42 ESPIONAGE.— TALE OF THE CANNON. 



Mentioning this to the commandant in proof of the impossibil- 

 ity of granting his request, I had soon an example how quickly 

 a story can grow among idle people. The five guns were, with- 

 in one month, multiplied into a tale of five hundred, and the 

 cooking-pot, now in a museum at Cape Town, was magnified into 

 a cannon ; "I had myself confessed to the loan." Where the five 

 hundred guns came from, it was easy to divine ; for, knowing that 

 I used a sextant, my connection with government was a thing of 

 course ; and, as I must know all her majesty's counsels, I was 

 questioned on the subject of the indistinct rumors which had 

 reached them of Lord Rosse's telescope. "What right has your 

 government to set up that large glass at the Cape to look after us 

 behind the Cashan Mountains ?" 



Many of the Boers visited us afterward at Kolobeng, some for 

 medical advice, and others to trade in those very articles which 

 their own laws and policy forbid. When I happened to stumble 

 upon any of them in the town, with his muskets and powder dis- 

 played, he would begin an apology, on the ground that he was a 

 poor man, etc., which I always cut short by frankly saying that I 

 had nothing to do with either the Boers or their laws. Many 

 attempts were made during these visits to elicit the truth about 

 the guns and cannon ; and ignorant of the system of espionage 

 which prevails, eager inquiries were made by them among those 

 who could jabber a little Dutch. It is noticeable that the system 

 of espionage is as well developed among the savage tribes as in 

 Austria or Russia. It is a proof of barbarism. Every man in a 

 tribe feels himself bound to tell the chief every thing that comes 

 to his knowledge, and, when questioned by a stranger, either gives 

 answers which exhibit the utmost stupidity, or such as he knows 

 will be agreeable to his chief. I believe that in this way have 

 arisen tales of their inability to count more than ten, as was as- 

 serted of the Bechuanas about the very time when Sechele's fa- 

 ther counted out one thousand head of cattle as a beginning of the 

 stock of his young son. 



In the present case, Sechele, knowing every question put to his 

 people, asked me how they ought to answer. My reply was, 

 " Tell the truth." Every one then declared that no cannon 

 existed there ; and our friends, judging the answer by what they 

 themselves would in the circumstances have said, were confirmed 



