chofe to venture themfelves. The manner indeed in which
their village was attacked was certainly not calculated to infpire
them' with much confidence. On the contrary, it was fo
direâly hoflile as perfedtly to juflify their fhooting a volley of
arrows among us, which was afterwards found to be the cafe,
as the commandant had aflerted. The conclufion of the bufi-
nefs, however, mull have appeared to them'very different from
what, on former occafions, they had always experienced, when
, thofe who efcaped from immediate death were incefiantly pur-
fued and fired upon, and their wives and children feized and
carried away into llavery. In this inflançe they were well
treated, and left at full liberty to remain with us or to depart.
The women all flaid behind ; but three of the men accompanied
us to the waggons, where they continued for feveral days.
We had wifhed to fpeakwith the captain or chief of the horde,
but they affiired us there was no fuch perfon ; that every one
was mafter of his own family, and afted entirely without control,
being at liberty to remain with, or quit, the fociety as it
might belt fuit them.
Little fatisfadtory could be obtained from thofe who returned
with us to the waggons. They infilled on their innocence, by
afierting that their horde, fo long as they had compofed a part
of it, had never committed depredations on the colonifts, but
had always remained about the fpot we found them, where
they fubfifted by the chace, and upon the roots of the earth.
Appearances certainly were much in their favor; no bones nor
horns o f animals were found near the horde ; no fkins but
thofe of young elands, fpringboks, tigers, and jackals. One
woman
woman in the Whole-party had a fingle fheep’s {kin thrown
over her ihoulders, which was very induflrioufly pointed out
by the farmers as a proof of their having fiiffered from this
horde.
Before the men were fent away from the waggons a large
prefent was made-to each of tobacco; beads, knives, flints, and
Heels; and they were defired to tell all their countrymen they
ihould happen to fee, - that whenever they ihould defifl from
Healing the cattle of the colonifls, and ihould come to any of
the farm-houfes without bow and arrows, or other weapons,
and fay they were in want, as many or more iheep ihould be
given to them than they could pofiibly obtain by plunder: that
our prefent journey into their country was for no other intention
than to givd them an opportunity of putting a final Hop to
all expeditions againfl them, if, by a change of conduit, they
were inclined to avail themfelves of i t ; and they were allured
that not a fingle ihot would have been fired upon their horde
had they not firfi difcharged their arrows upon the farmers.
Having remained with us very contentedly for a few days,
they returned to their kraal highly pleafed with the treatment
they had met with, and with the prefents they had received.
1 T tfe horde or kraal confified of five-and-twenty huts, each
made of a final! grafs-mat bent into a femicircle,' and fafiened
down between two flicks; open before, but clofed behind with
a fecond mat. . They were about three feet high and four feet
wide, and the ground in the middle was dug out like the nefl
of an oflrich; a little grafs flrewed in this hollow ferved as
N N 2 ' their