pafs by a party of Kaffers and Hottentots, and, as ufual, on
perceiving the enemy, mounted their horfes and galloped away
as faft as they could, leaving their wives and children and waggons
in the poffeffion of the robbers.
No outrage nor injury were offered to the prifoners, but, on
the contrary, as on all fimilar occaiions, they were treated with
refpedt. They even difpatched a Hottentot after the fugitive
boors to fay, that if they chofe to ranfom their wives and children
for a fmall quantity .of powder and lead, and a dozen head
of cattle, they ihould initantly be delivered up. It is natural
to fuppofe that, under fuch circumftances, the ties of kindred
affe&ion would have fuperfeded all confederations of prudence,
and have ftifled refentment; and that a propofal, which held
out fuch eafy terms for the recovery of their wives and children,
would have been feized with avidity. This, however,
was not the cafe. An African boor has no fuch feelings; his
palhons, uncontrolled by the powers of reafon or refledion,
ate always predominant. One of the party, reeognifing the
Hottentot, thus fent to them, to have once been in his fervice,
and recolleding he was now ftanding before him in the fhape
of an enemy, and defencelefs, fired at once with rage and revenge,
fnatched up his mufquet in his hand, and fhot him dead
upon the fpot. Intelligence of this atrocious ad was fpeedily
conveyed, by the companion of the deceafed, to the Kaffers
and Hottentots ; and it was reported, and believed, that they had
in confequence put all the women and children to death. And
under this impreffion, as I have before obferved, the hufbands
and fathers of thefe women and children broke open Mr. Cal-
3 * lander’s
lander’s houfe, and were dancing, in a ftate of intoxication,
upon the green. The prifoners, however, were given up, not-
withftanding the murder of the meffenger; for they difdained,
as they told'them, to take away the lives of the innocent; but
that they fhould foon find an opportunity of avenging the death
o f their countryman upon their hufbands, together with the
many injuries and oppreffions under which they had fo long
been labouring.
It is painful to dwell on fubjeds that difgrace human nature,
but as the atrocities of the African colonifts have hitherto
efcaped the punifhment o f the law;, all that can be done is to
expofe them to the horror and deteftation of mankind. The
following ad ftated officially to government by Mr. Vander
Kemp, a miffionary in Graaf Reynet, is enough to make one
fhudder at the name of a Cape boor. This zealous and intelli-
Jigent man, on finding the Kaffers were riot difpofed to profit
by his inftrudions, eftablifhed himfelf under the fandion of government
near the Sunday River, in order to try his fuccefs
with the more tradable Hottentots. His little village foon became
an afylum for the poor fugitives, who, after their fkir-
milhes with the boors, had concealed themfelves among the
rocks and thickets. They now fled to Mr. Vander Kemp as to
a place of fecurity, and to one on whom, being, as they con-:
fidered him to be, in the fervice of the Britifh government,
they could place unbounded confidence. Among others, one
poor fellow with his wife and child, in his way to the afylum,
called at a boor’s houfe in Lange Kloof of the name of Van
Roy,