62 
TRAVELS IN 
to the said letter; as in the present state of affairs, he would 
not have dared to give a refusal. To all the measures indeed 
of the leading party, this poor man had been compelled to 
give his assent : he had in fact been forced by the anarchists, 
as a sanction to their proceedings, to take upon him the title 
of an office, the duties of which he was neither qualified, nor 
indeed suffered, to perform. 
The first business, therefore, of the landrost, after his arrival 
at the Drosdy, was to stop the preparations of the farmers for 
commencing hostilities against the Kaffers, by making it pub- 
licly known that it was his intention to pay a visit to the chiefs 
of that nation, and to prevail on them, if possible, to return 
quietly and peaceably mto their own country beyond the set- 
tled limits of the Great Fish river. This, no doubt, was an 
unwelcome piece of intelligence to the writer of the letter, 
and to those of the intended expedition who were to share 
with him the plunder of the Kaffers' cattle, which, in fact, 
and not any laudable motive for the peace and welfare of the 
district, was the mainspring that operated on the minds of 
those who had consented to take up arms against them. To 
the avaricious and covetous disposition of the colonists, and 
their licentious conduct, was owing a serious rupture with this 
nation in the year 1793, which terminated with the almost 
total expulsion of the former from some of the best divi- 
sions of the district: and though in the same year the 
treaty was renewed which fixed the Great Fish river to be 
the line of demarcation between the two nations, and in con- 
sequence whereof the Kaffers retired within their proper limits, 
yet few of the colonists had the confidence to return to theic 
2 
