240 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. CHAP. IX. which English was taught, and with the general proficiency of the scholars. We then held a meeting with the people, and afterwards visited some of the Christian families at their own habitations. In the course of the afternoon, after taking leave of our hospitable friends, we returned to King William’s Town; and here bidding farewell to Mrs. Brownlee and her family, we crossed the Buffalo river, and commenced our homeward course. Should peace remain unbroken, and the enlightened policy of the governor, its surest guarantee, be continued, there would seem to be a happier future in prospect for the Caffre nation. If they have the means of sound practical education, comprising a knowledge of the useful arts, together with faithful religious teaching, there is no sufficient reason to doubt the advancement of this interesting people in all that belongs to the well-being of men in the present life and their hopes of that which is to come. On the 4th we crossed the Keiskamma at Line Drift. The bottom of the stream was rocky and the waters turbid, but we crossed in safety, though the governor’s party, in crossing at the same place a few weeks before, lost one of their waggons and a team of mules, all being swept down the stream. Con tinuing our way, we passed Fort Peddie, and crossed the Fish River at Trumpeter’s Drift, where another of the governor’s waggons had been carried down the stream, and the mules only saved by being cut loose and swimming to the shore. The waggon was lying among the bushes at some distance down the river at the time we passed. The owner of an accommodation house on the bank of the river told us that accidents were frequent with the natives, who remained in the waggons shouting to the oxen; but that white men gene rally had persons in the stream to keep the oxen up. Pursu ing our journey, and passing the night, which was wet and cold, on the high ground beyond Driver’s Hill, we reached