SECHELE'S LETTER. 133 



burned the town with fire, and scattered us. They killed sixty 

 of my people, and captured women, and children, and men. And 

 the mother of Baleriling (a former wife of Sechele) they also took 

 prisoner. They took all the cattle and all the goods of the Bak- 

 wains ; and the house of Livingstone they plundered, taking away 

 all his goods. The number of wagons they had was eighty-five, 

 and a cannon ; and after they had stolen my own wagon and that 

 of Macabe, then the number of their wagons (counting the cannon 

 as one) was eighty-eight. All the goods of the hunters (certain 

 English gentlemen hunting and exploring in the north) were 

 burned in the town ; and of the Boers were killed twenty-eight. 

 Yes, my beloved friend, now my wife goes to see the children, 

 and Kobus Hae will convey her to you. 

 " I am, Sechele, 



"The Son of Mochoasele/ 



This statement is in exact accordance with the account given 

 by the native teacher Mebalwe, and also that sent by some of the 

 Boers themselves to the public colonial papers. The crime of 

 cattle-stealing, of which we hear so much near CafTreland, was 

 never alleged against these people, and, if a single case had 

 occurred when I was in the country, I must have heard of it, and 

 would at once say so. But the only crime imputed in the papers 

 was that " Sechele was getting too saucy." The demand made 

 for his subjection and service in preventing the English traders 

 passing to the north was kept out of view. 



Yery soon after Pretorius had sent the marauding party against 

 Kolobeng, he was called away to the tribunal of infinite justice. 

 His policy is justified by the Boers generally from the instructions 

 given to the Jewish warriors in Deuteronomy, xx., 10-14. Hence, 

 when he died, the obituary notice ended with "Blessed are the 

 dead who die in the Lord." I wish he had not "forbidden us to 

 preach unto the Gentiles that they may be saved." 



The report of this outrage on the Bakwains, coupled with de- 

 nunciations against myself for having, as it was alleged, taught 

 them to kill Boers, produced such a panic in the country, that I 

 could not engage a single servant to accompany me to the north. 

 I have already alluded to their mode of warfare, and in all pre- 

 vious Boerish forays the killing had all been on one side ; now, 



