1812. 
SECRET INTIMIDATION. 
165 
hire, and offered them as wages, considerably more than the landdrost 
had fixed as the sum to be paid those whom he had first given me. 
At this, they expressed themselves fully satisfied, and every thing was 
now finally settled, excepting the act of legally binding them to me 
before the landdrost. I therefore went without delay, to apprise him 
that every arrangement excepting that one, was agreed on ; and that 
nothing more was wanting but his consent. This he now granted ; 
and, without referring the matter to the heemraaden, the following 
morning was fixed as the time for meeting the people at his house, 
and according to law, entering into engagements with them in 
his presence. 
21th. In consequence of this, he sent word the following 
morning, that four of the men were then waiting at his house ; but 
on coming there, I found to my great surprise and mortification, that 
they had all changed their minds and now refused to engage them- 
selves, and even declared to the landdrost that they had never 
promised to go on the journey with me ; an assertion so notoriously 
false, that I should have believed that he had not been mistaken 
in their character, had I not known enough of Hottentots to 
feel aware that, on some occasions, their timidity and dread would 
make them say any thing which they thought likely to get them out 
of present trouble. I readily forgave these poor misguided creatures, 
because I suspected that some one in the village might have told 
them that if they went with me, they would never return, or that other 
arguments might have been used to excite their alarm and dissuade 
them from their purpose. Besides the landdrost, there was present 
a person named Carel Gerots, who, I was told, had the superintend- 
ance of the tronk Hottentots. 
Juli was one of the five Hottentots whose names were on my 
second list ; but he boldly persisted in his intention of accompanying 
me, although the landdrost declared that, being a good waggon-driver, 
he could not be spared from the drostdy work. Yet nothing could 
shake this honest fellow's resolution ; therefore, as he was not a slave, 
but a free man, it would have been an illegal stretch of power, to 
have restrained him from chusing his own master. 
