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C H A P . IV.
Sketches on a journey into the Country o f the Bosjefmans.
T hkkb weeks had feared y elapfed, after our return from
the Kaffer country, till we were ready for another expedition
to the northward, acrofs the Sneuwberg or Snowy Mountains.
In thefe mountains, and in the country immediately behind
them, dwells a race of men, that, by their habits and manner
o f life, are juftly entitled to the name o f favage;— a name,
however, o f which, it is greatly to be feared, they have been
rendered more worthy by the conduft of the European fettlers.
They are known in the colony by the name of Bosjefmans, or
men of the bufhes, from the concealed manner in which they
make their approaches to kill and to plunder. They neither
cultivate the ground nor breed cattle, but fubfift, in part, on
the natural produce of their country, and make up the reft by
depredations on the colonifts on one fide, and the neighbouring
tribes o f people that are more civilized than themfelves, on the
other. Twenty years ago, it feems, they were lefs numerous
and lefs ferocious than at the prefent d a y ; and their boldnefs
and numbers are faid of late to have very much increafed. At
one time they were pretty well kept under by regular expeditions
of the peafantry againft them. Each diviiion had its
commandant, who. was authorifed to raife a certain number of
men,
men, and thefe were furnilhed by government with powder
and ball. It was a fervice at all times taken with relu&ance,
efpecially by filch as were leaft expofed to the attacks of the
favages; and, during the late difturbances of Graaff Reynet,
thefe expeditions met with coniiderable interruptions. The
people of Bruyntjes Hoogte were the firft who failed in raifing
their proportion of men. Zuure Veldt was deferted, and Cam-
deboo and Zwart Ruggens became negligent and remifs. The
people o f Sneuwberg, lying neareft to the common enemy, were
left to fuftain the whole brunt of the bulmefs j and had they
not condufted themfelves with great fortitude, perfeverance,
and addrefs, that valuable part o f the colony, the nurfery of
cattle, had now been abandoned. A whole diviiion called the
Tarka, and a great part of another, the Sea-Cow river and
Rhinofceros-berg, had been deferted, as well as a fmall part of
Sneuwberg. There is, however, another caufe which, more
than the interruption to the expeditions, has tended to increafe
the ftrength and the boldnefs of thefe favages, and which, unlefs
removed,, will in the end effedt the utter ruin o f this diftant
part of the colony. The cafe is this: The government o f the
Cape, which feemed to have been as little acquainted with the
temper and difpofition of its diftant fubjeCts as with the geography
o f the country, formed all its refolutions, refpefting the
Bosjefmans, on reprefentations made to it by the perfons immediately
concerned. In confequence of thefe reprefentations, it
decreed that fuch of the Bosjefmans as ihould be taken alive in
the expeditions made againft them, Were to be diftributed by
lot among the commandant and his party', with whom they