1776. Jftnutry. o f rearing their cattle, better in both cafes than ever they had been accuftomed to. While by fuch conduit he rendered himfelf highly formidable to the Caffres, he took care, by infliiting the punilhment o f death on his fubjeits for the leaft fault, or even on the leaft fufpicion of a fault, to exait (and for a long time to enjoy) the molt fervile fubmiffion and implicit obedience from the fimple uncultivated mortals he had collected together in order to tyrannize over. He ufed fre- quently with his own hand to put to death one or more of thefe flaviih vaffals, and would immediately throw his javelin through the body o f any of his attendants, that hefi- tated at his nod to difpatch the man whom he had marked out as the viitim of his revengeful and cruel difpoiition. Excluiively o f the dictates of a falfe and ill-judged policy, perhaps the natural turn o f the tyrant’s mind induced him to be guilty of thefe cruelties; but when the Chriftians reproached him with the barbarity and blood-thirftinefs of his difpoiition, he replied, “ It was in a lucky hour that I conveyed myfelf out o f the reach of your authority. You would have hanged me for having killed my antagonift as i f I had committed a crime, when at the fame time, to kill an enemy is reckoned a laudable and manly aition.” To the colonifts he always behaved as a true and faithful ally-; and in return for the tobacco and other articles they pre- fented him with, ufed to help them to make flaves o f fuch ftraggling Boihies-men as did not live under his jurifdic- tion. By keeping the Caffres at a proper diftance, he not only ferved his own turn, but was likewife extremely ufeful ful to the colonifts. But however cautious he was to main- ' 776- . . _ . _ _ . _ January, tain peace with his more powerful neighbours the Chrif- tians, yet it is faid, that when he was in the meridian of life, and at the zenith of his power, he received them with ah uncommon degree of pride and arrogance f which, as my informer exprefled himfelf, they could not eafily digeft from a vagabond jheep-Jkin prince. He fucceeded, however, in keeping up his importance with them as well as with his own people. At prefent, old and infirm, and barely direitor of a more inconfiderable and freer fociety, conilfting o f about two hundred people, he is wont to receive his old Chriftian acquaintance in the moft friendly manner, and, with tears in his eyes, to afk for tobacco, no longer by way o f tribute, but as a prefent, which he is willing to receive from their bounty. The defpotic and tyrannical conduit by which this chief made himfelf fo famous, and for fome time fo powerful and fo much feared, is probably the occafion of his being reduced to the low ftate in which he is at prefent; and it is imagined, will bring him to a ftill more abjeit and lower condition. This great man may, perhaps, at laft come to the miferable fituation o f the lion in the fable. Another caufe of his prefent degradation is as follows. His fub- je£ts, weary o f the ambition and fevere difcipline o f their chief, took the opportunity o f deferring him, at the time when he was gallantly marching at the head o f them againft the Caffres. Being no longer fo fwift o f foot as he was in his youth, he was not able to make his efcape, and was confequently taken prifoner; but being recognized as a chief, his life, according to the cuftom I have before mentioned,
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