1812. 
JACOB VAN WYK'S. 
107 
but continued looking at their sheep, and scarcely deigned to turn 
their heads. 
If I did not attribute it to a brutal insensibility, I should be 
totally at a loss in imagining what could have induced this boor and 
his family to conduct themselves so differently from other colonists to 
whom I was equally a stranger and equally unknown. My own 
Hottentots had given them to understand that I was not their inferior, 
and that, notwithstanding the weather-beaten appearance of my dress, 
I was an ' Engelsche Heer.' It is, however, not improbable, that their 
having previously discovered that the person who was approaching 
their habitation was an Englishman, might have been the cause of the 
ungracious reception which they gave me ; and which it is very likely, 
would have been much worse, had they not observed that we were all 
armed. 
In various parts of the colony may be found men who, without 
any love for a Dutch government, hate that of the English, because it 
has enforced their own colonial laws, and put a check upon those per- 
sons who would rather live without any law at all. The inhabitants of 
this settlement can surely have no reasonable or honorable excuse for 
disliking a government under which they have risen to a degree of 
prosperity and affluence, unknown to them before. Nor do I believe, 
that the honest and reflecting part, and the general bulk of the commu- 
nity, entertain any sentiments of this kind; sentiments which are con- 
fined within a narrow compass, to a set of men who would prove 
themselves unworthy subjects in any country, and such as criminal 
codes have ever been made for. 
I ordered my Hottentots to reload our bedding. The poor fellows 
took up their bags, and, with dejected and disappointed looks, packed 
them on the oxen again. They had been anticipating, certainly 
not very unreasonably, the enjoyment of again tasting bread, and of 
having some change of food, which for a long time had consisted only 
in meat ; and even that, without salt. My mind having been prepared 
for travelling without luxuries, I felt for these men, much more than 
for myself, as they had, elate with pleasing expectation, put on all their 
best clothes, in order to show respect to the first farm-house which 
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