Morimo for the name of the true God, yet, according to Mr Moffat, the natives themselves never previously used it in such a sense. They considered it to represent a malevolent Selo, or thing, existing in a hole; describing it as something cunning or malicious, but few attributing to it any power, and none granting it eternity of existence. Some people in the south say that Morimo came out of a cave in the Bakone country, leaving its footprints on the rock; others assert it to be a noxious reptile.

Barimo is an answer to the question "Where do men go when they die?" but heaven is not its meaning. It does not convey to the Bechuana mind the idea of a person or persons, but of a state or disease, that of being bewitched. These people call a person who may be delirious or in a fit "Barimo,” = liriti, shades or manes of the dead. Going to Barimo signifies among them, passing onward, not to immortality, but to death'.

The tribes in the north have more definite ideas about these objects of worship, regarding them as departed spirits. In this sense the diviners of Angola pretend to hold communication with them; a sect is reported to exist in this country who are said to kill men in order to present their hearts as offerings to the departed spirits.

At funerals the Balonda beat drums in order to lay the Barimo asleep; on like occasions, a man fantastically dressed runs, like a scape-goat, into the woods, as a representative of these imaginary deities. On our traveller inquiring of one of his men, on one occasion, if the halo round the sun did not betoken rain, the man replied "O no, it is the Barimo (gods, or departed spirits), who have called a picho; don't you see they have the Lord (sun) in the centre'?”

The conclusion to be arrived at is, that most of the South African tribes have more or less clear ideas of a 1 Moffat's Missionary Labours, p. 261.

2 Travels, p. 220.

The march of these Mantatees for hundreds of miles might have been traced by human bones.

He met with the custom in Namaqua-land, of the parricide of parents by their children, when too old to do anything; leaving them to starve in the desert. He once fell in with a mother so abandoned'.

6

Of the cruelty practised by the Matebele against the Bakone tribes, the following eloquent account was given by one of the latter, to Mr Moffat, in answer to an inquiry about some ruins, which he saw scattered over a plain in the neighbourhood of the Mosilikatse's capital. The commencement of this native's speech states that he himself beheld the disaster-that this was the home of the chief of the blue-coloured cattle, whose people were numerous and brave-going on to say: "The noise of their song was hushed in night, and their hearts were filled with dismay. They saw the clouds ascend from the plains. It was the smoke of burning towns. The confusion of a whirlwind was in the heart of the great chief of the blue-coloured cattle. The shout was raised, They are friends;' but they shouted again, They are foes,' till their near approach proclaimed them naked Matebele. The men seized their arms, and rushed out, as if to chase the antelope. The onset was as the voice of lightning, and their spears as the shaking of a forest in the autumn storm. The Matebele lions raised the shout of death, and flew upon their victims. It was the shout of victory. Their hissing and hollow groans told their progress among the dead. A few moments laid hundreds on the ground. The clash of shields was the signal of triumph. Our people fled with their cattle to the top of yonder mount. The Matebele entered the town with the roar of the lion; they pillaged and fired the houses, speared the mothers, and cast their infants to the flames. The sun went down. The victors emerged from the smoking plain, 1 Missionary Labours, &c. p. 133.

and pursued their course, surrounding the base of yonder hill. They slaughtered cattle; they danced and sang till the dawn of day; they ascended, and killed till their hands were weary of the spear'."

