been adopted. The referved oxen were yoked before the
others, and thus, by double teams, the waggons were at laft
drawn out o f this horrible chafm ; not, however, without producing
an inftance o f brutality and cruelty that will fcarcely be
fuppofed to exift in a civilized country. While the poor animals
were ftruggling and tearing on their knees, and exerting
their ftrength to the utmoft to draw up the waggons, the owner
o f one of the teams, enraged at their want o f fucceis, drew out
o f its cafe a large crooked knife with a iharp point, and fixing
on one of the oxen for the objed on which he might give vent
to his fury, cut him with feveral gaihes acrofs the ribs, in the
flank, and in the fleihy part of the thigh, fome o f them from
fix to feven inches long, and fo deep that when the animal
walked they opened two inches in width. The fize o f the
wounds is not mentioned loofely for the fake of exaggeration,
but is given from adtual meafurement. The ribs were literally
laid bare, and the blood ran down in ftreams ; yet in this condition
the poor beaft was obliged to draw in the waggon for the
fpace of three hours, after having received fuch brutal treatment.
By two of the gaihes a large piece o f flefh was very nearly
taken out o f the thick part o f the thigh; and had it not been
for the irritable ftate of mind into which the favage condudt o f
the fellow had thrown me, but more particularly left it
fhould feem to give a kind of countenance to his brutality, I
fhould have alked him to have cut it entirely out, as it could
not materially have encreafed the pain to the beaft; not for the
fake o f proving the delicacy of an Abyffinian beef-fteak, quivering
with life, but to have obferved the progrefs o f the
wound. In three or four days the gaihes were Ikinned over, and
appeared
appeared to give the animal little uneafinefs, but the cicatrices
would always remain ; and from thefe fort o f fears on the bodies
of many of the oxen, it is to be feared that cutting is a
pra&ice but too common among them, motwithftanding that
moft of the peafantry o f the party feemed to be fhocked at it.
This was the fécond inâance of the kind that I had occafion
to witnefs in the courfe o f this tour ; the other was perhaps the
more cruel, as it was exercifed on parts o f the body more fuf-
ceptible of pain, the nofe and the tongue. In this inftance the
animal bellowed moft hideouily, burft from the yoke, and
plunging into the thickets, made his efcape. Even in the
neighbourhood of the Cape, where, from a more extended
civilization, one would expeû a greater degree of humanity,
feveral atrocious a£ts o f the kind are notorious. One o f the
inhabitants, better known from his wealth and his vulgarity
than from any good quality he poflèfles, boafts that he can at
any time ftart his team on a full gallop by whetting his knife
only on the fide of the waggon. In exhibiting this mafterly
experiment, the effea o f a long and confiant perfeverance in
brutality, to fome of his friends, the waggon was overturned,
and one o f the company, unluckily not the proprietor, had his
k g broken. Hottentot’s Holland’s kloof, a fteep pafs over the
firft range of mountains beyond the promontory o f the Cape,
has been the feene of many an inftance of this fort of cruelty.
I have heard a fellow boaft that, after cutting and flafliing one
of his oxen in this kloof, till an entire piece of a foot fquare did
not remain in the whole hide, he ftabbed him to the heart j
and the fame perfon is laid, at another time, to have kindled a
fire