OHAP. X.] HOTTENTOT PASSION FOR ONSLAUGHT. 293 



runs to the raid boiling with passion and hungiy 

 for spoils. He is matched with an equal in sight, 

 hearing, speed, and ingenuity; the attack and the 

 pursuit caU forth the whole of his intelligence. If the 

 negro has a perfect knowledge of the country on his 

 side to aid his escape, the Hottentot has had time for 

 forethought and preparation in the attack to match 

 that advantage. The struggle is equal until the 

 closing scene when the deadly gun confronts the 

 assegai. Then come the tears and supplication and 

 prayers for mercy, which must be music to the ears 

 of the Hottentot, as he revels in his victory and pauses 

 before he consummates it. I have a pretty fixed idea 

 that if English justice were administered throughout 

 these parts of Africa, a small part only of the popula- 

 tion would remain unhung. But we must not be too 

 hard upon the negro and Hottentot morale on that 

 account, for we little know v/hat fearful i^assions exist 

 in our own European minds until they are thoroughly 

 roused. A young terrier or kitten seems the most 

 harmless and mildest of creatures until he has been 

 brought into contact with rats and learnt the luxury 

 and taste of blood, and many an instance may be 

 found along the distant coasts of this wide world where 

 a year or two has converted the Saxon youth, who left 

 his mother all umocence and trust, into as diabolical 

 and reckless a character as ever stabbed with a 

 bowie-knife. 



Two more ride-oxen were now knocked up ; they 

 were Buchau and Sweetland. I left them under the 

 care of Saul, near to whose werft we had now arrived, 



