555193

TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES

IN

CAFFRARIA:

DESCRIBING

THE CHARACTER, CUSTOMS, AND MORAL CONDITION
OF THE TRIBES

INHABITING THAT PORTION OF

SOUTHERN AFRICA:

WITH HISTORICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL REMARKS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE
STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE BRITISH SETTLEMENT IN ITS

BORDERS, THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY,

AND THE PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

BY STEPHEN KAY,

CORRESPONDING

ESTABLISHED

MEMBER OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN
INSTITUTION,

FOR INVESTIGATING THE GEOGRAPHY, NATURAL HISTORY,
AND GENERAL RESOURCES OF SOUTHERN AFRICA.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY JOHN MASON, 14, CITY-ROAD,
AND SOLD AT 66, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

MDCCCXXXIII.

"YOUR Missionaries have dived into that mine from which we were often told no valuable ore or precious stones could be extracted; and they have brought up the gem of an immortal spirit, flashing with the light of intellect, and glowing with the hue of Christian graces."

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.

WATSON.

LONDON: Printed by James Nichols, 2, Warwick-Square.

PREFACE.

To urge upon the Christian world the loud and affecting calls of the perishing African, is the writer's principal object in the following pages. To this he has himself been urged by an imperative sense of duty, as well as by the advice of several wise and judicious friends, to whose learning and piety the world itself is indebted, and in whose counsels he therefore deems it no small honour to have had a place. A considerable portion of the short period that has elapsed since his return to Europe having been spent in travelling and attending public meetings in different and widely distant parts of the United Kingdom, the work has been unavoidably delayed much longer than was first intended; but being at length completed, he now very diffidently presents it to the public, hoping that the reader will candidly overlook any defect that may appear in style or arrangement, especially when told that it has been prepared for the press amidst much pastoral and other ministerial duty.

It was the opinion of a great man,* (now no

The Rev. Richard Watson, whose truly Missionary spirit broke forth, on an occasion never to be forgotten, in the following strong and emphatic expressions: "Mr. Kay, were I as young as you, Africa should be the field of my choice."