THE LEGEND OF JAN PRINSLOO'S KLOOF. 379 



flocks, came back over the Orange River, sold off 

 the stock at Graaff Reinet, and came and settled 

 in this kloof. He had brought with him some poor 

 Bechuanas, and these people, who are in their way, 

 as you know, great builders in stone, he made to 

 build this house, and the great stone kraal out there, 

 where we saw him last night. He had, too, a number 

 of Hottentots, besides Mozambique slaves, and these 

 he ill-treated in the most dreadful manner, far worse 

 even than any Boer was known to, and that is saying 

 much. At last one day, not long after the Bruintjes 

 Hoogte affair, he came home in a great passion, and 

 found that two of the Hottentots' wives and one 

 child had gone off without leave to see some of their 

 relatives, Hottentots, who were squatted some miles 

 away. 



"When these women came back in the evening, 

 Prinsloo made their husbands tie them and the child 

 to two trees, and then and there, after flogging them 

 frightfully, he shot the poor creatures dead, child 

 and all. As for the husbands, he 'sjambokked' them 

 nearly to death for letting their wives go, and then 

 turned in to his ' brandewein ' and bed. That night 

 all his Hottentots, including seven men who had 

 witnessed the cruel deed God knows such deeds 

 were common enough in those wild days fled 

 through the darkness out of the kloof, and never 

 stopped till they reached the thick bush-veldt 

 country, between Sunday River and the Great 

 Fish River. Just at that time, other Hottentots, 

 roused by the evil deeds of the Boers, rose in arms, 

 and joined hands with the Kaffirs, who were then 

 advancing from beyond the Fish River.* 



* This rising occurred in 1798-9. 



