»77s- killed within the fpace of three years, by the common dogs January. „ - , .,* ' belonging to the farm ; now and then, however, a dog or two had loft their lives in the conflict, or elfe had been very much wounded. I was told, that a flave who looked' after his mafter’s cattle, had been attacked unawares and by Health on the plains between 'Tiger-mountain and the Cape, by a tiger, with which he had long ftruggled and rolled about upon the ground : at length, however, the tiger was overpower- . ed by the flave, who, notwithftanding the dangerous wounds he had received, recovered. This, though bordering on the marvellous, is not abfolutely incredible ; for when revenge, or the dread of inftant death, is added to a mail’s natural ftrength and vigour, he is almoft capable of performing fupernatural things. I recoiled!:, moreover, to have read, in J o n s t o n ’s l ’haumatographia Naturalis, that a man of the name o f P o l y d a m a s , was able, unarmed, to kill a lion. The tiger, however, that we ihot at this place, feemed to me to be rather dangerous to grapple with. It was thought to be old and about the ufual fize. I can-, not find in my note-book, whether I had taken any notes of the meafure; but I think I remember that the beaft was two feet high, but much longer in proportion than a dog of the fame height. Very early in the afternoon, the hunting party above- mentioned went away, and about an hour before dark there arrived a hord of Caffres. ' They had got within three hundred paces o f us, before we difcovered them, being to the number of about one hundred, all men, and each of them armed with a few haffagais, or a couple o f kirries. They marched, marched, moreover, direCtly on towards our waggon, not with the carelefs gait of ordinary travellers, but with mea- fured fteps, as it were ; and, in fhort, with an almoft affected pride and ftatelinefs in their deportment, as they approached nearer to us. Upon the whole, we could not well have received a vifit on this fpot more unexpected, nor o f a more alarming'nature; indeed, it occafioned a vifible confternation in feveral of my Hottentots, at the fame time that it puzzled my friend and me, to think in what manner we fhould receive this nation fo on a fudden, fo as to avoid iharing the unhappy fate which, as I have already mentioned before, at page 154 of this volume, attended H e u p P e n a e r and hisfuit. In cafe of an attack, my Hottentots were too few in number, and too cowardly to be depended upon ; fuch of them as were of the Bofhies-man’s race, and had come with us from Zondags-rivier, would probably have affifted in plundering our waggon, had they found a convenient opportunity ; and who knows, whether they were not in fecret intelligence with the Boihies-men, who were at this time in the fervice of the Caffres, and belonged to their party. They had long prefled me to leave A g te r Bruntjes- hoogte. At leaft I had hints given me afterwards, that this vifit of the Caffres was not accidental, but was paid me in confequence of fome intelligence given them by, certain Hottentots ?X Agter Bruntjes-hoogte. However, I had not'then time to go into fuch deep fpeculations on the fubjeCt, being entirely occupied by the apprehenfion, left the party under my command, by the fmalleft appearance of cowardice or a difpofition to mutiny, ihould call forth the ufual enter- prifing fpirit of the Caffres. I was very fenfible that my friend »77s- January.
27f 72-2
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