stitions, to exemplify the virtues of fair-dealing and truth-speaking, to teach them new arts of agriculture and domestic life, might be of incalculable value. If we could suppose a tribe of blacks to be progressively raised in the social scale by the influence of such an individual so directed, whose example and precepts would be traditionally handed down until they acquired the force of successive ages of reverential belief, their author and his feats would then assume a supernatural character, and he would be to such a nation what Manco-Capac was to the Peruvians and Hercules to the Greeks, a demigod. But our specimen of the Celto-Teutonic variety feels no such mission: his business in the far distant land of the Bechuanas and Bakalahari is to kill their game, to make them useful, as far as may be, in the chace, to take advantage of their gross superstition, and, skilful traders' though they be, to get the better of them in traffic.

Thus, he finds (vol. ii. p. 289) that the drift of the chief of the Batlapis is to get one of his double rifles in exchange for two fine bull-elephant tusks; but he has provided himself with a kind of article for the barter which will leave him a thousand-fold profit over and above the exchange made on the basis of the black chief's tariff. And he is willing to lose time and submit to inconvenience, and perhaps worse, on account of the enormous percentage he should realize:

The price I had paid for the muskets was 167. for each case containing twenty muskets; and the value of the ivory I required for each musket was upwards of 307., being 3000 per cent.'

6

It is no business of our astute dealer, as such, to explain the difference between the sixteen-shilling musket of the wholesale invoice and the double-barrelled rifle by Dixon or Purdey. But we may be permitted to doubt whether a difference of colour between the contracting parties quite entitles the white, when he had brought the black to the point of offering him a large bull-elephant's tusk for each of his muskets,' to reply, that the muskets cost many teeth in his own country' (vol. i. p. 322), and thereupon, maintaining a firm and independent manner, treating him at the same time with the utmost affability, to demand four large bull-elephant's teeth for each musket.' The worst feature, however, in this transaction is the use made of the missionary's name, who had kindly aided and guided the hunter in his travels. 'I told him (the Hottentot chief) that other men feared to come so far to trade with him, but that his friend Dr. Livingstone had directed me to come, and had sent him a present by me.' With what feelings, we may ask,

did

did the poor black contemplate his bloody hand, minus three fingers and a thumb, blown off by the bursting of the Brummagem gun, 'that cost many teeth, &c.,' the first time he raised it to his shoulder? And what must his notions have been of the 'morale' of the white tradesman of whose prowess he had seen so much, and of the brother white who introduced him, of whose preachings and denunciations of sin and superstition he might also have heard something? But here let us interpose a word for Dr. Livingstone -or rather let us copy from Mr. Cumming himself another of these episodes, with its closing statement.

The Griqua Hottentots, taking advantage of the more ignorant Bechuanas, had obtained from their chief several valuable karosses (prepared skins) in barter for a little sulphur, which they represented as a most effectual medicine for guns, affirming that, if rubbed on the hands before shooting, the piece would assuredly hit. Hearing of this, Mr. Cumming engages the king of the Bechuanas in a shooting-match :

'The king staked a couple of valuable karosses against a large measure filled with my gunpowder, and we then at once proceeded to the waggon, where the match was to come off, followed by a number of the tribe. Whilst Sichely was loading his gun, I repaired to the fore-chest of the waggon, where, observing that I was watched by several of the natives, I proceeded to rub my hands with sulphur, which was instantly reported to the chief, who directly joined me, and, clapping me on the back, entreated me to give him a little of my medicine for his gun, which I of course told him he must purchase. Our target being set up, we commenced firing; it was a small piece of wood six inches long by four in breadth, and was placed on the stump of a tree at the distance of one hundred paces. Sichely fired the first shot, and very naturally missed it, upon which I let fly and split it through the middle. It was then set up again, when Sichely and his brothers continued firing, without once touching it, till night setting in put an end to their proceedings. This of course was solely attributed by all present to the power of the medicine I had used.

'When Dr. Livingstone was informed of the circumstance he was very much shocked, declaring that in future the natives would fail to believe him when he denounced supernatural agency, having now seen it practised by his own countryman.'—vol. ii. p. 72.

And how, indeed, were the Hottentots to give credence or allow any weight to the words of a man who kept but one wife, who killed no wildebeests, condescended to teach the children, and occupied himself in those mean labours of culture which they leave exclusively to their women; when the hero whom no dangers, nor Tao himself could daunt, whom the whole kraal which he had delivered of their dread devourer hailed as 'Father,' practically

tically adopted the belief which the less formidable European spent his life in denouncing?

