"As the hopes of the restoration of the exiled family grew ever less and less, my father entered with more interest into his father-in-law's business. The latter carried on a brisk trade with the Cape of Good Hope, and thither I was sent, when barely twenty-one, as one of the junior partners in the house. I resided for many years at Stellenbosch, occasionally passing months together at Klyberg, a large farm in the north of the colony, not far from the Gariep, or the Orange river, as it has since been named." "Not very far from where we are now, in fact," observed Lavie. "It was nearer to the west coast than this," said De Walden, "by some hundreds of miles, and the country was very fertile. Both at Stellenbosch and Klyberg we employed a great number of Hottentots as slaves. Our treatment of them I shall remember with shame and grief to the last day of my life!" He paused from emotion. And Lavie said-- "You were not different, I suppose, in your treatment of them from your neighbours?" "Unhappily, no. But that is small comfort. It seems wonderful to me now, with my present feelings, how I could have accepted without questioning, as I did, the opinions of those about me on the subject. We entertained the notion that the natives were an inferior race to ourselves, intended by Providence to be kept in a condition of servitude, as the sheep and oxen were; to be kindly treated if they were docile and industrious; to be subdued and punished if refractory." "That is, of course, a perverted view," said the doctor, "but still no one, who has seen much of these races, can doubt their inferiority, or the necessity of their being instructed and kept in control by the whites." "Granted," said the missionary. "The whites had, in fact, a mission of love and mercy entrusted to them. They ought to have taught the natives, and raised them gradually to a level with themselves. But we never taught or raised them. On the contrary, our persistent determination was to keep them down. We dreaded their acquiring knowledge; and looked with jealousy and dislike upon some earnest and devoted men, who had come from Europe for the purpose of enlightening them." "Did you come across George Schmidt, sir?" inquired Warley, with an eagerness of manner which attracted De Walden's attention. "I have read about him, and have been anxious to meet some one who knew him."