108 THE BUSHMAN FRONTIER. 



a second ball killed him also, after which his wife 

 and four children were most barbarously treated and 

 left for dead. The poor woman with an infant at 

 her breast eventually recovered, but her entire pro- 

 perty in sheep and oxen had been taken away, and 

 her husband, with three of her children, murdered. 

 This occurred in 1828, and within little more than 

 a year from that period, it was stated in a public 

 journal of the Colony, that no less than five thou- 

 sand sheep, two hundred oxen, and twenty horses 

 had been stolen from the back-settlers by the Bush- 

 men, and twenty-five people murdered. 



It is greatly to be lamented that no system has 

 yet been adopted for improving the moral condition 

 of these miserable and wretched tribes, and thus 

 elevating them from their present low and degraded 

 state, to a place among the civilized nations of the 

 world. 



Could such an object be accomplished, what a 

 protection would it afford to the lives and property 

 of those who are at present exposed to the perpetual 

 aggressions of these barbarians. We should then no 

 longer hear of fields of blood, and witness scenes of 

 desolation — kraals becoming the funeral piles of the 

 wretched natives, and their bones whitening the 

 plains. A brighter and a happier day would then 

 dawn upon this wretched portion of our race, and 

 the hand of the wandering Bushman would no longer 

 be lifted against every man, and every man's hand 

 against him. 



