i 3 4 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. vii. 



containing medicines, windows, oven-door, took away the smith- 

 bellows, anvil, all the tools, — in fact everything worth taking : three 

 corn -mills, a bag of coffee for which I paid six pounds, and lots of 

 coffee, tea, and sugar, which the gentlemen who went to the north left ; 

 took all our cattle and Paul's and Mebalwe's. They then went up 

 to Limaiie, Avent to church morning and afternoon, and heard Mebalwe 

 preach ! After the second service they told Sechele that they had 

 come to fight, because he allowed Englishmen to proceed to the 

 North, though they had repeatedly ordered him not to do so. He 

 replied that he was a man of peace, that he could not molest 

 Englishmen, because they had never done him any harm, and 

 always treated him well. In the morning they commenced firing 

 on the town with swivels, and set fire to it. The heat forced 

 some of the women to flee, the men to huddle together on the 

 small hill in the middle of the town ; the smoke prevented them seeing 

 the Boers, and the cannon killed many, sixty (60) Bakwains. The 

 Boers then came near to kill and destroy them all, but the Bakwains 

 killed thirty-five (35), and many horses. They fought the whole day, 

 but the Boers could not dislodge them. They stopped firing in the 

 evening, and then the Bakwains retired on account of having no 

 water. The above sixty are not all men ; women and children are 

 among the slain. The Boers were 600, and they had 700 natives 

 with them. All the corn is burned. Parties went out and burned Bang- 

 waketse town, and swept off all the cattle. Sebubi's cattle are all gone. 

 All the Bakhatla cattle gone. Neither Bangwaketse nor Bakhatla 

 fired a shot. All the corn burned of the whole three tribes. Every- 

 thing edible is taken from them. How will they live % They told 

 Sechele that the Queen had given off the land to them, and henceforth 

 they were the masters, — had abolished chieftainship. Sir Harry 

 Smith tried the same, and England has paid two millions of money to 

 catch one chief, and he is still as free as the winds of heaven. How will 

 it end 1 I don't know, but I will tell you the beginning. There are 

 two parties of Boers gone to the Lake. These will to a dead cer- 

 tainty be cut off. They amount to thirty-six men. Parties are sent 

 now in pursuit of them. The Bakwains will plunder and murder the 

 Boers without mercy, and by and by the Boers will ask the English 

 Government to assist them to put down rebellion, and of this rebellion 

 I shall have, of course, to bear the blame. They often expressed 

 a wish to get hold of me. I wait here a little in order to get infor- 

 mation when the path is clear. Kind Providence detained me from 

 falling into the very thick of it. God will preserve me still. He has 

 work for me or He would have allowed me to go in just when the 

 Boers were there. We shall remove more easily now that we are 

 lightened of our furniture. They have taken away our sofa. I never 

 had a good rest on it. We had only got it ready when we left. Well, 

 they can't have taken away all the stones. We shall have a seat in 

 spite of them, and that too with a merry heart which doeth good like 



