CHAP. IV.] LEGISLATING. 123 



up some laws wliicli would at least meet the common 

 cases of cattle robbing and murder. I was rather 

 diffident of success ; but in these wild parts a trained 

 legislator is hardly to be expected to travel, and the best 

 must be made of what materials are at hand ; so being 

 convinced that I had already gained a favourable footing 

 amongst them, and that what I said would be attended 

 to, I thought the matter well over, and made my dSut 

 as a lawgiver. 



As every one of my new friends were robbers by 

 profession it would never do to make much ado about 

 theft, for if I did nobody would enforce the law. I 

 therefore simply made theft finable at double the 

 number of oxen stolen, together with a mulct upon the 

 people of the werft to which the criminal belonged, if, 

 as was usually the case, they concealed him. The 

 spoor is so certain and honest a witness, and facts 

 become so notorious, that there is little difficulty about 

 questions of evidence. In this spirit I drew up a few 

 laws which Cornelius and Jonker discussed, and to 

 which they fully assented. I also endeavoured to 

 restrain the jealousies and quarrels between the 

 Oerlams and Hottentots by inducing Cornelius and 

 Jonker to make a mutual agreement that criminals 

 should be pimished by the captain of the country 

 where the crime was committed, and not, as heretofore, 

 by his own captains. 



The greater part of the Hottentots about me 

 had that peculiar set of features which is so charac- 

 teristic of bad characters in England, and so general 

 among prisoners that it is usually, I believe, known 



G 2 



