taking place as the improvement of our other faculties goes on.  It is fortunate that the translation of the Bible has been effected before the language became adulterated with half-uttered foreign words, and while those who have heard the eloquence of the native assemblies are still living; for the young, who are brought up in our schools, know less of the language than the missionaries; and Europeans born in the country, while possessed of the idiom perfectly, if not otherwise educated, can not be referred to for explanation of any uncommon word.  A person who acted as interpreter to Sir George Cathcart actually told his excellency that the language of the Basutos was not capable of expressing the substance of a chief’s diplomatic paper, while every one acquainted with Moshesh, the chief who sent it, well knows that he could in his own tongue have expressed it without study all over again in three or four different ways.  The interpreter could scarcely have done as much in English.

This language both rich and poor speak correctly; there is no vulgar style; but children have a ‘patois’ of their own, using many words in their play which men would scorn to repeat.  The Bamapela have adopted a click into their dialect, and a large infusion of the ringing “ny”, which seems to have been for the purpose of preventing others from understanding them.

The fact of the complete translation of the Bible at a station seven hundred miles inland from the Cape naturally suggests the question whether it is likely to be permanently useful, and whether Christianity, as planted by modern missions, is likely to retain its vitality without constant supplies of foreign teaching?  It would certainly be no cause for congratulation if the Bechuana Bible seemed at all likely to meet the fate of Elliot’s Choctaw version, a specimen of which may be seen in the library of one of the American colleges—­as God’s word in a language which no living tongue can articulate, nor living mortal understand; but a better destiny seems in store for this, for the Sichuana language has been introduced into the new country beyond Lake Ngami.  There it is the court language, and will take a stranger any where through a district larger than France.  The Bechuanas, moreover, in all probability possess that imperishability which forms so remarkable a feature in the entire African race.

When converts are made from heathenism by modern missionaries, it becomes an interesting question whether their faith possesses the elements of permanence, or is only an exotic too tender for self-propagation when the fostering care of the foreign cultivators is withdrawn.  If neither habits of self-reliance are cultivated, nor opportunities given for the exercise of that virtue, the most promising converts are apt to become like spoiled children.  In Madagascar, a few Christians were left with nothing but the Bible in their hands; and though exposed to persecution, and even death itself, as the penalty of adherence to their profession, they increased ten-fold in numbers, and are, if possible, more decided believers now than they were when, by an edict of the queen of that island, the missionaries ceased their teaching.