HOSTILITY OF THE BOERS. 31 



assaulted the Bakwains, and, besides killing a considerable 

 number of adults, carried off two hundred of our school- 

 children into slavery. The natives under Sechele defended 

 themselves till the approach of night enabled them to flee 

 to the mountains; and having in that defence killed a 

 number of the enemy, the very first ever slain in this coun- 

 try by Bechuanas, I received the credit of having taught 

 the tribe to kill Boers ! My house, which had stood per- 

 fectly secure for years under the protection of the natives, 

 was plundered in revenge. English gentlemen, who had 

 come in the footsteps of Mr. Cumming to hunt in the coun- 

 try beyond, and had deposited large quantities of stores in 

 the same keeping, and upward of eighty head of cattle as 

 relays for the return journeys, were robbed of all, and, 

 when they came back to Kolobeng, found the skeletons of 

 the guardians strewed all over the place. The books of a 

 good library — my solace in our solitude — were not taken 

 away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out and scat- 

 tered over the place. My stock of medicines was smashed, 

 and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at 

 public auction to pay the expenses of the foray. 



In trying to benefit the tribes living under the Boers of 

 the Cashan Mountains, I twice performed a journey of about 

 three hundred miles to the eastward of Kolobeng. Sechele 

 had become so obnoaious to the Boers that, though anxious 

 to accompany me in my journey, he dared not trust him- 

 self among them. This did not arise from the crime of 

 cattle-stealing; for that crime, so common among the 

 Caffres, was never charged against his tribe, nor, indeed, 

 against anyBechuana tribe. It is, in fact, unknown in the 

 country, except during actual warfare. His independence 

 and love of the English were his only faults. In my last 

 journey there, of about two hundred miles, on parting at 

 the river Marikwe he gave me two servants, " to be," as 

 he said, " his arms to serve me," and expressed regret that 

 tie could not come himself. "Suppose we went north," I 

 said, "would you come?" He then told me the story of 



