The Press.
London, England, 1857-12-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 19, 1857.

fish, is well known. One gentleman alone lent
6,000 lampreys to Julius Caesar for his tri-
umphal banquets. Bees, too—with which sub-
ject this lecture is concluded—were of much
more value to a people ignorant of the sugar-
cane than to the moderns, and honey accor-
dingly formed a staple branch of their agricul-
tural produce. Columella tells us little which
is not in Virgil, though we could have wished
the following ingenious scheme for the dis-
covery of wild bees had been painted by the
master's hand, and adorned with all the
elegant fancy and golden versification of the
Georgics
- • • •

I►. is known that when the pastures afford suitable
materials for honey, bees are fond of resorting to the
fountains that lie near, and to these the bee hunter resorts,
in order to observe the number that come.
Should this be small, he concludes the spot to be un-
favourable ; but if considerable, he is encouraged to pro-
ceed ; and for this purpose the following was the method
adopted by the Roman bee hunter :
In the first place, he mixed up some red ochre with
water, and smeared with it the grass in the neighbourhood
of the spring. By this means the backs of all the bees that
resort there became coloured red, and this mark enabled
him to recognise them when they returned from their
Rights ; from the time occupied in which, he could tell the
distance of their hives from the spot to which they had re-
sorted. If this were near. there would be little difficulty in
discovering where it lay, which may then be done simply
by following the bees in their track homewards.
If however it be distant, the bee hunter took a reed, and
made a hole in it, which he filled with honey, or some sweet
syrup. When several bees, attracted by this, entered the
hole, he closed it with his thumb, and let out one single bee
ate time. This he chased as far as he could, and when he
had lost sight of it, let out another, and then another, until
lie could follow it to the entrance of the hive. Should
this be a cave, he smoked out the bees, and drove them
into some contiguous bush or tree, where he could collect
them in an appropriate vessel. But if it were an hollow
tree, be sawed it across at a little distance both above and
below the hive, and covered over the apertures with cloths.
He was thus enabled to carry home the hive of bees which
he had discovered.

Dr Danbeny's two concluding lectures are de-
voted to horticulture, known among the ancients
as ars topiaria, the art, namely, of giving fanciful
forms to trees and flowers, and corresponding
to the Dutch style once prevalent amongst
ourselves, rather than the modern landscape
gardening, of which the Romans seem to have
had no idea. Before, however, wo convict
them too hastily of want of taste in this
matter, we must remember that there was not
the same need of landscape gardening among
the ancient Italians as there is among our-
selves. Horace, as he looked out on the
tumbling Anio, the grove of Tiburnus, and
the orchards intersected by streamlets, had
his garden ready made to his eye.
In treating of this subject Columella had the
ground to himself. No previous writerhad ven-
tured to subject himself to the comparison that
must infallibly be instituted between him who
dropped and him who should take up the
biferi rosaria Pdsti. Columella, however,
scarcely challenges comparison. He perhaps
did not profess to be a poet ; and his verses
are sufficiently smooth and classical to entitle
him. to high praise upon any lower ground.
These two concluding lectures will be found
very interesting to scientific florists and
botanists, and very useful to all students of
the Georgics who are so much puzzled to
identify the various shrubs, plants, and flowers
there introduced.

Missionary Travels and Researches in South
Africa. By David Livingstone, LL.D.,
D.C.L. London : Murray.
;Second Notice.)
Ix accomplishing his two journies so suc-
cessfully, Dr. Livingstone owed much of that
success to having lived some twelve years
among the Bechuanas, whose mode of thought
and action and whose language he had tho-
roughly mastered. He had served his appren-
ticeship, as it were, to savage life, and he faced
strange tribes with a confidence no ordinary
traveller could hope to possess. He had per-
fect reliance upon his bodyguard of Makololo
men who accompanied him, and they in their
turn had implicit faith in their " father." He
had long resided among their people : ho had
taught them and tended them, had nursed
their wives through labour and sickness, and
he was beloved by their chief. Then, again,
the fame of the Makololo extended far into
the interior--few tribes within reach of tho
Makololo chief Sekeletu would have dared to

