38 BOERS AFRAID OF THE CAFFRES. 



them to strangers is respecting peace ; and when they receive 

 reports from disaffected or envious natives against any tribe, the 

 case assumes all the appearance and proportions of a regular in- 

 surrection. Severe measures then appear to the most mildly dis- 

 posed among them as imperatively called for, and, however bloody 

 the massacre that follows, no qualms of conscience ensue : it is a 

 dire necessity for the sake of peace. Indeed, the late Mr. Hen- 

 drick Potgeiter most devoutly believed himself to be the great 

 peacemaker of the country. 



But how is it that the natives, being so vastly superior in num- 

 bers to the Boers, do not rise and annihilate them ? The people 

 among whom they live are Bechuanas, not Caffres, though no one 

 would ever learn that distinction from a Boer ; and history does 

 not contain one single instance in which the Bechuanas, even 

 those of them who possess fire-arms, have attacked either the 

 Boers or the English. If there is such an instance, I am certain 

 it is not generally known, either beyond or in the Cape Colony. 

 They have defended themselves when attacked, as in the case of 

 Sechele, but have never engaged in offensive war with Euro- 

 peans. We have a very different tale to tell of the Caffres, and 

 the difference has always been so evident to these border Boers 

 that, ever since those "magnificent savages"* obtained possession 

 of fire-arms, not one Boer has ever attempted to settle in Caffre- 

 land, or even face them as an enemy in the field. The Boers 

 have generally manifested a marked antipathy to any thing but 

 " long-shot" warfare, and, sidling away in their emigrations to- 

 ward the more effeminate Bechuanas, have left their quarrels with 

 the Caffres to be settled by the English, and their wars to be paid 

 for by English gold. 



The Bakwains at Kolobeng had the spectacle of various tribes 

 enslaved before their eyes — the Bakatla, the Batlokua, the Bahu- 

 keng, the Bamosetla, and two other tribes of Bakwains were all 

 groaning under the oppression of unrequited labor. This would 

 not have been felt as so great an evil but that the young men 

 of those tribes, anxious to obtain cattle, the only means of rising 

 to respectability and importance among their own people, were 

 in the habit of sallying forth, like our Irish and Highland 



* The " United Service Journal" so styles them. 



