well stocked with fruit and vegetables, requiring much water, but easily
getting it from the 'fountain.' On the Sunday morning the chapel bell
rang for early service. Breakfasting at seven, all were ready for the
schools at half-past eight. The infants were taught by Miss Moffat
(their daughter Ann, afterwards Mrs. Frédoux) in their school-house;
more advanced classes were grouped in the open air, or collected in the
adjacent buildings. Before ten the work of separate teaching ceased, and
young and old assembled for public worship. A sanctuary, spacious and
lofty, and airy withal, was comfortably filled with men, women, and
children, for the most part decently dressed."

[Illustration]

This description may be supplemented by that of a scene of frequent
occurrence, given in "Robert and Mary Moffat" by their son Mr. John A.
Moffat. He says: "The public services were, of course, in the Sechwana
language. Once a week the missionary families met for an English
devotional meeting. It was also a sort of custom that as the sun went
down there should be a short truce from work every evening. A certain
eminence at the back of the station became, by common consent, the
meeting-place. There the missionary fathers of the hamlet would be
found, each sitting on his accustomed stone. Before them lay the broad
valley, once a reedy morass, now reclaimed and partitioned out into
garden lands; its margin fringed with long water-courses, overhung with
grey willows and the dark green syringa. On the low ground bordering the
valley stood the church, with its attendant mission-houses and schools,
and on the heights were perched the native villages, for the most part
composed of round, conical huts, not unlike corn-stacks at a distance,
with some more ambitious attempts at house-building in the shape of
semi-European cottages. Eastward stretched a grassy plain, bounded by