plunder or kill ono who travelled under such
distinguished protection ; and though, when
he got beyond the bounds of Makololo fame
or fear, he found tribes, especially within
slave-trading boundaries, evince a certain
amount of hostility towards his advance, he
never experienced a decided attack, although
upon many occasions a man with less self-
command, and less knowledge of the customs
of the country, would have inevitably been
destroyed.
The condition and customs of the Central
Africans are very primitive. The govern-
ment is patriarchal, each man being by virtue
of paternity chief of his own children; poor
men attach themselves to the families of rich
under-chiefs, who again are attached by mar-
riage to the great chief of the tribe. In this
chieftain is invested the power of life and
death, and before him all cases, from family
quarrels to grave political offences, are daily
heard in a council of elders, who, if the chief
does not see his way clearly to a decision, rise
one by one and give their opinions on the
cases. The decision of the chief is absolute.
Towards one another the Bechuana people are
remarkably truthful. In general they are not
litigious, and, where untainted by slave dealing,
they are industrious, and passionately fond of
liberty. They believe in a Supreme Being
and in a future state :

On questioning intelligent men among the Bakwains as
to their former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and the
future state, they have scouted the idea of any of them
ever having been without a tolerably clear conception on all
these subjects. Respecting their sense of right and wrong,
they profess that nothing we iutlicate as sin ever appeared
to them as otherwise, except the statement that it was wrong
to have more wives than one; and they declare that they
spoke in the same way of the direct influence exercised by
God in giving rain in answer to prayers of the rain-
makers, and iu granting deliverance in times of danger, as
they do now, before they ever heard of white men. The
want, however, of any form of public worship, or of idols, or
of formal prayers or sacrifice, make both Caffres and
Bechuanas appear as among the most godless races of
mortals known am where. But though they all possess a
distinct knowledge of a deity and of a future state, they
show so little reverence, and feel so little connection with
either, that it is not surprisiug that some have supposed
them entirely ignorant on the subject. A`, Lotlakani we
met an old Busman who at first seemed to have no con-
ceptiou of morality whatever; when his heart was warmed
by our presents of meat, he sat by the fire relating his early
adventures : among these was killing five other Bushmen,
" Two," said he, counting on his fingers, " were females,
one a male, and the other two calves.' —"What a villain you
are to boast of killing women and children of your own
nation ! what will God say when you appear before him ?"
—" He will say " replied he," that I was a very clever
fellow."
This is not altogether an unfavourable picture
of the people. Then they are inclined to live
peacably with their neighbours; so that if
there is not much material here for the mis-
sionary, there is a good deal for the merchant.
With all this, however, we find a certain serf-
dom existing, each under-chief having a
number of a subjected tribe at his disposal,
and from whom, otherwise independent, is
exacted a certain amount of daily labour.
This appears to be the only form of domestic
slavery permitted among them.

It is impossible here to classify the various
tribes whose villages Dr. Livingstone passed
through, either to the west or east. In all tho
patriarchal form of government exists; in all
there is much the same amount of immorality
and superstition, and much the same mixture
of good and evil, as exists in more civilised
communities. " After a long observation,'
says Dr. Livingstone, " I have come to the
"conclusion that they are just such a strange
" mixture of good and evil as men are every-
" where else ":

There is not among them an approach to that constant
stream of benevolence flowing from the rich to the poor
which we have in England, nor yet the unostentatious
attentions which we have among our own poor to each
other. Yet there are frequent instances of genuine kind-
ness and liberality, as well as actions of an opposite
character. The rich show kindness to the poor, in expec-
tation of services, and a poor person who has no relatives
will seldom be supplied even with water in illness, and,
when dead, will be drsg4eti out to he devoured by the
hytenas, instead of being buried. Relatives alone will
condescend to touch a dead body. It would be easy to
enumerate instances of inhumanity which I have witnessed.
. . . On the other hand, I have seen instances in which both
men and women have taken up little orphans, and carefully
reared them as their own children. By a selection of
cases of either kind, it would not be difficult to make these
people appear excessively good or uncommonly bad.
Their superstitious, on the whole, appear to be
harmless. They believe firmly in the power of

