, were driving
them to the coast for shipment to eastern lands--largely, it is said, to
the land of the amiable Turk.

With characteristic zeal and energy Dr Livingstone advanced with a few
men to set these poor wretches free. The slave-catchers did not await
the onset: they bravely fired a shot or two and fled. To set the slaves
free was naturally a most congenial work for the good Bishop who had
gone there to free the black man from the slavery of sin. The sticks
were cut, the bonds were unloosed, and the people were told that they
were free to go back to their homes. Homes! Their homes were in ashes,
and the brave hearts and stout arms that might have reared new homes
were cold and powerless in death, while armed Arab and Portuguese bands
were prowling about the land gathering together more victims. To send
these unfortunates away would have been to insure their death or
recapture. There was no alternative left but to keep and guard them.

Thus the Bishop su