CHAP. VIII. TRAGEDIES DURING THE LATE CAl^FRE WAR. 22.1 



this mixture in pieces of the entrails of sheep, which he 

 dragged about his yard in the evening, and then hung upon 

 a bush, afterward dropping pieces containing poison along the 

 track. The first morning after he had done this, fifteen 

 jackals, and a number of wolves, were found dead about the 

 premises. The leopards, which are also called tigers, and 

 which are much more formidable neighbours, would not take 

 the poison. About a year before our visit, a leopard had 

 killed a horse on the adjacent farm. Wild guinea fowls are 

 numerous in this district, and there are numbers of the useful 

 secretary birds, which may sometimes be seen flying along 

 with a snake in their talons. 



During the late war this part of the country was for some 

 time in the hands of the Caffres, and the brother of our 

 hostess was killed not a mile from the house. Many frightful 

 tragedies were then enacted, some of the details of which we 

 had repeatedly heard since we had been in the district. I 

 was much affected by the accounts I received of the number 

 of Caffre prisoners who died. Mr. Hart said he visited the 

 place vv^here a great number of them were, and proposed to 

 several mothers to take their children, and feed and care for 

 them, urging them to comply rather than keep them and die ; 

 but although thus repeatedly urged, not one would give wp 

 her child, but declared they would rather keep them to die, 

 than give them to the white man. He said that many chil- 

 dren perished with their mothers from hunger or starvation, 

 self-inflicted. Nothing is so sacred as human life ; no law of 

 human nature so strong as that of self-preservation ; and there 

 must have been a more than ordinary cause for such a choice. 

 Before the war commenced, all Mr. Hart's servants departed 

 during the night, leaving behind the cows and goats which 

 they had acquired by their servitude. Amongst his servants 

 was a Bushman, his wife, and his aged mother. At the ap- 

 proach of the war, the son took his mother and placed her 



