w k January. nimbly as baboons or monkies. From thence they roll down large ftones, 011 any one that is imprudent enough to follow them. The approach of night gives them time to withdraw themfelves entirely from thofe parts, by ways and places with which none but themfelves are acquainted. Thefe banditti collect together again in bodies to the amount of fome hundreds, from their hiding-places and the clefts in the mountains, in order to commit freih depredations and robberies. One of the colonifts, who had been obliged to fly from thefe mountains, was at this time pafling to Agter Bruntjes-hoogte with his family, fervants, and cattle, in order to look out for a new habitation. He informed us, that the Bojhies-men grew bolder every day, and feemed to increafe in numbers, fince people had with greater ear- neftnefs fet about extirpating them. It was this, doubt- lefs, which has occalioned them to colled! together into large bodies, in order to withftand the encroachments o f the colonifts, who had already taken from them their belt dwelling and hunting-places. An inftance was related of the Boihies-men having belieged a peafant with his wife and children in their cottage, till at length he drove them off by repeatedly firing among them. They had lately carried off from a farmer the greater part o f his cattle. Not long before this, however, they had fuffered a confiderable defeat in the following manner. Several farmers, who perceived that they were not able to get at the Boihies-men by the ufual methods, ihot a fea-cow, and took only the prime part of it for themfelves, leaving the reft by way of bait; they themfelves, in the mean while, lying in ambuih. The Boihies-men with their wives and children now came 1 down down from their hiding-places, with L n r an intention to feaft Ja>nuIaPry.- fumptuouuy on the lea-cow that had been il>ot; but the farmers, who came back again very unexpectedly, turned the feaft into a fcene o f blood and daughter.— Pregnant women, and children in their tendered years, were not at this time,' neither indeed are they ever, exempt from the effetfts of the hatred and fpirit o f vengeance conftantly harboured by the colonifts with refpect to the Boihies-man nation; excepting fuch, indeed, as are marked out to be carried away into bondage. Does a colonift at any time get fight of a Bolhies-man, he takes fire immediately, and fpi- rits up his horfe and dogs, in order to hunt him with more ardour and fury than he would a wolf or any other wild beaft. On an open plain, a few colonifts on horfeback are always fure to get the better o f the greateft number of Boihies-men that can be brought together, as the former always keep at the diftance of about a hundred or a hundred and fifty paces, (juft as they find it convenient) and charging their heavy fire-arms with a very large kind of ihot, jump off their horfes, and reft their pieces .in their ufual manner on their ram-rods, in order that they may ihoot with the greater certainty; fo that the halls difcharged by them will fometimes, as I have been affured, go through the bodies of fix, feven, or eight o f the enemy at a tiine, efpecially as thefe latter know no better than to keep clofe together in a body. It is true, that, on the other hand, the Boihies-men can ihoot their arrows to the diftance of two hundred paces, but with a very uncertain aim, as the arrow muft neceffarily firft make a curve in the air; and iliould it even at that diftance chance to hit any of the farmers,
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