138 CHANGEABLE CHARACTER 
and, long before the Missionaries established them- 
selves in the country, various deadly feuds betwixt 
the Caffers and the border Dutch farmers had been 
engendered ; the effects of which could hardly be 
expected to be speedily obliterated. 3 
“« Not only has our Government pursued no efficient 
measures for the improvement of the Caffer tribes, 
but the plan adopted for the regulation of the affairs 
of the frontier has been extremely injudicious. In- 
stead of a regular system, well-defined, properly 
adapted to the local circumstances of the country, and 
steadily acted upon, there has been nothing like a 
system at all. Sometimes the mode of treatment has 
been harsh and severe, at other times mild and con- 
ciliatory. Occasionally the Caffers were almost 
frightened into the belief that we intended their 
destruction ; and at other periods they were suffered 
to carry on their depredations with such impunity, 
as to tempt them into the opinion that we were 
afraid of them: threatenings have occasionally been 
denounced, which were never intended to be exe- 
cuted; and promises have been made, which were 
never fulfilled. The effects of this contradictory 
mode of proceeding upon an untutored, but warlike, 
race, strong from their number, may easily be 
imagined. ! 
“J cannot, within the limits which I have pre- 
to myself, enter into details in proof of these state- 
ments. Indeed, they need.no proof: the faets are 
