I propose to continue to move out from the essay on the origin of language and the comparative grammar to consider material collected in Bleek's Natal diaries. Here the autobiographical and the theoretical intertwine. The universal philologist's account of his travels in one of the most heavily evangelized territories in the world provides an invaluable perspective on the formation of South African colonial ideology. Having stressed what was brought to Africa, I will now extend the argument that Bleek did not simply transpose metropolitan modes of conceptuality to the colonies, but responded to the dynamics of the colonial context. Nowhere is this clearer than in his account of Zulu religious thought, social structure, and linguistic development. The capacity for personification and metaphor will become determining categories whereby development is tabulated.