234 APPENDIX. 
myself, three colonial Hottentots, and two Griquas, with 
my two waggons, three horses, besides the three which I 
had hired from B. Barends. There was also Hendrik 
Klaas’s waggon and party, which consisted of himself and 
Piet Barends, an adult Griqua, with several lads, three 
boys, and two women. 
As we were travelling along the south bank of the 
Meritzan, we observed the fresh spoor of some cattle, which 
must have crossed our route that very morning .This being 
such an unusual circumstance, as | have before mentioned 
that the people inhabiting that country possessed no cattle, 
it caused as much surprise and conjecture among us as the 
print of a man’s foot in the sand did to Robinson Crusoe; 
and as we were still debating on the subject, some of the 
natives came up and told us that a small commando from 
Makhatla, the Baharutsie chief, had that very morning 
returned from Masilikatsie, and having killed the herdsman, 
succeeded in carrying away seventeen head of cattle, with 
which they were now on their way home. This was bad 
news for us, as we guessed that Masilikatsie’s people, in 
following the spoor of the stolen cattle, would come upon 
our waggons, and naturally suppose that we were connected 
with the thieves. When we reached the outspan place, we 
immediately began to make a sort of fortification of bushes 
around our waggons, in which we could keep our cattle and 
horses, in case of an attack during the night. We put our 
arms in order, and I gave to each man about thirty rounds 
of powder and ball, and took every other precaution that our 
eircumstances would admit of. But we were attacked by 
nothing during the night but a tremendous thunder-storm, 
with plenty of rain, which was much more acceptable to us 
than Masilikatsie’s soldiers would have been. The Griqua, 
Piet Barends, who very coolly told me that he had been 
frequently into Masilikatsie’s country to steal catile, said he 
