72 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
in
diameter, varying with the size of the hands over which they must be
slipped. The wire is wound round the hair very skilfully. European
visitors occasionally supply gold wire to these workers, which the
natives wind around the hair centres into fanciful bangles, some of
which are very pretty.
All
the workers in the compounds are supplied with Bibles, printed in
various tribal languages, which the natives are taught to read by
missionaries. At any and all times De Beers Compounds are open to
these teachers, who are specially delegated by English and German
missionary societies.
When
a " boy" is once moved to apply his mind to any study, he will commonly
plod on persistently, and there is among the natives generally an
unfeigned respect for teachers, and pride in the attainment of any
advance in learning. There is only the crudest notion of religion in
the minds of these negroes, and the missionary must have unwearied
patience who seeks to impress them with the idea of an invisible,
omnipotent, omnipresent God and Father of all. It is very difficult
for the missionaries to prove by the Bible that these savages should
have only one wife, and this has been a great stumbling-block in
teaching them Christianity. The native argues that, if he has only one
wife,she is continually wrangling with him, but if there are two or
more, they occupy themselves by wrangling with one another. And again,
he says, the more wives he has, the more crops he can raise. The women
do all the work at the kraals, and the men idle their time away in
peace and plenty.
The
preachers at the compound chapel or elsewhere in the compound often
call together their flocks with stirring notes of drum and trumpet, and
at gatherings of natives lime-lights and lantern slides are also
effectively used in vivid and telling illustrations. Sometimes an
interpreter stands at the preacher's elbow, to make his meaning clear
to native listeners, for the tribal dialects in the compound are like
the confusion of tongues in Babel. The missionaries are somewhat vexed
by the Kafir " doctors," who keep before the natives the vision of old
superstitions, as they squat on the ground in the compounds, sol-
