“But how do they live?” Then it was explained to me that each resident in the Institution had a plot of ground of his own, and that he lived on its produce, as far as it went, like any other estated gentleman. Then the men would go out for a little sheep-shearing, or the picking of Buchus in the Buchu season. The Buchu is a medicinal leaf which is gathered in these parts and sent to Europe. Such an arrangement cannot be for the welfare either of the Colony or of the people concerned. Nothing but work will bring them into such communion with civilization as to enable them to approach the condition of the white man. The arcadian idea of a coloured man with his wife and piccaninnies living happily under the shade of his own fig tree and picking his own grapes and oranges is very pretty in a book, and may be made interesting in a sermon. But it is ugly enough in that reality in which the fig tree is represented by a ruined mud-hut and the grapes and oranges by stolen mutton. The sole effect of the missionary’s work has too often been that of saving the Native from working for the white man. It was well that he should be saved from slavery;--but to save him from other work is simply to perpetuate his inferiority. The land at the Caledon Institution is the property of the resident Natives. Each landowner can at present sell his plot with the sanction of the Governor. In ten years’ time he will be enabled to sell it without such sanction. The sooner he sells it and becomes a simple labourer the better for all parties. I was told that the Governor’s sanction is rarely if ever now refused.