24 TREATMENT UP NATIVES BY EOERS. Chap. IL 



ehildren on their backs, and instruments of labour on their 

 shoulders. " We make the people work for us," said the 

 Boers, " in consideration of allowing them to live in or.r 

 country." During the several journeys I made to the enslaved 

 tribes I was invariably treated by the whiles with respect; 

 but it is most unfortunate that they shonld have been left 

 uncared for by their own Church till they have become as 

 degraded as the blacks, whom the stupid prejudice against 

 colour leads them to detest. 



This new and mean species of slavery which they have 

 adopted serves to supply the lack of field-labour only. The 

 demand for domestic servants must be met by forays on tribes 

 which have good supplies of cattle. The individuals among 

 the Boers who would not engage in the raid for the sake of 

 capturing slaves can seldom resist the two-fold plea of an 

 intended uprising of the doomed tribe, and the prospect of a 

 handsome share of the pilfered herds. It is difficult to con- 

 ceive that men possessing the common attributes of humanity 

 (and these Boers are by no means destitute of the better 

 feelings of our nature) should set out, after caressing their 

 wives and children, and proceed to shoot down men and 

 women whose affections are as warm as their own. It was 

 long before I could give credit to the tales of bloodshed told 

 by native witnesses ; but when I heard the Boers either 

 bewailing or boasting the bloody scenes in which they had 

 themselves been actors, I was compelled to admit the validity 

 of the testimony. Thoy are all traditionally religious, and 

 trace their descent from some of the best men (Huguenots and 

 Dutch) the world ever saw. In their own estimation they 

 are the chosen people of God, and all the coloured race are 

 " black property" or " creatures" — heathen given to them for 

 an inheritance. Living in the midst of a much more nume- 

 rous native population and at fountains removed many miles 

 from each other, the Boers feel themselves insecure ; and when 

 they receive reports against any tribe from some dissatisfied 

 black the direst vengeance appears to the most mildly disposed 

 among them a simple measure of self-defence. However bloody 

 the massacre, no qualms of conscience ensue. Indeed the 

 leader, the late Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, believed himself to 

 ■be the great peacemaker of the country. There is not, how- 



