Selukwe Reserve Mission Site
FROM the South African Missionary more particulars regarding the Selukwe Mission Reserve are obtained, toward which our Sabbath-schools donated on the last Sabbath in June. Brethren T. J. Gibson and J. N. de Beer recently visited the new site, and report as follows:— “We visited the Selukwe Mission site last week, and endeavored to obtain all the information possible about the place. The reserve is thickly settled by natives. From the mission site one gets a beautiful view of the surrounding country, and native kraals and lands can be seen in every direction. Mr. Myers, a farmer living about three and one-half miles from the site and several hundred feet lower, said that he had lived there for nearly three years, and neither he nor his family had had any fever. So it would seem that the place is fairly healthful. “We tried to find out all we could about the agricultural advantages of the reserve. There are several good places for potato and vegetable growing—about five acres, I should say—and enough land for mealie growing. Mr. Myers, who has a trading station at the site, said that he raised fairly good mealie crops on the place. The natives around there also get some good crops. The site is admirably situated for a store, being on the only wagon road from Selukwe to the native chief’s kraal and the center of the native population; and if a store license can be secured, it would certainly be a good thing for the mission. “The most suitable place to build is within four hundred yards of the spring, commanding a view of the country equal in extent to the Cape Flats as seen from the top of Wynberg Hill. Our site is in the open, and will get the sun, and every breeze that blows. The natives now know that we are to have this place, and have reserved it for us, their gardens approaching it on every side. There are fifty morgens (one hundred acres), which gives us sufficient land for mealies, potatoes, a vegetable garden, and a good orchard. We are now awaiting orders to move on.”