Mattivi’s story ran thus. — A long time ago, when he was on a
warlike expedition against the Nuakketsies, his people obtained,
among various articles of plunder, many things of European manufacture
which he knew to have belonged to those persons. Being
afterwards at the chief town of the Barolongs under Makrakki, he
there saw a quantity of clothes and many knives, of the same manufacture,
which that people said they had received from the Nuakketsies.
At a subsequent period when he was at peace with this
last-mentioned tribe, he visited them in consequence of a friendly
invitation from Mokkaba their Chief; and then saw a great number
of other articles which were certainly part of the contents of the
waggons belonging to those travellers. He particularized, a red-
painted board, knives, clothes, and other things which, by his description,
were a pair of men’s-braces, and an epaulette. On my asking if
he saw any guns, he said; No, the guns were beaten to pieces, and
the barrels made use of for sharpening their knives upon. Expecting
to discover, in his account, some traces of watches, or of optical
or mathematical instruments, I inquired if he saw any things of
shining metal different from those which he had seen in my possession
; for I had been careful to conceal from the natives every article
of this description : but he replied, that he had observed nothing but
clothes, and the goods which he had specified. Molaali, he said, had
brought home a green-handled knife; but this was lost on the day
before I arrived at Litakun. Happening to cast his eye upon a metal
tea-pot which was standing in the waggon, he remarked that one of
his people was bringing away a similar pot, but at length finding it
heavy and troublesome to carry, he threw it away on the road.
When I asked if he could not send the man to fetch it, and promised
to reward him liberally, he said; that could not be done, as it was
thrown away at a spot too far off. I expressed a strong wish that, as
the Nuakketsies were now at peace, he should send a party, of his
men to Melitta to purchase for me some of the goods which had
belonged to my countrymen. This was a request with which nothing
could induce him to comply, as the inhabitants of that town, he
asserted, would certainly murder every Bachapin who came there.
And on my offering to accompany such a party, to protect them with
our guns, his tone of refusal became still more positive and seemed
to indicate that he was displeased at my entertaining even the bare
idea of venturing to go among so dangerous a tribe of men. He
then informed me that the detachment, which was lately sent to
pursue the robbers who carried off the cattle, had returned almost
immediately, as they were afraid to advance against the enemy ; or
rather, as I suspect, were afraid to overtake them. On his boasting
that, if I had not been at this time on a visit to him, he would have
gone against them himself with the whole body of his people, I said
that I would leave Litakun, and remain absent on a hunting excursion,
till he returned; but his answer then was, that he must wait
till the season of hot weather, before he could make his intended
attack.D
uring this conversation, I remarked that he mentioned nothing
which might not have been known and seen while those travellers
were at Litakun on their way to the more northern tribes; and 1
therefore endeavoured, by various questions, to discover such circumstances
as could have become known by no other means than by
a complete plundering of their waggons; but I could obtain only
such answers as were mere evasions of my questions, or such as were
inconsistent with the other parts of his story, and served only to
strengthen my former suspicions that the whole was nothing else
than a fabrication, for the purpose of creating in the minds of white
men a prejudice against those tribes towards whom he entertained
either enmity or jealousy. That this was the object at which he
aimed, was sufficiently betrayed by his frequent exclamations against
the Nuakketsies, and by his often repeating, with peculiar earnestness,
that the governor of the Cape must send a strong body of men to
punish them severely for this murder. When I asked how it could
be possible for a numerous body of men to find provisions in his
country, when even so small a party as mine, were unable to obtain
at Litakun the necessary daily food, he replied, that he would engage
to give them both oxen and corn, and would, moreover, accompany
them himself with all his people. I then told him, that the governor