Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/51

 IN SOUTH AFRICA. 39 Hottentot language, by the Reverend Dr. van der Kemp and J. Read, missionaries of the London Missionary Society. Dr. Bleek goes on to say that Sir George Grey had not succeeded, up to the time of publication of the catalogue, in finding a copy of this catechism, although every effort had been made, both in the Colony and in Europe, to ascertain if a copy was in existence. It will be observed that Dr. Bleek has no uncertainty as to the title ; he was living at a time when he could have had intercourse with those who may have remembered the publication. I myself have been told by a Rhodesian collector that he knows of a copy in private possession in England. In spite of all this I am very sceptical as to the existence at any time of any such publication, and still more do I doubt the date and place of its printing. Should the catechism exist it would be of extreme importance to philologists as an example of the Hottentot language before it became vitiated by outside influences. As this ' Tzitzika ' has been so often spoken and written of, it may be as well to detail with some exactness my reasons for doubting its existence. No mention is made of the Catechism either in the Biography of Van der Kemp, or in the reports of the London Missionary Society. This is the more curious as the London Society always carefully recorded the philological labours of its missionaries, especially in the nature of trans- lations of the Bible, hymns, or religious works. Some years earlier, the Society printed at length in its report Dr. Van der Kemp's ' Specimens of the Caffre language.' So much for the writing of