In the early years of the present century, the natives of South Africa comprised—­besides the Hottentots, who occupied the southern portion of the country, and were thinly scattered, to the north-west, in Great Namaqualand—­the Kafirs, who dwelt in the south-east, beyond the Fish River; the Basutos, whose kraals were south of the Orange River; the Bechwanas and kindred tribes to the north of that river; and far away to the north-west, beyond Namaqualand, the Damara tribes, of whom but little was known at that time.  Besides these, there were the Bushmen, a roving people, small in stature, and sunk to the lowest depths of barbarism, hunted down by the Dutch farmers like wild beasts, who had their hands turned against every man, and every man’s hand turned against them.

To the Moravians belongs the honour of first seeking to bring the natives of South Africa under the influences of Christianity.  In 1737 George Schmidt, who had been sent forth by the small Moravian church of Herrnhut, arrived in Cape Colony, and at Genadendal (the Vale of Grace), then known as Bavian’s Kloof (the Glen of Baboons), established a mission station, where he laboured among the despised and oppressed Hottentots with much success for seven years.  His work excited considerable opposition and persecution.  He gathered a small Christian community and a school; but the Boers, or Dutch farmers, becoming jealous of the black population receiving education, he was summoned to Holland, and not allowed to return.

Fifty years elapsed before the Brethren were able to resume their work; but in 1792, three humble Christian artisans recommenced labour at Genadendal.  The occupation of the colony by the British Government gave security to their mission, and it soon grew to be a large settlement, and a centre of light and civilisation to the surrounding country.

In 1799 the London Missionary Society commenced work in Cape Colony; at first by four brethren, who were shortly reinforced by Dr. J.P.  Vanderkemp, a native of Holland, a man of rare gifts and dauntless courage.  Successively scholar, cavalry officer, and physician, he was for some years a sceptic, but being converted through the drowning of his wife and child, and his own narrow escape from death, he commenced the earnest study of the Bible and the Eastern languages, and gained such wonderful proficiency in the latter, that it is stated he had a fair knowledge of sixteen.

Vanderkemp chose the Kafir tribes for his field of labour, and in 1799 proceeded from Graf Reinet, then the most distant colonial town, and that nearest to the Kafirs, to the headquarters of that people.  Frequently in danger of his life, among those who considered the murder of a white man a meritorious deed, he worked and endured great hardship and privation, that he might make known the truths of the Gospel to the ignorant around, until the close of the year 1800, when, owing to a rebellion among the farmers, and the general unsettled state of the frontier, he was compelled to relinquish his mission.