Indoda Ebisithanda (“The Man who Loved Us”): The Reverend James Laing among the amaXhosa

While producing a guide to the diaries and journals in the Cory Library many years ago, I found two bound volumes of a largely unfathomable journal written by an early missionary of the Glasgow Missionary Society, James Laing. These volumes were housed as part of the extensive and valued Lovedale Collection. They were unnumbered but the entry dates ranged from 1845 to 1872.