In the following passage the missionary gives a terrible picture of Matebele warfare: "The Matabele were not satisfied with simply capturing cattle; nothing less than the entire subjugation or destruction of the vanquished could quench their insatiable thirst for power. Thus when they conquered a town, the terrified inhabitants were driven in a mass to the outskirts, when the parents and all the married women were slaughtered on the spot. Such as dared to be brave in the defence of their town, their wives and their children, are reserved for a still more terrible death; dry grass, saturated with fat, is tied round their naked bodies, and then set on fire. The youths and girls are loaded as beasts of burden with the spoils of the town, to be marched to the homes of their victors. If the town be in an isolated position, the helpless infants are either left to perish with hunger or to be devoured by beasts of prey. On such an event, the lions scent the slain and leave their lair. The hyenas and jackals emerge from their lurking-places in broad day, and revel in the carnage, while a cloud of vultures may be seen descending on the living and the dead, and holding a carnival on human flesh. Should a suspicion arise in the savage bosom that those helpless innocents may fall into the hands of friends, they will prevent this by collecting them into a fold, and after raising over them a pile of brushwood, apply the flaming torch to it, when the town, but lately the scene of mirth, becomes a heap of ashes."

Among the Bushmen, if a mother dies, leaving an infant, this is often buried alive with her. Infanticide is common among these people.

1 Missionary Labours, &c. p. 528.

2 Ibid. p. 555.

the same in his time among Jews and Gentiles and in our own days among the African tribes, viz. that of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body becoming a stumblingblock, either in the form of a startling novelty, or of a disproved and exploded fiction-producing blank amazement or stern opposition among them to whom its principles may for the first time have been demonstrated.

The doctrine of the transmigration of souls is extensively held among the natives of these regions. A Balonda tribe, under the Chief Bango, refused to eat cattle, because they declare them to tabernacle the souls of men. Some people on the eastern side will not kill lions, because the spirits of their Chiefs inhabit them: concluding, like the ancient Egyptians, that after the departed from this life have dwelt in animals &c., for a certain time, they will return to their own bodies.

This discussion concerning the immortality of the soul is a highly important and truly personal one.

The northern tribes of South Africa have the most decided belief in this doctrine. The Balonda watch, and put medicine on the graves of the dead, in order to keep away the witches. One of the Barotse, having a head-ache, said to our Traveller, with a sad and thoughtful countenance; My father is scolding me because I did not give him any of the food to eat," adding that he was "among the Barimo." On another occasion Dr Livingstone asked these people for some relic of their dead chief Santura. "O, no, he refuses." "Who refuses?" "Santura," was their reply, shewing their belief in a future state of existence.

Surely with such promising prospects of a spiritual harvest before the Christian world, evidenced in so many ways, the soldiers of the Cross will be found with armour bright, hope strong, faith unfeigned, and love unconquerable for their risen Saviour, ready, aye ready to say with 1 Travels, p. 331.. 2 Ibid. p. 219.

the inhabitants of these dark places of the earth; and now we contemplate their spiritual gloom.

There are some very striking facts connected with the religious condition of the tribes of the South African continent. This is likewise to be regarded in a twofold aspect. Those in the south are not idolaters; whilst those farther north are so. Then, again, the tribes in the south have their rain-doctors, to make the rain; and those in the north have theirs to prevent its falling. The people of the south have no external worship, and hence are sometimes wrongly regarded as infidels, while those of the north are more prone to worship, and have outward rites. These latter have also somewhat the brighter religious perceptions.

The ideas of God entertain issue. ed by the South

African tribes,

many

On this subject authorities are somewhat at In the estimation of some persons, Africans have no idea whatever of a together with Supreme Being; according to the statements their worship of others, all have some such an idea. of Morimo and Barimo.

Doubtless savages in general are thorough sensualists; still the spirit within bears witness by its own promptings, longings and activity, of a something and a some one beyond what sense can see or feel.

From long intercourse and observation, perhaps, Mr Moffat and Dr Livingstone are the best authorities on the subject. Their experiences and conclusions are evidently

'different.

Mr Moffat says of the Bechuanas, Hottentots and Bushmen, that he believes Satan to have erased every vestige of religious impression from their minds. Concerning the Bechuanas, he remarks: "To tell them, the gravest of them, that there was a Creator, the Governor of the heavens and earth,—of the fall of man, or the redemption of the world, the resurrection of the dead, and immortality beyond the grave, was to tell them what appeared to be