This unlooked-for antagonism is the more grievous when, as the fatal futility of pouring men fresh from Europe into the Niger or Gambia becomes more manifest after each ill-starred expedition, the conviction grows upon us that the regeneration of the blacks is to be effected by the slow but sure extension northward of that wave of civilization expanded and pushed on by the ceaseless efforts of the missions in South Africa. The chief difficulty which the missionary has to overcome is the deep-rooted belief of the Hottentots in charms and magical superstitions, against which argument and reasoning avail little. Could the teacher greatly excel in any of those achievements that the Hottentot reveres, he might be listened to, and one bold shot laying low the lion or disabling the elephant would have more weight with them than a score of sermons. But this advantage was thrown away by the hunter, who condescended even to practise the magic which he despised. And if faith in the supernatural agency of charms be excusable when sincere, and held in ignorance of better light, what are we to say to him who assumes it and encourages it for some paltry gain? But let the white man again speak for himself:

In the forenoon Matsaca arrived from the carcase of the borèlé: he brought with him a very fine leopard's skin kaross, and an elephant's tooth; these were for me, in return for which I was to cut him to make him shoot well. This I did in the following manner: opening a large book of natural history, containing prints of all the chief quadrupeds, I placed his forefinger successively on several of the prints of the commonest of the South African quadrupeds, and as I placed his finger on each I repeated some absurd sentence and anointed him with turpentine. When this was accomplished I made four cuts on his arm with a lancet, and then anointing the bleeding wounds with gunpowder and turpentine, I told him that his gun had power over each of the animals which his finger had touched, provided he held it straight. Matsaca and his retinue seemed highly gratified, and presently took leave and departed: I afterwards trekked up the river till sundown.'-vol. ii. p. 274.

And again, at p. 324, where, after the same mummery,

' and looking him most seriously in the face, I said, in his own language, "Slay the game well; let the course of thy bullet be through the hearts of the wild beasts; let thine hand and heart be strong against the lion, against the great elephant, against the rhinoceros, against the buffalo!" &c.

It is a relief to turn from this picture of the use of superior knowledge and power to another one. The Anglo-Saxon missionary voluntarily expatriates himself and takes up his abode perma

nently

nently in those remote wildernesses, where to spend a few 'sporting seasons' is a rude trial for the strong-blooded enthusiast of the chace. Here the homely Moravian or despised Methodist, bent to achieve the conquest over himself, a victory far above any that can be attained over the brute beasts, tasks himself with all those duties that may tend in any measure to the dispersion of the dense mist of ignorance and superstition which has long clouded the minds of his dark brethren around him. He shows them better methods of cultivating the soil (vol. i. p. 225); he laboriously studies their dialect, and reduces it to writing (ib. p. 226); he teaches the young-sows the good seed of humane principles and charities in their fresh minds (ib. p. 225)—and working at his humble printing-press, diffuses the same principles wherever he has prepared the ground by the art of reading; he hastens to the relief of the wayward wanderer, who may have thwarted his best endeavours (vol. ii. p. 280); in a word, his daily practice exemplifies the precepts which he specially inculcates on the Christian Sabbath, the Divine Author of which he feels himself commissioned to make known to those who have never before had preached to them the gospel of peace ;-and all this Mr. Cumming relates, without apparently one surmise of the inevitable deduction.

ART. II. History of Greece.

By George Grote, Esq.

Vols. vii. and viii. 1850.

VERY reader of history knows those solemn pauses which

a breathing space both to the actors and narrators to look back over the period they have traversed. Such an epoch is furnished by the close of the Peloponnesian war, where we parted company with Mr. Grote in our Number for last March. It is not merely that the long struggle between the contending states is brought to an end, but that the eminent men who have borne their part in it are themselves called away from the scene. It is the Morte of heroes,' which in fiction shapes itself into the beautiful legends of Regillus, of Roncesvalles, and of Avalon; but of which history also furnishes examples, not the less poetical from their truth. Every one of the great statesmen of Athens had passed away by the close of the fifth century before the Christian era; and not the statesmen only, but the great poets also, whose career had

run

run parallel to the tragedy of actual life, more heart-stirring even than the scenes which they themselves had pourtrayed. Euripides-whose description of the yet unbroken peace and beauty of the plains of Attica marks the beginning of the war, as the allusion by his great rival to the ravages of the hostile spear in every part except the sacred olive-grove marks its close-had already met a fate stranger than that of his own Pentheus in the hunting-grounds of his royal patron in Macedonia. Sophocles in the fulness of years had been called away from the midst of his labours and his honours by an end as peaceful and as glorious as that of his own Coloncan Edipus. One man there still remained to close this funeral procession-he whose death alone of all the characters of Greek history is an epoch in the history not only of Greece but of the world.

All Greek historians avail themselves of the pause which we have just indicated to dwell on the career of Socrates. And well they may. For, with the mention of that name we seem to pass at once from the student's chamber into the walks of every-day life. He, and he alone, of the characters of Grecian history, finds a place in the Fathers of Christian, as well as in the moralists of Pagan, antiquity; in the proverbs of modern Europe, as well as in the oracles of classical Greece. Yet, familiar as the life of Socrates seems to be, we cannot help feeling that before the publication of Mr. Grote's last volumes it was comparatively unknown. On the other great careers which were closed within this period modern experience throws its usual light. Even in the very year which is now passing there are not wanting events which recall unbidden the life or death of some of those eminent men whom Athens mourned in her hour of need. The long and serene old age of the venerable poet who sleeps under the yews of Grasmere-churchyard suggests, by no unworthy association, the gentle close of the life of Sophocles. The void left by the death of Pericles may be realized, though imperfectly, by the national mourning over the great statesman, who, through the same period of forty years' public service, had won his way to that peculiar eminence which now remains untenanted. But with Socrates it is otherwise. A life and character in its main points so singular, and so remote from modern associations, can be reproduced by no ordinary effort of historical imagination. This is our apology for again entering so soon on the field of Mr. Grote's labours, and introducing our readers as best we can to the chapter which in originality of conception and excellence of execution will generally be hailed as the masterpiece of his work.

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