A DUTCH SWINDLER. 71 



nesS) and they were working hard to earn their bread. 

 On inquiring of thera why they liad forsaken me, they 

 said that they had started in a rash and thoughtless 

 moment, and that, although they almost immediately 

 repented the step they had taken, fear and shame pre- 

 vented them from returning to their duty. Commiser- 

 ating their condition, I presented them with the amount 

 of their wages during the time they had remained with 

 me, and, being now quite independent of their services, 

 I allowed them to remain with the masters they had 

 chosen. I here met an extremely plausible individual, 

 a Dutchman, from the Bo-land or Cape district, who 

 was got up in his rig at considerable expense. This 

 fellow was swindling the Griquas right. and left, pur- 

 chasing from thera all their best cattle at extravagant 

 prices, and settling for them with paper notes, which 

 naturally were forged. He represented himself as being 

 one of a wealthy firm in Cape Town, and stated that 

 two of his partners were then purchasing cattle among 

 the Boers to the eastward, from whom they had already 

 collected two thousand head; which cool assertion the 

 Griquas were silly enough to believe, and he left their 

 country for the Bo-land with a large drove of fat oxen. 

 Eventually, however, he was brought to justice, and I 

 afterward heard of his being safely quartered in the jail 

 of Beaufort. 



At a late hour on the 13th I outspanned my wag- 

 ons on the fragrant bank of the lovely Vaal River by 

 clear moonlight, and on the morrow, the water being 

 then fortunately low, I crossed the river with little dif- 

 ficulty, and on the 20th I took the drift of the Great 

 Orange River, but with very faint hopes that my worn- 

 out oxen would succeed in draggnig me through its 

 ti 'acherous sands, more especially since two Boers who 



