IV A MURDER AND EXECUTION 6i 



hunter, Mr. George Wood, to buy corn and rice 

 from the Mashunas, to the east of the river Hanyane. 

 They had also bought a ftw quills of gold-dust that 

 had evidently been washed out of the sand of a 

 river's bed. A few days later, George Wood, who was 

 standing with his waggon on the Se-whoi-whoi river, 

 only a few miles distant, came over to our camp, 

 where we regaled him upon rather high eland and 

 Kafir corn. This day a little tragedy was enacted 

 at the Griqua waggons. It appeared that a Hottentot 

 in the employ of a Bastard man named Lucas, had, 

 a few days before, murdered a Kafir boy in cold 

 blood, having calmly blown out his brains because 

 he did not immediately bring him some water when 

 called. That same night Lucas caught and bound 

 the young murderer, and brought him into the en- 

 campment. All the Kafirs at once assembled and 

 demanded his life in expiation of that of their 

 comrade, and upon Lucas giving him up, at once 

 knocked his brains out with their knobkerries. I 

 did not know anything about it until the execution 

 was over. P'rom what Lucas told me there was 

 little doubt that the ruffian deserved his fate, but I 

 was glad I did not see him killed. His body was 

 dragged just over a little ridge not three hundred 

 yards from the waggons. In the night hyasnas came 

 and laughed and howled round the corpse for hours, 

 but never touched it. The second night the same 

 thing happened, but on the third they ate him up. 

 Now, as these hyasnas were beasts belonging to an 

 uninhabited country, they were unused to human 

 remains, and had not, I think, lost their instinctive 

 dread of the smell of man ; for in the Matabele 

 country, where the bodies of people killed for 

 witchcraft are always " given to the hyaenas," a 



