blood, he could not ftand without fupport. On examining his
wound, we found the ball had entered juft below the ihoulder
blade, and paffed through the right breaft. With fome difficulty
we contrived to flop the hemorrhage, and to bind up the wound,
after wafhing it well with milk and water. From the diftor-
tions of countenance, and the large drops of fweat that ran
over his body, it was very evident that he fufiered a violent degree
of pain; but he neither vented a figh nor a groan, nor
could be prevailed upon to open his lips, although fpoken to in
his own language by a Hottentot interpreter. We caufed him
to be carried into a dean ftraw hut, and milk in a curdled ftate
to be brought to him, but he refuted it. At an early hour in
the morning I went to the hut to inquire after the patient’s
health, but he was gone. The affray, or infidel, at the point
o f death, thought it fafer to crawl into the woods, than to remain
in the hands of Chriilians,
From Z-wart Kop’ s Riyer we proceeded to a plain that is contiguous
to Algoa Bay, where, to our great aftoniihment, we
found the whole of the boors and their families affembled, who
had been plundered by the Hottentots, with their cattle and
waggons and the remains of their property, waiting our arrival;
in order, as they laid, to claim protection againft the heathens.
It was a painful fituation to be thus placed between two parties,
each claiming proiedion, and each vowing vengeance againft
the other, without poffeffing the means of keeping them
afunder. My whole ftrength confifted in about a dozen dragoons
; the Hottentots, great and fmall, amounted to upwards
o f five hundred j and the boors, with their families, to about
one hundred and fifty. Fortunately the Rattlefnake was ftill
in.the bay, and I obtained from Captain Gooch twenty armed
feamen; and, the more effectually to keep the contending parties,
in. order, I caufed a fwivel gun to be mounted on a poft immediately
between the boors and the Hottentots.
In this ftate, after many days anxiety, in which none paffed
wiifiPUt quarrels and bickerings between the. boors and Hottentots,
I received a letter from General Vandeleur, ftating, that the
K.affers, inftigated by the rebel boors, had been led to the bold
meafure of attacking his camp near Bosjefman’s River, for the
fake, as he fuppofed, of obtaining a fupply of gunpowder; that
the latter had kept up a pretty briik fire from behind the bulhes,
but that the Kaffers finding it ufelefs to oppofe their long mif-
file weapons againft mufquetry, retired for a moment but foon
appeared again, rulhing forward upon the open plain, with the
iron part only of the Haffagai in their hands. That, however,
after feveral rounds of grape from the field-pieces, and the fire
of the infantry, by which numbers were killed, they retreated
into the thickets.
Thefe people foon perceived of how much greater advantage
was a ffiort weapon to a mufcular arm, than a long miffile fpear,
whofe flow motion through the air makes it eafily to be avoided.
The blade of the Roman fword, which once conquered the.
world, was only about fifteen inches long, and fuch a fword
would, perhaps, at this awful moment, be well fuited for the
nervous arm and the bold and invincible fpirit of a Briton.