70 ADVENTURES T»J SOUTH AFRICA. 



ly plucky, and show fight to the last. In the year 1847, 

 a Bechuana chief, named Assyabona, who is nearly re- 

 lated to Mahura, dispatched a strong party of his tribe, 

 armed with guns and assagais, to accomplish the de- 

 struction of a strong horde of wild Bushmen, whose 

 robberies had become so daring and extensive that they 

 were the terror of all who dwelt a hundred miles around 

 them. On this occasion a great number of Bushmen 

 were destroyed, having been overtaken in open ground. 

 One determined fellow, having hastily collected several 

 of the quivers of his dying comrades, which were full 

 of poisoned arrows, ensconced himself within three large 

 stones, from which position he for a long time defied 

 the whole hostile array of Bechuanas, shooting two of 

 them dead on the spot, and wounding a number of 

 others. Though continuing gallantly to defend himself, 

 he seemed aware that he could not possibly escape; 

 and while peppering at the Bechuanas and upbraiding 

 them with cowardice, he called out to them that, if 

 they had not killed his brother (who lay dead beside 

 him, and who was a famous marksman among his fel- 

 lows), it would have gone hard with them that day. 

 He was eventually finished with a shot in the forehead 

 by a son of Mahura's, chief of the Batlapis, as he was 

 in the act of discharging one of his diminutive yet 

 deadly shafts. 



On the 10th I marched from Daniel's-kuil, and early 

 on the 12th I encamped at Campbellsdorp, where I 

 found Mr. Bartlett and Captain Cornelius Kok in great 

 force. Here I at length overtook my runaway Hotten- 

 tots. Sickness and starvation had done their work upon 

 them, and they were so altered in their appearance that 

 I scarcely knew them. They were now acting as serv- 

 ants to the Griquas who had nursed them in their ill- 



