Among those of ourselves who have spent, perhaps, nine or ten years of our lives over Latin and Greek how much is lost! Perhaps I might say how little is kept! But something remains to us, and something to them. There is need of very much patience. Those who expect that a Kafir boy, because he has been at school, should come forth the same as a white lad, all whose training since, and from long previous to his birth, has been a European training, will of course be disappointed. But we may, I think, be sure that no Kafir pupil can remain for years or even for months among European lessons and European habits, without carrying away with him to his own people, when he goes, something of a civilizing influence. My friend the Wesleyan Minister, who by his eloquence prevailed over me at Fort Beaufort in spite of my weariness and hunger, took me to Healdtown, the Institution over which he himself presides. I had already seen Kafir children and Kafir lads under tuition at Capetown. I had visited Miss Arthur's orphanage and school, where I had found a most interesting and cosmopolitan collection of all races, and had been taken by the Bishop of Capetown to the Church of England Kafir school at Zonnebloom, and had there been satisfied of the great capability which the young Kafir has for learning his lessons. I had been assured that up to a certain point and a certain age the Kafir quite holds his own with the European. At Zonnebloom a master carpenter was one of the instructors of the place, and, as I thought, by no means the least useful. The Kafir lad may perhaps forget the names of the "five great English poets with their dates and kings," by recapitulating which he has gained a prize at Lovedale, or may be unable some years after he has left the school to give an "Outline of Thomson's Seasons," but when he has once learned how to make a table stand square upon four legs he has gained a power of helping his brother Kafirs which will never altogether desert him. At Healdtown I found something less than 50 resident Kafir boys and young men, six of whom were in training as students for the Wesleyan Ministry. Thirteen Kafir girls were being trained as teachers, and two hundred day scholars attended from the native huts in the neighbourhood, one of whom took her place on the school benches with her own little baby on her back. She did not seem to be in the least inconvenienced by the appendage. I was not lucky in my hours at Healdtown as I arrived late in the evening, and the tuition did not begin till half-past nine in the morning, at which time I was obliged to leave the place. But I had three opportunities of hearing the whole Kafir establishment sing their hymns. The singing of hymns is a thoroughly Kafir accomplishment and the Kafir words are soft and melodious. Hymns are very good, and the singing of hymns, if it be well done, is gratifying. But I remember feeling in the West Indies that they who devoted their lives to the instruction of the young negroes thought too much of this pleasant and easy religious exercise, and were hardly enough alive to the expediency of connecting conduct with religion. The black singers of Healdtown were, I was assured, a very moral and orderly set of people; and if so the hymns will not do them any harm. For the erudition of such of my readers as have not hitherto made themselves acquainted with the religious literature of Kafirland I here give the words of a hymn which I think to be peculiarly mellifluous in its sounds. I will not annex a translation, as I cannot myself venture upon versifying it, and a prose version would sound bald and almost irreverent. I will merely say that it is in praise of the Redeemer, which name is signified by the oft-repeated word Umkululi. ICULO 38. Elamashumi matatu anesibozo. Ungu-Tixo Umkululi, Wenza into zonke; Ungu-Tixo Umkululi, Ungopezu konke. Waba ngumntu Umkululi, Ngezizono zetu; Waba ngumntu Umkululi, Wafa ngenxa yetu. Unosizi Umkululi Ngabasetyaleni; Unosizi Umkululi Ngabasekufeni. Unxamile Umkululi Ukusiguqula; Unxamile Umkululi Ukusikulula. Unamandla Umkululi Ukusisindisa; Unamandla Umkululi Ukusonwabisa. Unotando Umkululi, Unofefe kuti; Unotando Umkululi, If the lover of sweet sounds will read the lines aloud, merely adding a half pronounced U at the beginning of those words which are commenced with an otherwise unpronounceable ng, so as to make a semi-elided syllable, I think he will understand the nature of the sweetness of sound which Kafirs produce in their singing. When he finds that nearly all the lines and more than half the words begin with the same letter he will of course be aware that their singing is monotonous. I was glad to find that the Kafir-scholars at Healdtown among them paid £200 per annum towards the expense of the Institution. The Government grants £700, and the other moiety of the total cost-which amounts to £1,800,is defrayed by the Wesleyan missionary establishment at home. As the Kafir contribution is altogether voluntary, such payment shews an anxiety on the part of the parents that their children should be educated. As far as I remember nothing was done at Healdtown to teach the children any trade. trade. It is altogether a Wesleyan missionary establishment, combining a general school in which religious education is perhaps kept uppermost, with a training college for native teachers and ministers. I cannot doubt but that its effect is salutary. It has been built on a sweet healthy spot up among the hills, and nothing is more certain than the sincerity and true philanthropy of those who are engaged upon its work. My friend who had carried me off from Fort Beaufort kept his word like a true man the next morning, in allowing me to start at the time named, and himself drove me over a high mountain to Lovedale. How we ever got up and down those hill sides with a pair of horses and a vehicle, I cannot even yet imagine;-but it was done. There was a way round, but the minister seemed to think that a straight line to any place or any object must be the best way, and over the mountain we went. Some other Wesleyan minister before his days, he said, had done it constantly and had never thought anything about it. The horses did go up and did go down; which was only additional evidence to me that things of this kind are done in the Colonies which would not be attempted in England. On my going down the hill towards Lovedale, when we had got well out of the Healdtown district, an argument arose between me and my companion as to the general effect of education on Kafir life. He was of opinion that the Kafirs in that locality were really educated, whereas I was quite willing to elicit from him the sparks of his enthusiasm by suggesting that all their learning faded as soon as they left school. "Drive up to that hut," I said, picking out the best looking in the village, "and let us see whether there be pens, ink and paper in it." It was hardly a fair test, because such accommodation would not be found in the |