CHAPTER V. 
TRANSACTIONS AT GRAAFFREYNET. 
Before noon we entered GraafFreynet ; where I was introduced by 
Mr. Kicherer to his family and friends, as the person on whose ac- 
count they had suffered so much alarm. The news of my having 
arrived in peace, soon spread through the village ; and when busy 
report had reduced my dreaded party of three hundred, back again 
to eight, and had changed the expected hostile attack, into a friendly 
visit, all further apprehensions ceased, and the folly of the mistake, 
became a source of considerable amusement. 
The landdrost who, I was afterwards informed, was at first so much 
alarmed as to give orders for guarding all avenues to the village, told 
me that he had received a correct report of the number of my men, 
but could get no one to believe that it was so small ; and that it 
was found difficult to quiet the fears of the inhabitants, who magnified 
their danger to a distressing, though ridiculous, degree. 
The affair, which had cost me so long and fatiguing a journey, 
being to myself of more importance than every other object, I lost 
T 2 
