C H A P . IIL
Sketches on a journey into the Country o f the Kaffers.
I m m e d i a t e l y after our arrival at Graaff Reynet, the Pro-
vifional Landroft, in his lift of grievances under which the
diftridt was then laboring, reprefented the deplorable ftate of
fome of its dependencies from the incurfions o f the tribe of
people known by the name of Kaffers. Certain chiefs o f this
nation, he faid, with their families, and vaffals, and cattle,
were overrunning the country : fome had even advanced as
far as the borders of the diftridt o f Zwellendam ; others had
Rationed themfelves on the banks of the Sondag, or Sunday
river, within M y or fixty miles of the Drofdy; hut that the
great bulk o f them were in that divifion of the diftridt called
the Zuure-veldt, or Sour Grafs plains, which ftretch along the
fea-coaft between the Sunday and the Great Fiih rivers : that
an inhabitant of Bruyntjes Hoogte, another divifion of the diftridt,
who, during the late difturbances and anarchy in the
affairs of Graaff Reynet, had on all occafions ufed a di&atorial
language and afted a bufy part, had now fent him a letter demanding
that the command ihould be given to him o f a
detachment of the farmers againft a party of Kaffers who had
paffed the borders of this divifion of the diftridt with three or
four thoufand head of cattle : that he, the provifional landroft,
had,
had, from certain intelligence of the coming of the adtual landroft,
fortunately withheld his anfwer to the faid letter; for, in
the prefent ftate of affairs, he would not have dared to give a
refufal: to all the meafures o f the leading party he had been
compelled to affent: he had in fadt been forced by the anar-
chifts, by way of giving a kind o f fandtion to their proceedings,
to take upon him the title o f an office, the duties o f
which he was neither qualified, nor indeed fuffered, to perform.
The firft bufinefs, therefore, o f the landroft, after his arrival
at the Drofdy, was to ftop the preparations of the farmers for
making war againft the Kaffers, by letting them know that it
was his intention to pay a vifit to the chiefs o f that nation, and
to prevail on them, i f poffible, to return quietly and peaceably
into their own country beyond the fettled limits of the Great
JFilh river. This, no doubt, was an unwelcome piece o f intelligence
to the writer o f the letter, and to thofe of the intended
expedition who were to ihare with him the plunder o f the
Kaffers’ cattle, which, in fadt, and not any laudable motive for
the peace and welfare of the diftridt, was the mainfpring that
operated on the minds of thofe who had confeuted to take up
arms againft them. To the avaricious and covetous dftpofition
of the colonifts, and their licentious .condudt, was owing a
ferious rupture with this nation in the year 1793, which
terminated with the almoft total expnlfion of the former from
fome of the divifions of the d iftr id tan d though in the fame
year the treaty was renewed which fixed the Great Fiffi river
to be the line o f demarcation between the two nations, and the
Kaffers retired within their proper limits, yet few o f the colonifts