[Illustration: MAIN STREET IN PORT ELIZABETH.]

"Heathenism, as a system, is weak, indeed in many places it is nowhere.
Christianity meets with little opposition. The people generally are
prodigious Bible readers, church-goers, and psalm-singers, I fear to a
large extent without knowledge. Religion to them consists in the above
operations, and in giving a sum to the Auxiliary. I am speaking of the
generality, There are many whom I cannot but feel to be Christians, but
dimly. This can hardly be the result of low mental power alone. The
Bechwanas show considerable acuteness when circumstances call it out.

"The educational department of the Mission has been kept in the
background. On this station the youth on leaving school have sunk back
for want of a continued course being opened to them. The village
schoolmasters, uneducated themselves, and mostly unpaid, make but a
feeble impression. The wonder is that they do so much, and where the
readers come from. It is hard to say that the older missionaries could
have done otherwise.... I cannot tell you how one thing presses on me
every day: the want of qualified native schoolmasters and teachers; and
the question: how are they to be obtained?"

On Sunday, 20th March, 1870, Robert Moffat preached for the last time in
the Kuruman church, and on the Friday following the departure took
place. "Ramary" and "Mamary," as Mr. and Mrs. Moffat were called, had
completely won the hearts of the natives. For weeks past messages of
farewell had been coming from the more distant towns and villages, and
now that the final hour had arrived and the venerable missionary, with
his long white beard, and his equally revered wife, left their house and
walked to their waggon they were beset by crowds of people, each one
longing for another shake of the hand, a last parting word, or a final