8 BUSHMEN ROBBERY. 
degree, that it was with difficulty candles could be 
kept burning on the table. The family were in great 
distress. Besides the parents, it consisted of ten 
children, and an increase was daily expected. ‘The 
husband related a very pitiable story of having been 
compelled to abandon a much better farm about two 
years before, in consequence of the continued depre- 
dations of the Bushmen, who had several times 
attempted to shoot him with their poisoned arrows. 
On one occasion, returning from the funeral of his 
father, bis attention was attracted by a vast number 
of vultures hovering round the mountain near his 
house, and on reaching the spot he beheld eight of 
his horses lying dead, which had been killed in his 
absence by the Bushmen. ‘They had succeeded in 
carrying off his sheep and goats, and had destroyed 
the horses to prevent pursuit. He found his wife, 
who had been left at home, labouring under the 
greatest agitation. While the Bushmen were en- 
gaged in their work of plunder upon the premises, 
she had been in momentary apprehension of their 
breaking into the house where she lay concealed. 
On the 4th of October I left Boonartie’s farm, the 
weather having become more settled, aud passing 
over the ridge of mountains at a distance of about 
two hours’ journey, I descended to an open plain, in 
the midst of which I bivouacked for the night. At 
daybreak observing four ostriches on the top of a hill 
at a short distance from the waggons, I was in 
