Letter from Aldin Grout to Elnathan Davis

Have arrived in Natal; birth of child Relief Oriana on Dec. 9. Hannah's post-partum illness. Sailed with Brothers Champion and Adams to Port Natal, leaving wives at Bethelsdorp: "Notwithstanding all that has been said of the wickedness of the white people at Natal, or what may actually be true, they received us with open arms... We however should not expect the same treatment from them after we had preached to them the gospel, and reproved them for some of their bold acts of transgression, as drunkenness and polygamy." Landscape and climate of Natal; travel in Natal interior. Dingane's kraal; reception by Dingane, who "received and treated us with the utmost kindness and attention, supplying us each day with both sweet and sour milk. During our five days stay with him, he gave us a goat, and two cows for slaughter, and when we left he gave us five oxen for slaughter..." Capt. Gardner advises Grout and company not to leave before his return from England "lest "we should undo by then going all the good he had done." Dingane and chiefs consent to accept missionaries, though chiefs express fear what had been predicted to Shaka, "that one white man after another would come into the country and ask to build a house and live till at last an army would come and take their country from them." Allow the missionaries to base themselves at Natal while they build a school to teach the Zulus how to read and write. Plan to build station in Natal to teach Xhosa and other tribes destroyed by Shaka and Dingane. Hardships of return trip; return to Bethelsdorp. "Whether or not Dingaan shall want missionaries and teachers for all his kingdom, seems to depend upon the question whether his people can learn to read and write, the affirmative of which we think we can in a short time demonstrate and then we believe that Dingaan would rejoice to see an hundred missionaries come among his people at once..."