Chap. 11. 1RKATMENT OE .NATIVES BY BOERS. ^o 



ever, a single instance of the Bechuanas attacking either :he 

 Boers or the English. They have defended themselves when 

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

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

 the result has been that from the hour they obtained fire-arms 

 not one Boer has attempted to settle in Caffreland, or even to 

 face the enemy in the field. These magnanimous colonists 

 have manifested a marked antipathy to anything but "long- 

 shot" warfare, and, sidling away in their emigrations towards 

 the more effeminate Bechuanas, have left their quarrels with 

 the Caffres to be fought out by the English, and the 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 Bahukeng, the Bamosetla, and two other tribes were all 

 groaning under the oppression of unrequited labour. This 

 would not have been felt as so great an evil, but that the 

 young men, as the only means of rising to importance, were 

 in the habit of sallying forth to procure work in the Cape 

 Colony. After labouring rhere three or four years, in building 

 stone dykes and dams for the Dutch farmers, they were con- 

 tent if they could return at the end of that time with as many 

 cows. On presenting one to their chief they ranked ever 

 afterwards as respectable men in the tribe. These volunteers 

 were highly esteemed among the Dutch, under the name of 

 Mantatees, and received a shilling a day and a large loaf 

 of bread between six of them. The system was distasteful to 

 the Boers of the Cashan cr Magaliesberg countiy. " If they 

 want," it was said, "to work, let them work for us their 

 masters," though these masters boasted that they would not 

 pay for the services rendered. A law was made, in conse- 

 quence, to deprive these poor fellows of their hardly-earned 

 cattle, and compel them to labour gratis at home. Fraud 

 becomes as natural to the slave-owner as " paying one's way " 

 is to the rest of mankind. 



Wherever a missionary lives, traders are sure to come ; they 

 are mutually dependent, and each aids the other ; but ex- 

 perience shows that the two employments cannot well be 

 combined in the same person. Nothing would be more fair, 

 and apostolical too, than that the man who devotes Ins time 