incantations and charms, and hold original
notions upon the origin of white men. The
Angola tribes have a taste for giving expensive
funerals to their friends. A man in this way
will encumber himself for years with the ex-
pense of a funeral. Often when a man is
asked to sell a pig he replies, " T am keeping
" it in case of the death of any of my friends ;"
and if you see one of the natives unusually
drunk, and tax him with his crimes, he excuses
himself with a " Well, but my mother is dead."
The peculiarity of other tribes consists in
their mode of saluting. They throw them-
selves on the ground, and as they roll from
side to side slap their thighs, and shout
" Kina Bomba—Kina Bomba." The sight of
huge woolly men in puris naturalibus wallowing
in the dust was especially distasteful to Dr.
Livingstone, but the more he shouted to stop,
the more furiously did these curious creatures
roll about and the more vigorously smack
their thighs.
This general outline of the customs of the
Bechuana tribe will serve equally for any
other tribe Dr. Livingstone encountered. The
African in general is a well•disposed, harmless
creature, barbarous without being savage, and
capable of considerable improvement by means
of trade. Religious influences—at least the
Christian religious influences—have very little
effect upon them. Among a people so situated
it is easy to imagine that the Christian faith
would take root rapidly, but unfortunately
Christianity touches these people in a tender
point. It limits them to one wife, and polygamy
is their custom. Sekeletu, the chief of the Ma-
kololo, refused to hear the Bibla for fear it
might " change his heart" and " make him
" content with one wife ":

It was of little use to urge that the change of heart
implied a contentment with one wife equal to his present
complacency in polygamy. Such a preference af.er the
change of mind could not now be untie/stood by him any
more than the real, unmistakeable pleasure of religions
services can, by those who have not experienced what is
known by the term the " new heart." I assured him that
nothing was expected but by his own voluntary decision.
" No, no ; he wanted always to have five wives at least."
I liked the frankness of Sekeletu, for nothing is so weary-
ing to the spirit as talking to those who agree with every-
thing advanced.

Sechele, the chief of the Bechuanas, has em-
braced Christianity, and put away his wives,
to their unutterable disgust and the indigna-
tion of their relatives. Sechele was much
hurt at this. "In former times," said he to
Dr. Livingstone, " when a chief was fond of
" hunting, all his people got dogs and became
" fond of hunting too. If he was fond of
" dancing or music, all showed a liking to
" these amusements too. If the chief loved
" beer, they all rejoiced in strong drink. But
" in this case it is different. I love the Word of
" God, and not one of my brethren will join me."
Dr. Livingstone then adds that one reason
was, that at this particular time the country
was suffering from drought, which they attri-
buted to the conversion of Sechele, and that
hypocrisy is not prone to profess a creed
which seems to insure an empty stomach.
"We like you," said the under-chiefs to him,
" as well as if you had been born among us ;
" you are the only white man we can become
" familiar with (thoaela); but we wish you to
" give up that everlasting preaching and pray-
" ing ; we cannot become familiar with that at
" all. You see we never get rain, while those
" tribes who never pray as we do obtain abun-
" dance." It was in vain that Dr. Livingstone
tried to convince them on this occasion that
God would give them rain. "He made black
" men first," said one native with exquisite
pathos, " and did not love us, as he did the
" white men. Ho made you beautiful, and
" gave you clothing, and guns, and gunpowder,
" and horses, and waggons, and many other
" things about which we know nothing. But
" toward us he had no heart. He gave us
" nothing, except the assegai, and cattle, and
" rain-making; and he did not give us hearts
" like yours. We never love each other."
In their attendance at religious service they
were usually attentive. If the young men
would not listen, the chief would occasionally
hurl his staff at their heads, by way of fixing
their attention for the future ; but the women
and children were not to be relied on at the
conclusion of prayer :